Is there a secret P-38 restoration going on? ....

[warbird1]

In this day and age, I would think it would probably be about impossible to keep any kind of rare restoration under the radar. Since parts are very difficult to find, the cat would be let out of the bag just as soon as the restorers started placing ads in TAP, Barnstormer's, and general requests and inquiries on the internet. Unless they started with a virtually complete airframe in excellent condition (doubtful), I don't see how they could keep it secret.

The only secret restorations that I know of were the ones that Paul Allen had going on in the late 90's and early millenia. He had each restoration shop sign a NDA to keep quiet about everything. This was before Allen even publicly acknowledged he had a collection. Even during this period of non-disclosure, many people knew exactly what Allen was getting restored and where they were. It wasn't that difficult to find out with a little bit of digging.

Right now, I believe that everything Allen has in restoration is pretty much public knowledge. I know that there was at least one P-38 in the Allen restoration cue. Perhaps this is the one that Hellcat was hearing about?

[Jerry O'Neill]

I remember seeing Week's P-38 in Florida some years ago, but it could have been moved somewhere else since then.
Jerry.

[Dan K]

Any movement on Scatterbrain?

[Bill Greenwood]

ZTex, The Pond engines may have been Nissan rather than Toyota, I really don't know. I do remember a lot of PR associated with that plane. One of the selling points was how great the auto engines were supposed to be and how much smarter the Japanese engineers these days were than those guys years ago at Rolls or Pratt &Whitney. The auto race engines were supposed to be more reliable, as well as go fast. They were neither. They overheated and broke down. Even Steve Hinton, with all his Reno experience, couldn't make the plane perform. Even when both engines were running they never turned a race lap at over 400mph. They were 70 mph down to Rare Bear, Strega, etc. And Rick was lost in it.

[maxum96]

from Wikipedia,

To power the plane two Electramotive 3 liter V-6 engines were chosen. These were based on the Nissan VG30 automobile engine. The engines were originally developed for auto racing and were turbocharged to produce 1,000 hp (750 kW). However, those fitted to the Pond Racer only ever achieved a peak of around 600 hp (450 kW). The engines drove 4 bladed propellers via propeller speed reduction units (PSRU).


Also here's an interesting video I found. The narrator is speaking a foreign language, but the interviews are in English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66q4awWPArM

[F3V]

shhh, it's a secret

keep you're secret, secret

[P51Mstg]

I didn't go through the restoration shop tour last time I was at Kermit's a few weeks ago. One of the docents mentioned you'd see the P-38 which leads me to believe it is still there. It was a there a few months back. Knowing what I do about Kermit would bring us to the conclusion that he will not sell the P-38 or about anything else; mostly because there is no replacement.

Kermit's P-38 is quite aways from flying (Lefty's looked more like a weekend project compared to this one). However with the knowledge and skills gained on Lefty's P-38; Kermit would probably make a good move sending the P-38 to Ezell's Shop for restoration. I can say the Red Bull P-38 takes restoration to a whole new level and one of those would look awesome in Kermit's hangar with the other aircraft he owns.

Mark H

[engguy]

So like the other guy asked. "How come it won't ever fly"

[MX304]

So like the other guy asked. "How come it won't ever fly"

Basically the guy spent alot of years building it, and now his age / health won't allow him to fly it. He probably won't let someone else fly something he spent so many years building. I'd love to see it fly, but I can see his point as well.

[marine air]

I was on a Lear trip near Breckinridge this week and we drove over to see the P-38. It is stunning and simply breathtaking. Nelson told me that as the P-38 is preparing to leave, they would like to do another one. They have all the tooling, and people in place. I asked him about Kermit's and he said it was a really nice project and would be a good candidate to bring back to airworthy.
I also asked him about Scatterbrain Kid. He said it would be a tough one but could be done. He said the remains are owned by Paul Allen at this time. Those are the only two I thought to ask about.
The Austrian FAA rep and the Chief of Maintenance for Red Bull were there this week and the P-38 is going to be flown, not shipped overseas.
The Ezell's are really the nicest folks and the work going on at that shop was just amazing. In the main hangar, there were two Corsairs, a T-6, Wildcat, P-38 and P-63 Kingcobra being worked on.

[bluehawk15]

The San Angelo scale P-38 is a wonderful piece of work. I met the builder a couple of years ago when I took the U-11 to the SJT air show. As I recall, he was an aeronautical engineering professor. He designed it with room enough for his wife to be able to fly with him. However, looking in the cockpit, it would be crowded. The seating in it reminded me of the seating in a CJ-6A, where you are basically sitting on the floor with your legs stretched out in front of you.

I questioned him about not having counter-rotating props, as I recalled that was a problem on the P-38 prototype. He said that his research indicated that it would not be a problem on his smaller P-38.

Mike

[B-17 Buff]

Now that really is a serious bit of home building! Very cool, must have been alot of work! Time for me to make more use of my aircraft engineering background!! Puts the rest of us to shame!

[hang the expense]

The stuff reilly had was a pretty good p-38 from alaska which was good from tip to tip.The booms were broken off but no big deal.The other parts were from the one wreck that santa mania had for sale back in the early ninties.Would have been a hell of a dang good start until someone...nevermind.

[Michel Lemieux]

What ever happened to all the P-38 parts that Reilly had when they where finishing up Liberty Belle ?

I remember being told it was all there ?

[A36pilot]

... and the P-38 is going to be flown, not shipped overseas.

Would this be flying to Europe with another P-38 that has flown half way there twice????