Warbird Information Exchange

Ok just for the record, I was involved in this when it all started, one of the members who at the time was in the PA NG unit at Pittsburgh Inter that are flying KC 135s. He had been with the guard for a number of years and volunteered to go to the 51 on a Saturday say once every month or so and try to do some kind of up keep on it. Well over the years the mounting plate that is pictured twice in my post here had cause a lot of damage to the main wing connection, you know where the two wings bolt together. And he was concerned that the airplane would fall off the post which he reported to the powers to be in the unit.

He recommended that the airplane be removed from the post restored at least repair the wing damage. Well this all happen at a time that all the guard units were low on funds, the Clinton years member no ammo for the rifle range stuff. I guess now this was 1993 or so.

Well we had this thing going on with David Tallchet (MARC) well if you all know David restaurants they all have these fiberglass full size models of airplanes. Well seems that some years ago there was this company in LA that made these models for the movie business out in LA, David lived in LA for years and had a lot to do with some movies over the years. Well you member all those war movies with the airplanes being blown up well they were the models. Well the guy who own the company decided to sell, David jumped in and bought it for the restaurants displays. Well what he figured out was these models need no maintenance at all. Humm starting to ring a bell.

Something you must remember about David he had been doing this wheeling and dealing in war birds for years and was well known by the AF Museum, AMRC (? Davis Monthan AFB) the Air and Space ETC. So he would go to say the AF Museum and say you got this gate guard out in wherever and its in really bad shape. Tell you what you give me the airplane I well make a model of and put it back on the post at no cost to you in any paint you want.

So David goes to the PA NG hits them with this deal and they go along with it, now he’s got to go through the AF Museum which they are on a first name thing with David and they go along with it. Now this is the part I have wondered about for years why would the AFM go for this. Well a few years ago one night in the hangar it dawned on me. Seems that during this time David was working on this deal to get the Lady Be Good out of Libya. Seems he had this contact in East Germany or was it Poland, anyway David had been buying Migs through this guy. So the deal was this guy would get the airplane move it out and David would step in and buy it. So I think David somehow let the AFM know what he was up to, of course the AFM could not have anything to do with or even know about it, but you know what can happen at a there martini lunch. But the state department found out about it and that was the end of that one.

So now some of the Air Heritage people speak up about the airplane not leavening the area and a bunch of other stuff, we all knew how David worked. So there were all these contracts made up with the PA NG and the AFM.

So now it all gets handed down to us floor guys we have to go get the airplane, you see David gave Air Heritage the money to build its hanger at the Beaver County Airport just north of Pgh Inter. A 120 ft by 120 ft one and we in return would work on his airplanes. Which we were doing.

So the PA NG guy brings in the manuals on the airplane we make up the slings as per the manual and go over all that needed to be disconnected to remove the fuselage from the wing section. That’s when I spoke up. All of that stuff must have been done already why cause the main gate where it was sitting was the new main gate, when they built the new airport terminal there they also built a new PA RT 60 south of the airport. The old main gate was an exit that it shared with the White Swan Park where it sat right next guard house. So it had been moved once already.

So now we got to get a crane trucks to do the move to our hangar, one of the FBOs on the airport Prospect Aviation said he would bring his dump truck with the backhoe trailer for the fuselage but we had to hire and 40 ft tracker and a crane which the cost would come to around $2000.00. So we call David up and its like hey Dave this money for the trucks and he’s all yea I’ll take care of it. Ok we say
So now we start the first steps of the move, we send a team down there and remove the tail. We open up the cockpit and guess what the gun sight is still there, that came off right away. The rest of the cockpit was pretty much not there all the instruments were gone as were the radios the armor plate was there but I think the seat was gone. We removed all the engine cowl and that’s when I saw the corrosion on the right engine mounting bracket it was really bad right where the upper and lower supports meet to go out to the sides of the engine.

