Warbird Information Exchange

Smokey And The Bandit II was on TV a short while ago. In the opening scene, 3 B-25s make a low level bombing run on two of the main characters and drop "fertelizer" on them. They retaliate by droping slurry on the culprit's party with a pair of Avengers. Does anyone know which B-25s and TBMs were used in this film, and who flew them?

Another interesting thing I noticed, one of the party guests is none other than Gen. Chuck Yeager.

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Dan Johnson

Funny you should mention that! I was cruising the TV listings a few days ago and set it up to record off AMC. I remember the B-25 scene from when I saw the movie when I was a LOT younger, so I wanted to see it again. I'd totally forgotten about the TBM retaliation part until I just saw it a half hour ago.

The only thing I see through the wonder of TiVo is that the 2nd B-25 has the inner 1/4 of the cowlings painted black and the 3rd B-25 has a solid nose while the other two appear to have complete glass noses. None have top turrets.

The TBMs are just too tough to make out, pictured head-on from the ground. About all you can tell is that they are white or light colored with black cowlings.

Back in the summer of 1982 when the VCR was still young in Norway, a friend of mine had these two Burt Reynolds movies on tape. We probarbly saw them some 50 times each during that summer holiday. Last night the first one was on, so I hope the sequel will be on shortly. There was a short note and a photo in Air Classics (Warbird report) of one of the TBM's, possibly Canadian, when the movie came out. The plane is sitting outside Planes of Fame, and I seem to remember the story went on that the PoF supplied the B-25s, and I wonder if the TBM's were Conair, or ex- Conair machines. The magazine should be from around 1980. Unfortunately all my magazines are stored elsewhere, so I can't access them right now.

T J Johansen
Oslo, NORWAY

I have the issue somewhere. One of the TBM's was BU53785 N7075C. It went on to become part of Bob Pond's Fleet.
I still wouldn't want to be the first one to pop open the crew door, on a hot day, on that stinky turkey,