Warbird Information Exchange

Big update on FFoF Kermit's blog

Load of good reading plus a great story on a cross Atlantic flight in a DC-3

Amazing news and reads for WW1 buff's

http://blog.kermitweeks.com

The C-47 is on display at the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, WI.

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Volunteer Coordinator/Curator - Military Aviation Museum - Virginia Beach, VA
"America's Flying Museum"
http://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org

Really a slew of awesome updates! It really surprised me to hear of the progress on the P-51A at Art Teeter's shop! It will be great to see it flying in Lt. Gilmore's markings, and what a treat that will be for his family!

Glad i had the chance to get caught up on the recent activity. The journey with the C-47 would have been very enjoyable

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A&P/I.A., A.A.S./Aviation Maintenance technology
Warbird salvage/recovery
One day I'll get that P-40!

Is anyone still in touch with Karen Gilmore, and can point here to Kermit's Blog? Karen used to be a regular poster here some years back

Very enjoyable. I liked the post where he was lusting after that bizjet. It goes to show that, no matter how many toys you have ...

August

Pretty cool stuff Kermit. I've talked to the owner of the S-55 helicopter he bought. One of my friends used to fly it for him. Shame it got hurt like it did. At one point it was in Alaska and they FLEW it back to the USA. They landed on a gravel bar in the middle of nowhere to refuel it out of cans. Hard to imagine they shut it down for that, I really wouldn't have since you can never trust an engine to start when you are FAR from the main road.

I hope he actually flies it, but I really don't see that happening, I see his Bell 47 move around, but it never seems to fly.

At least Kermit will see that it isn't recycled...

Mark H

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Fly safe or you get to meet me .......

Mike, based on the last line of the blog post on the P-51A, I'd imagine Karen is fully aware of the plan, and despite not knowing her nor having communicated with her myself, having read her past posts and about Dean's story I am very happy for her and their family by this news.

From Kermit's blog:

Needless to say, his family is very excited about the project and have offered to help in any way with information and photos. In the words of famous radio personality Paul Harvey . . . “So now you know . . . the rest of the story!”

His blog tells of his trip to Australia to check on his Corsair project, will it fly? He has one on static display indoors in Fantasy of flight. Wikipedia tells that he has a P-47D, Ser # 44-32814 in storage ,still in the original shipping crate! Can anyone verify this. Fantasy of flight website says nothing about a P-47. I searched his blog for "P-47" and "Thunderbolt" and no matches can back.

The Warbirds Directory says he owns a former Venezuelan Air Force P-47D with the serial number you quote, and lists it as being in storage. I sincerely doubt that it is in an original WWII-era shipping crate though, and more likely just the one it came from Venezuela in during the early 2000's. Kermit has a lot of stuff stored in shipping crates around his facility.

Kermit has two Corsairs. The one at Polk City is F4U-4 Bu.97286 and while it once was a flyer, it no longer is due to some damage caused by hurricane Andrew back in 1992. The Corsair under restoration in Wangaratta, Australia is FG-1D Bu.88086 and once was a Cleveland Air Races participant marked as "Joe". It is being restored to fly, but I doubt it will fly much at FoF once it returns. Most of Kermits stuff lapses into static within a couple of years of being made airworthy it seems. I guess it's prohibitively expensive, even for Kermint, to do annuals on as many aircraft as he owns. It is a magnificent collection, regardless.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Richard

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Richard Mallory Allnutt - Photography - http://www.rmallnutt.com

Too bad he can't save one or both of the C-54s facing the scrapper in the UK.
That would be a fun transatlantic flight.
I'd volunteer to go.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
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I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

I was at Fantasy of Flight, Sun-n-Fun and Kissimmee Air Museum last year,during grandkids spring break. I'm gonna do it again soon, just hoping for better weather during Sun-n-Fun. I went thru my photos and found Kermits Corsair and it has body damage from the hurricane but ,looks can be deceiving, it didn't look that bad. He has a great collection, and some will probably never get airborne again, just wish they would roll them out on the tarmac and just fire up the engines and taxi around.

The deal with his F4U-4 is that some of the damage includes damage to the centre section spar which is an extremely complex piece of work. FOr years they could not be remanufactured and you had to find a donor airframe. That may have changed but that is what grounded it. Merle Gustafson used to do an outstanding airshow in that plane, still painted as "Angel of Okinawa" if you ever find some video of it from the 1980's.