Warbird Information Exchange

Pack a lunch, Gary. You're gonna have to leave a week or two early to get to a show !

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

Used to see these everyday off the NJ coast, not far from Lakehurst NAS, back in the early 60s.
As a kid, a roll of 12 B&W exposures had to last a long time so pretty
selective what was shot. This is actually one of my first photos.

You may want to contact these folks for info.
Navy Lakehurst Historical Society. http://www.nlhs.com/

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Bill


Website

The modern "Goodyear" Blimps, are based on the USN wartime "K" type, only need to restore a "K" type Gondola and string it underneath a brand new Goodyear Bag! in place of the modern gondola and "we are off" - what a way to turn up to a warbird airshow! smiles -

I really struggled passing up the K class Gondola offered to me in the UK, concerned that it would be scrapped. (not that I havent got enuf on my to-do list already)

regards
Mark Pilkington

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20th Century - The Age of Manned Flight
"from Wrights to Armstrong in 66 years -WOW!"

Here's a couple of shots I took of the NJ junkyard blimp cars. I think it was 1974.

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Rich Kolasa
www.crystalgraphix.com

My uncle Mike was in blimps (engine mech) in the Navy in the '50s. He was mostly stationed in Weeksville, NC and GTMO. Here's a couple of blimp shots and what he saw on a typical flight.

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Rich Kolasa
www.crystalgraphix.com

I think Kermit's 3 cars (one is by the hangar) are K-ship that came from the NJ junkyard.

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Rich Kolasa
www.crystalgraphix.com

There was a fellow here in Salem named Dan Brady was a retired Senior Chief. After spending most of WWII on the USS Indianapoli's avaition detatchment he went into light-than-air for the next 15 years and logged about 3500 hrs. His color slides were unbelieveable!!!
http://www.naval-airships.org/pdf/oral%20history--brady.pdf

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Don't touch my junk!!

Thanks for the interest folks! I have sent off several emails from tips I've gotten here, but no replies yet. Please do let me know if you come across any drawings.

Ryan

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Here's a couple more of my uncle's slide-scans:

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Rich Kolasa
www.crystalgraphix.com

RICH!
PLEASE tell me you have more pics of Mahalchik's yard! If so, could you please e-mail them to me? Although I spent lots of time there, I never took pics, and my memories are all I have of the place, besides a few newspaper clippings & a 1972 Mahalchik for President poster! (have to go find that one of these days soon...)

Oh, and I bought the CCKW with the 1516 cab on it, which has the hardtop added, in front of them, next to the one locomotive... Sold it many years ago, and had grafted the cab onto my CCKW which had a different truck cab on it...
THANKS!
Robbie

Are those the objects I couldn't identify across the street from Fantasy of Flight?

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Curtis Block

I've seen too many airplanes destroyed by the term "Static Restoration."

yes, those are the blimp cars across the street from Fantasy of Flight.

Rich

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Rich Kolasa
www.crystalgraphix.com

Ooh! USS Leyte, a 27,100-ton Ticonderoga class aircraft carrier built at Newport News, Virginia, was commissioned in April 1946. Her initial cruise was made along the South American Pacific coast in the fall of 1946. That was followed by three years of Atlantic Fleet operations, including four deployments to the Mediterranean in 1947, 1949 and 1950. Leyte had just returned from the last of those tours in August 1950 when she was quickly prepared for another, taking her to the other side of the World to augment Naval forces during the Korean War. She operated off Korea from October 1950 into January 1951, providing nearly 4000 aircraft sorties to support UN forces ashore. During this cruise, one of her aviators, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Thomas J. Hudner, Jr., performed an act of heroism for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Leyte returned to the Atlantic in February 1951 and spent the rest of her service career there. She made two more Mediterranean deployments later in 1951 and in 1952-53, receiving the new designation CVA-32 in October 1952. During the last part of 1953, Leyte was converted to an anti-submarine warfare support carrier and was redesignated CVS-32.On 16 October 1953, while in the Boston Naval Shipyard undergoing this conversion, she suffered an explosion and fire that killed 37 men and injured many more. The carrier returned to the active fleet in January 1954 and conducted anti-submarine operations in the Atlantic and Caribbean over the next five years. She also served briefly as an interim amphibious assault ship in 1957, with her normal air group replaced with Marine Corps transport helicopters.

USS Leyte was decommissioned in May 1959, and simultaneously reclassified as an aircraft transport, with the new hull number AVT-10. She remained in the reserve fleet for another decade and was sold for scrapping in September 1970.

Ctsy: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-u ... l/cv32.htm

Looks like TBMs aft and amidships, with Sikorskys forward, with 3 PBYs in the background, in the water!

Robbie

hi Robbie,
My late Dad, Ferdinand Kolasa was an aviation ordnanceman on the Ticonderoga during WW2. I've never heard "Ticonderoga-class" before, strangely enough. He always talked of Essex class carriers.
In the photo (I'll check the full-size scan) I believe at least one or two of the seaplanes in the backround are PBMs, and it looks like a Guardian on the flight-deck behind the 5" turret aft of the island.

Rich

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Rich Kolasa
www.crystalgraphix.com

Those PBY's look more like PBM's to me.
What do you think?
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."