Warbird Information Exchange

Hi all,

Was wondering if anyone got any neat stories of finding a warbird part that just didn't belong there. Or just happened to find one?

My only one I heard about was that someone in Georgia found a canopy to a P-40 being used as a doghouse!!


Then I've heard a few about greenhouses being made out of airplane sheet aluminum?


Cheers,
Nathan

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Shop the Airplane Bunker At
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Wow! is that still around?

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

When the B-24 was posted the first time I looked up the address and did a Google Earth search and I'm pretty darn sure its gone.

Mark H

So I wonder where it went.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

It was actually a PB4Y and it's parts went into the Hill Aerospace Museum's restoration of the B-24 if I remember correctly.

I wish I could find a $50 B-24!

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Shop the Airplane Bunker At
www.warbirdbunker.com

I found an F-84 in a West Virginia car junk yard, and an F-105 in a junk yard in Indy.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

You would not believe the things I have hauled out of junk yards. We found a pile of aviation gun mounts in a junk yard that had about 30 twin .30 cal gun mounts for SBD etc, 1 very rare twin .30 cal tunnel gun mount for a PV-1 Ventura, 2 B-25 H/J tail gun turrets, and early SBD single .30 cal mount, 3 early B-25 ventral turret pedestals, 3 P-61 turret gunner seats (some a hole stole 2 of these not too long ago), and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember off the top of my head.

Years ago in Miami, there was what I'm pretty sure was a Constellation fuselage that sat in an empty lot that was rumored to be turned into a restaurant. Never happened & the plane eventually disappeared. I was pretty young, so details are sketchy, but I do remember the plane.

Other time I stumbled upon one was probably '82 or '83 when I was in the Dominican Republic. A row of about a half dozen P-51s - armed. It was their front-line air defense!

IIRC, they sold them circa '88 or so for an appallingly low sum of money. They had about a dozen airworthy planes & another two dozen that were in various stages of disrepair/cannibalization - up until the mid-70s or so, they got parts, including brand new engines in crates, from the US Gov't under the deal worked out back in the '50s, but after that, they had to cannibalize planes to keep 'em in the air.

Believe they sold the entire lot for what amounted to less than $200K/flyable plane - including all spares. I think they went somewhere in S. America.

Otherwise, in my hot rod circles, WWII aircraft parts usage is quite common - seats, seat belts, oxygen tanks, hydraulic reservoirs, gauges, etc. all seem to find their way onto many old (or older-styled) hot rods.

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Daddy always said, "If yer gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough" and I'm one tough sonofagun!

Those 51s came to America and over the years I have worked on at least 3 of them.
Currently former FAD 1900 which flew as Frenesi is under restoration at our hangar in PA.
Rich

Wow! Pretty neat - I had heard they went south, but found that odd, actually...perhaps a brokerage front from S.America? Regardless, glad many are being restored!

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Daddy always said, "If yer gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough" and I'm one tough sonofagun!

i found an early ww 1 era sperry turn & bank at a garage sale, brass case too. bought it for 2 bucks, sold it for $195.00 what a plum!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

my friend ron stone who owned the at -11 ms jo happened onto a lunar module flight simulator from a junk yard near toledo about 20 years ago. now it's in the smithsonian museum, it was apollo 13 era.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

I fished a seat and a pair of stock Stearman wheels out of a derelict school bus on a farm once.