Airworthy Avengers

[eallen]

There is one based at Ramona Airport in San Diego as well as one at the Palm Springs Air Museum...

[Travisd80elcam]

Doesn't Connie Edwards have one as well? Plus Kermit Weeks was working on getting his airworthy again shortly before closing his doors for the reinvention or fantasy of flight.

Travis

[SaxMan]

It's not a flyer, but apparently there is one in the Soplata collection. Bureau number is apparently unknown. From the pics I've seen, it appears to be reasonably intact and could be a flyer one day?

[rwdfresno]

Grumman TBM-3E Avenger BuNo 91453, N4170A, WestPac

[Dan K]

Missoula's Museum of Mountain Flying has C-GLEL in their collection. It was flown in, in firebomber configuration, and recently got a new engine.

http://www.flightjournal.com/blog/2013/ ... m-avenger/

-Tom

You lost me, Tom (which happens a lot lately!). Is the Museum of Mountain Flying currently operating C-GLEL?

The article suggests that she's going to be fitted with a dead motor for static display. Makes one wonder how much the reporter got right/wrong.

http://missoulian.com/news/local/missou ... 963f4.html

[slopilot]

Chuck Wentworth of Antique Aero in Paso Robles has an airworthy Avenger.

[famvburg]

How come they are all GM TBM's? Did Grumman not build that many TBF's to have any flyers?

[Warbird Kid]

How come they are all GM TBM's? Did Grumman not build that many TBF's to have any flyers?

Ah yes… the Second Manufacture's Syndrome. The first initial batches of these important new types of aircraft (i.e. Vought F4U-1s and Grumman F4Fs / TBMs) we're sent overseas into heavy combat at the start of the war. Resulting in great damage to these overall "batches". The remaining airframes would be either repaired or replaced with newer examples. Not much thought was given to the provenance a preserved Combat Veteran Aircraft would have. By the end of the war, the second manufactures (Goodyear / General Motors) would have been supplying those aircraft, while the original designer / manufacture companies were working on newer aircraft (i.e the F6F Hellcat or -4 Corsair). As we all know at the end and after the war a great number of these planes were scrapped, leaving the newest "freshest" examples left for surplus or post-war service. So what we end up with today is a population of Wildcats and Avengers mostly made by GM.

Did that make sense at all?

[Sasquatch]

Missoula's Museum of Mountain Flying has C-GLEL in their collection. It was flown in, in firebomber configuration, and recently got a new engine.

http://www.flightjournal.com/blog/2013/ ... m-avenger/

-Tom

You lost me, Tom (which happens a lot lately!). Is the Museum of Mountain Flying currently operating C-GLEL?

The article suggests that she's going to be fitted with a dead motor for static display. Makes one wonder how much the reporter got right/wrong.

http://missoulian.com/news/local/missou ... 963f4.html

Hi Dan,

That, I do not know. When they first acquired the TBM, there was talk about keeping it in flyable condition, or at least that's what my buddy in Missoula mentioned. I don't know that for certain. But this statement in the linked news article, I think, is somewhat telling:

The dead spare engine was already paid for. And the live one might be worth around $40,000 in the antique warbird market.

Which to me means that possibly the worn-out engine will be hung on the bird for static display, and now the museum can sell the other engine for alotta money to help them keep the doors open. But that's just an uneducated guess; perhaps a call to the museum might provide a better answer if you're interested in the real story. Like you mentioned, the reporters don't often get it totally right.

-Tom