Next we go under the airplane to look at the bolts holding the airplane to the post. One at a time we take them out clean them up put them back in so when truck day comes they well not be problem. So next we start on removing the wing flaring then we see that there are six brackets that join the fuselage to the wing but only 4 bolts installed we also remove these one at a time and clean them up. Next we go under the airplane again and take off the wheel pants. No wheels or tires or brakes.

So here is where the propeller thing starts, seems as were doing all this remember were right at the front gate so all the mil guys knew what was going on and some would stop and talk with us, that’s when we found out that a number of years ago the wheels brakes tires and the prop were removed by some guy who had a P51 he was racing. So the fellow who spotted the prop is right its not the right prop.

Also at this time is when we noticed the bumps on the wing, which we all wondered about but at the time we were busy with other stuff. Oh yea nothing in the gun bays but if I remember the gun camera was still in the wing.

Everything on the engine was still there except the ID plate, oil coolers and rad were still there.

So here comes moving day the trucks and the crane shows up. Right away the tracker driver gets upset about the wing. Our plan is once the fuselage is off to load the whole wing on the tracker trailer flatbed without taking it a part. He says its going to be to wide at the root and he might get a ticket. So were all like that’s ok we’ll pay the ticket, we somehow missed this part but it was a little over each side so it would a been a close call for old Smokey the bear.

So we get the crane guy set up next to the airplane and get the dump truck and his trailer parked next to the crane. We hook up the prop it comes off no problem it goes on the ground with a old to tire to be loaded on the tracker trailer after the wing is loaded. Next we put our made up sling on the crane hook and lift it over the fuselage and bolt it on as the manual said. Now we tie a rope on the tail to have some control as its being lifted on to the dump truck trailer and I get a couple of our guys to run the rope. We take the four bolts out holding the fuselage to the wing and take one last look to see if we missed anything. I look at the crane operator and the left starts, I see the boom of the crane start to flex down a little but no movement of the fuselage. Then the crane operator calls me over and says there’s something holding it on the wing. I say ok slack off and we will find what is. Now the main bolts are out, so now were looking and looking, no good. Then the two guys on the rope who at this time are also holding on to the tail move the fuselage just a little and I see both landing gear move in the straps we had to keep them suck up into the wheel wells. I them the guys on the tail to do that again and again the gear moves with the fuselage. Well what we see is this manual up lock rod coming down from the right side of the cockpit right next to the canopy rails that lock the gear up. We found out later that the auto up lock down in the wheel well had a habit of letting the gear slam down in a high G turn so they install this simple manual up lock sometime during the war. We got a hack saw cut the ¼ rod and that was that.

The fuselage came right up and on the Dump truck trailer and onto a stand we had built for the repairs we did to Collins 909 B17 years before. It was strapped down and off it went. The wing was next on to the tracker trailer with the prop and off it went. We picked up everything and off we went back to the airport to unload.

So we catch up to the trucks on RT 60 and their getting all kinds of looks from people driving by.

We get to the airport and unload with our fork truck. It was a good day the move went well no one hurt no tickets all in all a good day.

Ok now this tail hook thing, look I was all over this airplane for a number of months I know what bad shape it was in. And we were also told this was the only P51 to ever had a tail hook and that it had been tested for carrier use. I checked the tail a number of times with a flash light from the inside and from under the tail. If there ever was a tail hook on this airplane who ever put it on and took it was good and I mean real good like magic good if you know what I mean. Looking in the inside of the tail from the back I figured they had to have added some stuff in there so the airplane handle the stress of going from 200 mph to 0 in 50 feet. But there was nothing in the tail that looked like any had ever been added or taken out.
Also the skin on the bottom of the tail looked like it did the day it left the factory. So I say tail hook thing is just a story.

