Surviving Helldivers

Pat Carry · **Posted:** Thu Aug 26, 2010 5:27 pm

Besides the CAF's example, the NASM's and the one just brought up for the NMNA, are there any others? Yanks?

Jerry O'Neill · **Posted:** Thu Aug 26, 2010 5:36 pm

WIX'er Chuck Wahl is working on two. The NMUSAF has one, there is one in Greece, and I believe one in Thailand, NASM's, Yanks, CAF's.
Anyothers?
Jerry

RMAllnutt · **Posted:** Thu Aug 26, 2010 8:10 pm

Jerry O'Neill wrote:

WIX'er Chuck Whal is working on two. The NMUSAF has one, there is one in Greece, and I believe one in Thailand, NASM's, Yanks, CAF's.
Anyothers?
Jerry

Ron Fagen has the former Kevin Smith example, but that's the only other one in captivity that I am aware of.

Cheers,
Richard

JDK · **Posted:** Thu Aug 26, 2010 9:14 pm

Aside from the recent recovery, and the NMUSAF and other combined restorations, and other incomplete projects, current complete Helldivers are:

SB2C-3 Bu19075 Yanks Air Museum

SB2C-5 Bu83321 Hellenic Air Force Museum, Tatoi-Deklia AB, Athens, Greece

SB2C-5 Bu83410 RTAF Museum, Bangkok-Don Muang AB, Thailand

SB2C-5 Bu83479 NASM

SB2C-5 Bu83589 N92879 CAF

The French example (SB2C-5 Bu89255) seems to have disappeared sometime after the 1960s.

[Ref The Warbirds Directory 4th Ed.]

PeterA · **Posted:** Fri Aug 27, 2010 2:00 am

Athens 1968.

PeterA

marine air · **Posted:** Fri Aug 27, 2010 8:31 am

Is the Fagen/ former Kevin Smith example the one that was on Barnstormers and a crash recovery laid out in a guys backkyard? I always thought that one looked pretty good .
It may eventually be a flyer as will the Yanks. Hopefully the Yanks example will become available in a few years. The other "bits" would be basically new builds and most likely will be static displays somewhere. Does that sound accurate?

RMAllnutt · **Posted:** Fri Aug 27, 2010 9:46 am

marine air wrote:

Is the Fagen/ former Kevin Smith example the one that was on Barnstormers and a crash recovery laid out in a guys backkyard? I always thought that one looked pretty good .
It may eventually be a flyer as will the Yanks. Hopefully the Yanks example will become available in a few years. The other "bits" would be basically new builds and most likely will be static displays somewhere. Does that sound accurate?

This is the SB2C-5 Bu.83393 which crashed at NAS Dahlgren in Virginia while performing torpedo trials. It used to belong to my friend Kevin Smith, and I regularly saw it when I'd visit to help him with his UH-1A and SBD projects. I actually took many of the photos and wrote the ad (and articles) you saw. It was in remarkable condition, all things considered, but requires a lot of funding/effort to restore to flying condition. Fagen's team have had her fuselage restored so far (beautifully I might add), and were planning on getting to grips with the wing center section until the P-40 had her little contre-temps. Not sure where they are with the restoration at this point, but she will be a flyer before too long.

Cheers,
Richard

warbird1 · **Joined:** Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:25 pm **Posts:** 2760

RMAllnutt wrote:

marine air wrote:

Is the Fagen/ former Kevin Smith example the one that was on Barnstormers and a crash recovery laid out in a guys backkyard? I always thought that one looked pretty good .
It may eventually be a flyer as will the Yanks. Hopefully the Yanks example will become available in a few years. The other "bits" would be basically new builds and most likely will be static displays somewhere. Does that sound accurate?

This is the SB2C-5 Bu.83393 which crashed at NAS Dahlgren in Virginia while performing torpedo trials. It used to belong to my friend Kevin Smith, and I regularly saw it when I'd visit to help him with his UH-1A and SBD projects. I actually took many of the photos and wrote the ad (and articles) you saw. It was in remarkable condition, all things considered, but requires a lot of funding/effort to restore to flying condition. Fagen's team have had her fuselage restored so far (beautifully I might add), and were planning on getting to grips with the wing center section until the P-40 had her little contre-temps. Not sure where they are with the restoration at this point, but she will be a flyer before too long.

Cheers,
Richard

As of a year or two ago, restoration work on the Helldiver stopped and it was put in storage. Did this change recently?

