Warbird Information Exchange

A friend was telling me about an interesting place he flew into as a kid with his dad, a retired Navy pilot. His dad is an interesting story himself, having flown over 50 types for the navy including PB-J and Pby from the hurrican hunter squadron in Jax.

After retirement his dad had a light aircraft they would fly into one of the bases he trained at, an annex of Memphis NAS. He said there were a lot of derelict aircraft, mostly SNB's, SNJ's and a few T-28's. It was owned by a old guy who didn't mind letting the local kids climb all over the derelicts. He also said there were many feral cats and the guy had a mountain of old cat food cans next to the strip.

I think I have seen this place discussed here before. What is the name of this place? This would have been about 1969 or so. Is this the same place our greatly missed Gary A. used to hang out at when he was a kid?

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Always looking for WW2 Half-Tracks and Parts.

Millington, Navy A school and base. My dad was there for a school for p&w 1830's in wwII and I was there in 72 for 1820's and jets . They had some Skyraiders ,T-6 ,T-28's and a lot of Scooters.

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PAPPY ch-46 phrog,endangerd species 40 years and still flying

Thank you!

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Always looking for WW2 Half-Tracks and Parts.

while I was there in 94 there were a lot of A-7s and F-4 airframes around the base (besides the AV-8, F11F and RA-5). The Marines were still flying the A-4s or just stopped flying them. I remember seeing them out on the line being worked on.

I still have not made it back to see what is still around after moved to Pensacola. I guess I need to get out therre and see the CAF and get some Dry Rub Bar B Q!

Tim

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www.tailhookstudio.com

As far as I know, the airport at Millington was not an annex of NAS Memphis - it was NAS Memphis. The Navy deeded the airfield to the city of Millington a number of years ago, and moved all the Navy activity across the street to what is now Naval Support Activity (NSA) Memphis.

The airport Gary Austin used to hang out at was the General DeWitt Spain airport, which is about 4 miles north of downtown Memphis, right on the river. Millington is about 18 miles NNE of Memphis.

The only Navy aircraft left on display at Millington are the F11F on a stick up its tailpipe on the north side of the road at one of the former entrances to the Millington airport, and the RA-5C which is on a stick on board the NSA.

There is a derelict ex-FEDEX 727 on the airport at Millington.

Walt

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If God had intended airplane engines to have horizontally-opposed cylinders, Pratt & Whitney would have built them that way.

There were also number of FG-1D Corsairs there, some of which were used for fire practice. WHat remained of them was recovered during the late 1960's / early 1970's.

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Rob Mears
'Surviving Corsairs' Historian
robcmears@yahoo.com
http://www.robmears.com

I went to 'A' school in 1962-3 at NAS Memphis which is located in Millington TN. There were many aircraft on both the northside and the southside of the base in 1962-3. I became plane captain qualified on a A-1 Skyraider that was use to train taxi directions/quals on the southside.
Many of the A-4s at NAS Memphis were moved to NAS P'cola when the northside was closed and the NATTC 'A' schools were moved down in the 1990's. Some of the Skyhawks are still on the back ramp at the NMofNA. During my time at Memphis the northside was consider Naval Air Station Memphis, while the southside was consider NATTC Naval Air Maintenance Training, a training command.

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The Breaks of Naval Air-Skid Marks in the Sky

Sounds like he might be a little confused since i had the impression it was a civvy field that had once been part of the NAS. He might have two places combined into one memory. I'll run the names by him and see what clicks. We were over at another friends house over the holidays and his neighbor is a P-38 ace in day from North Africa. He shot down 5 Stukas on 10-9-43. His name is Harry Hanna. I didn't get to meet him yet but I hope to.

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Always looking for WW2 Half-Tracks and Parts.

When I went to AMH "A" school there in '83/'84 we were still using the old hanger on the NAS side. There were plenty of stripped out hulks laying in the bushes here and there. 20/20 hind sight says I should have taken pics of 'em! We had A-4's and A-7's in the school house, I think the stuff in the weeds were Skyraiders and a few other things.

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Rob

Harry Hanna was with the 37th FS, 14th FG.

Mike

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