Warbird Information Exchange

Over the last couple days we have been hit with tornados & very heavy thunderstorms inflicting severe damage from wind & baseball size hail, here in the Atlanta area & North GA. My wife & I came out fine here in Red Oak. Are the rest of you GA WiX'ers OK?
Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

Robbie

I was over at the Dixie Wing on Saturday meeting Stephan Brown the new president and chief executive officer of the Commemorative Air Force (CAF). I think he must have brought some Texas size hail with him from Midland. With several planes at an airshow in Columbus GA we had just finished pushing a members plane in the vacant spot of the hangar when the bottom fell out . No damage that I could see just one small tree down.

P.S. Stephan seems to be a Great guy!

Steve

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"Any excuse is good enough if you're willing to use it!"

My home field is Cartersville. The two fatalities from Saturday's storm were within a few miles of the field, and the storm passed close enough to the airfield to leave debris scattered on the runway.

Worked right through the storm listening to the radio updates.Got the parts ready for the p-40 down in Douglas,Ga and am leaving out monday morning to install them.What a drive and even longer on the return.

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Hang The Expense

Nothing much out here in Woodstock. Got some serious wind (had a chicken lay the same egg 3 times!). Think most of it went downtown.
Hawk

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tracers work both ways

Newnan is in good shape, just a lot of wind and rain!

Just to echo Steve's report about Col. Brown, I believe he is on the right track with the CAF. He has only been in office for a few months and he has already visited 19 wings; that say a great deal about him in my mind.

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Philip Beegle
Dixie Wing CAF

Well, Augusta was pretty much spared. I used to skydive in Cartersville (way back in the early 80's) and in Rome after we got kicked off of Cartersville- not our fault, really, but a little tiff between FBO's regarding who we bought gas from for the jump plane.

Any of ya'll remember a mid-air collision between a privately owned T-37 and a B-26 Marauder?

I believe it was a Douglas A-26 and a T-37. All lost on T-37 and A-26 made it back.
Happened a while back.
Rich

It was an A-26. Details here:
http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/brief.asp?ev_i ... 7161&key=2

Very sad day with the loss of David Brady & his passenger in the T-37.
Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

Yeah, that was sad. I remember seeing the T-37 at Cartersville along with a C-1, ex Danish C-47 and a B-25. Mr. Brady was a gracious guy.

Are those airplanes or what I remember being called the Valiant Air Command still there?

I was in Georgia CAP at the time, and we were called out to locate the T-37. The pilot attempted to bail out, but was too low, and chute didn't fully deploy. Passenger did not escape the cockpit. Can't recall if Brady was the pilot or not.

Pilot's wife was on board the B-26, if I remember correctly.

Wasn't the B-26 pilot Randall Porter?

I believe the Museum at Cartersville was called Air Acres. They had a number of different aircraft over a period of years in the late 80's-early 90's. Several T-37's, Mowhawks, BAC Strikemasters, Jet Provosts and others.

I remember there were a number of Gulfstream G1's and Lear Jets there belonging to Phoenix Aviation. I think they flew the Lears on contract to the AirForce as practice targets for the F-15s at Dobbins.

Walt

I believe Randall Porter was flying the A-26.
Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

A follow up on a couple of things that were touched on in this thread...

1) Saturday's tornado crossed the south end of the runway at Cartersville. No damage on the field, but some debris did lodge up against the perimeter fence. A couple of hundred yards north and it would have been a mess at the airport.

2) As mentioned elsewhere, David Brady and passenger did die in a T-37 midair with the B-26. David was someone who took a lot of unnecessary chances and the odds finally caught up with him. He is the only person I ever knew who ran a T-37 out of gas taxiing out for takeoff. He got lucky he didn't run out of gas 30 seconds later.

3) On the subject of Mr. Brady, prior to his death, he lost two sons in aviation accidents. One crashed while flying a Piper Cub (?) under an overpass and the other crashed a T-28 after running out of fuel.

4) Prior to Mr Brady's death the Air Acres museum had a pretty impressive collection of aircraft. A C-119 with jet pod. A Neptune. A B-25 and B-26. A C-47. Several T-37's. A couple of O-birds too. The Air Acres museum still exists, but at a different location. Today's focus is more towards liasion and training aircraft.

5) Phoenix Air still runs the FBO at Cartersville and has numerous Lears, G-1's, and a couple of Gulfstream jets. (not really sure if they are G-III's, IV's or V's). They still have a number of government contracts to haul people and stuff and play war games.

Kyleb

Was David Brady or is Randall Porter affiliated with Phoenix Air?

Steve

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"Any excuse is good enough if you're willing to use it!"