I used to visit Vintage Aircraft quite often as well as Ray's shop next door. Amazing to see all those warbirds restored there over the years. The Vintage team did a Spitfire, Avenger, DC-3, 2 109G-10's, a P-38, a P-51, a Wildcat, the fuselage and wings of an A6M3 (now with Legend) and the collections of engines and P-51 parts in that place was nothing short of amazing. I think most of the restorations and zero time refreshes were for Dell's Evergreen museum.
Ray also did the Hurricane that got tangled up with Bill's Spit down in Texas. I'm sure a sad day for him to see two planes that he spent probably a combined total of 25 years restoring and servicing torn up in one bad landing. He was also working on a stringbag a few hangars down. Seeing that thing in person gave me huge respect for those Brit pilots that flew against the Bismark in those. What little metal panels that plane had were about as thin as poster board.
I remember this B-24 sitting in the field at the end of the runway (along with the fuselage of a P-82 twin Mustang). Got to sit in the cockpit of both AC on a number of occasions before they moved it next to the hangar.
IIRC the wings with the red surrounding the star was sourced from somewhere in Texas. I guess the brothers figured that would help replace the bits and pieces that were otherwise with the fuselage.
The good old days
BUFFIE
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