Now so the airplane sits in the front of our hangar, we have no agreement with MARC so we just let it sit. And the $2000.00 for the trucks check is in the mail MARC says, right. And all of our members are sort of wondering what’s going to happen with the airplane. Then this one day we get this letter from the Federal Bankruptcy Court in LA that MARC’s parent firm Specialties Restaurant Corp David’s main business had filed chapter 11 and that we were listed as one of their creditors and to file a claim on the $2000.00 for the trucks. We looked into making the claim but found out that the cost of making the claim would be more that what the judge would give us so that was the end of that.

Well at Air Heritage as I said we had a number of David airplanes being worked on by our volunteers. A P47, P40, P39, A20, FI156 (MS500) Lysander, and a B26 left over from the three that David got out of Alaska. All of witch were in really bad shape the Lysander was really bad. But the P47 was in not bad shape when it got here, and the crew really did a good job on it. They put a good rebuilt engine on her redid the intercooler and turbo all the duck work and a new paint job.

Well we all would come out on Saturday that was the volunteer day as was Weds day evening. And the weather is good and we got the hangar doors open all the way with a great view of the airports 5000 ft runway. So I got a coffee in my hand standing at the front of the hangar with a bunch of other guys doing the there I was thing. When what do we spy landing a Beech Starship we watch as it taxies back up to the terminal when it turns and starts to taxi up the ramp towards our hangar then it pulls right up in front of the hangar and shuts down. The door opens and out comes Mark Clark of Courtesy Aircraft sales along with Butch Schroeder and Bill Allmon. Come to find out from Clark that the court had ordered the sale of the P51 and the P47. Which did not sit too well with us all specialty the 51. They looked at the airplanes and all the others then climbed back in the Starship and were gone.

Bout six months later these trucks show up with all this special stuff on them for moving airplanes and starts to load up the airplanes, there is nothing we can do on the P47 but when they go for the 51 we tell were calling the police about the truck money. They stop the next day Bill Allmon shows up and nice as pie asks what the problem is, we tell him about the money for the trucks and he says oh ok that’s not a problem sits down and writes us a check right there. Then we tell Bill about all the contracts with the guard about the 51 not leaving the area and all the other stuff and he says the court voided all that. So there’s nothing more to do but watch. But Bill was real nice about all this and I think he understood.
We made calls to the guard informing them what was going on and they said there was nothing they could do so that was that.

In the coming years we kept in touch with Butch and Bill as they both promised to bring the airplanes back for our airshow but they never did. Bill did stop in for one night with the 51 own his way from Oshkosh to some birthday party for his grand daughter up in New York State. We sent Butch parts for the 47 that he needed and even some stuff our members had from the days there were P47s in the PA NG at PGH Inter.

The color picture of the 51 on the post is from the old main gate the guard house was just to the left off picture of the nose. I know this because I grew up near the airport and when the old man would take us to White Swan Park we would drive past the park and up to the gate to see the airplane through the fence. One time the guard even let us walk right up to it.

That guard unit was started right after Pittsburgh International Airport opened back in the 50s, some of our members were with the new unit from the start. They remember the day the 51 was flown in from Redding to be put on the post. They even know the name of the pilot who flew it that day, and that airplane had just had a brand new engine put in it just before the flight.

I ask Bill when he stop with the airplane at Beaver what he did about the engine ID plate missing he said that the outfit who rebuilt the engine had a new one made up. I also asked him about the tail hook thing and he agreed with me that’s it just one of those stories. But if there’s paperwork on it then that’s different wonder if there’s any pictures of it.

One other thing Jeff Ethel (I know the spelling not even close the guy with the Air and Space that was killed in the P38) who I was friends with me looked at the wing of the 51 during one of our air shows that he had flown a 51 to from Front Royal VA. He didn’t know what the bumps were for as did none of us. It took about six months before we found the history of the airplane.

The other funny thing was that the stick assy is bolted to the wing on the 51, little strange to see the whole wing sitting on the floor with stick.

Again sorry about those test posts, and hope I didn’t go on too much

More posts and pics to come.