RMAllnutt · **Posted:** Fri Aug 27, 2010 5:34 pm

warbird1 wrote:

RMAllnutt wrote:

marine air wrote:

Is the Fagen/ former Kevin Smith example the one that was on Barnstormers and a crash recovery laid out in a guys backkyard? I always thought that one looked pretty good .
It may eventually be a flyer as will the Yanks. Hopefully the Yanks example will become available in a few years. The other "bits" would be basically new builds and most likely will be static displays somewhere. Does that sound accurate?

This is the SB2C-5 Bu.83393 which crashed at NAS Dahlgren in Virginia while performing torpedo trials. It used to belong to my friend Kevin Smith, and I regularly saw it when I'd visit to help him with his UH-1A and SBD projects. I actually took many of the photos and wrote the ad (and articles) you saw. It was in remarkable condition, all things considered, but requires a lot of funding/effort to restore to flying condition. Fagen's team have had her fuselage restored so far (beautifully I might add), and were planning on getting to grips with the wing center section until the P-40 had her little contre-temps. Not sure where they are with the restoration at this point, but she will be a flyer before too long.

Cheers,
Richard

As of a year or two ago, restoration work on the Helldiver stopped and it was put in storage. Did this change recently?

Well, it might have. I talked to the guy working on it at Fagen's place for an article I wrote for Aircraft Magazine last August (I think for the Sept. issue). They had just received the fuselage from the rebuild shop in Kansas, after having decided to do the rest of the restoration in house. They expected to get started on the center section that fall, but then Ron Fagen's P-40 was damaged, so I imagine those plans got put on hold while the Warhawk got fixed. Mind you, that's just a guess of course. Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Richard

Chris Brame · **Posted:** Sat Aug 28, 2010 3:46 am

And then there's this one I've posted before, from the early '70s:

Wish I could find out for sure what happened to it!

Jerry O'Neill · **Posted:** Sat Aug 28, 2010 4:18 pm

Chris;
What's the story behind that old photo?
Jerry

jdvoss · **Posted:** Sat Aug 28, 2010 5:00 pm

I have just received an e-mail from a French contact of mine, a former aircraft mechanic in the French Navy, and he regetfully informs me that no SB2C Helldiver resides in France any longer. The only possibility is that one 'may' be hidden away somewhere. Forty eight SB2C-4 / -5 Helldivers and 32 SBD's apparently all scrapped. He did inform me of the following website that has a number of classic photos of french naval aircraft.

http://www.frenchwings.net

FWIW, although I posted it before I've attached a photo of a forlone and forgotton SB2C-4 I ran across while exploring the former Marpi Point Naval Airfield on Saipan in the Mariana Islands in 1964.

jdvoss · **Posted:** Sat Aug 28, 2010 6:46 pm

Attached is a photo of a Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver taken at Chino California in 1965. Presumably this is the same A/C that is now flying with the Commemorative Air Force. Note original NAS Glenview Naval Air Reserve markings.

JDK · **Posted:** Sat Aug 28, 2010 7:43 pm

jdvoss wrote:

I have just received an e-mail from a French contact of mine, a former aircraft mechanic in the French Navy, and he regetfully informs me that no SB2C Helldiver resides in France any longer. The only possibility is that one 'may' be hidden away somewhere.

And as discussed here.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=37470&p=375246

Thanks for the additional details. Despite the hopes of many of us, aircraft do 'just disappear' and despite the fact that they speak a language intimidating to many in one of the North American nations,

France is a well travelled place where lurking 'lost' or unknown aircraft are now very unlikely.

jdvoss wrote:

Attached is a photo of a Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver taken at Chino California in 1965. Presumably this is the same A/C that is now flying with the Commemorative Air Force. Note original NAS Glenview Naval Air Reserve markings.

It is.

Partial extract from the Warbird Directory (and if you are seriously interested in warbird history and you don't have one ~ why not?)

Quote:

83725 • SB2C-5 Bu83589

Helena Votech, Helena MT: inst. airframe 60
(del. to Helena ex USN, inst. airframe inside building)
Ed Maloney/ The Air Museum, Ontario CA 5.63/70
(ferried Helena-Ontario CA .62, displ. in orig scheme
as "NAS Glenview/VA/103")
N92879 Confederate Air Force, Harlingen, later Midland TX .70/08
(rest. Ontario 70/71,
...
(repaired, flies as "83589/32 Navy USS Franklin")

See: http://www.warbirdsdirectory.goodall.com.au/

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