Warbird Information Exchange

I thought I would start a thread so here goes.

I find there are a lot of fortuitous or even strange coincidences in the warbird world. You know the kind of story. Restorer needs a left hand frammits to complete the only flying what'sitsname. In walks a person who says "Say Grandad has one of those in the attic."

Here's a coincidence that I was at least partially involved in. During the restoration of the Collings TBM I worked on the left hand trailing edge center section at Mayocraft. One day they told me that they had picked a paint scheme; airplane #310 of VT-17, USS Bunker Hill. The next time I was there they told me that a gentleman had shown up looking for the TBM since he hadn't seen one since the war. They showed him the work going on and casually pointed to the picture they were going to use to duplicate the paint scheme. Of course you guessed it; the gentleman says, "That was my plane!"

Can't remember his name now but he was fine man. He left the ready room to preflight his plane early and so was one of the few survivors of his squadron when the kamikaze hit. His wife was an aircraft mechanic on Corsairs in the Marine Corps!

Anyone else have a coincidence to share?

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

That's a cool story. I haven't had any coincidences aside from chatting with an older woman when "Sentimental Journey" visited Camarillo. She was there to see the plane with her kids and grand-kids. She built wings for the B-17 at the Vega factory in Burbank. What they used to do was leave little notes here and there in the airplane for the pilots to find. She left a note for a pilot in a finished airplane.

He found the note during the war and when it was over, came to find her and thank her. They fell in love and were married for more than 50 years.

This should proved to be an interesting thread!

Here's my contribution:

In October, 2007, I was giving tours of Chuckie at the annual VFM hangar dance. An elderly gentleman wearing a late 1940s USAF uniform came through the B-17 and stopped to chat with me at my tour station in the radio compartment. He told me about his long USAF career in electronics. He said that in the late 1940s, he was assigned to Teterboro, NJ, working on some USAF aircraft that were used as flying electronics test ships, and that they had a B-17 there at that time, and that he had worked on it, and flown aboard it, many times. He was shocked when I said, "Welcome back aboard your old ship!" Yep, Chuckie was that same B-17! The gentleman could hardly believe his ears, but he was clearly pleased that "his" old ship was not only still around, but was still (sometimes) flying! I whipped out an 8" x 10" glossy photo of '543 on the ramp at Teterboro, with all of the funky antennas and such visible in the shot, and he exclaimed, "That's it! That's the one!"

It really is a small world!

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

I was with Chuckie at Harlingen and a guy was walking around looking at the airplane...when he went on the right side and saw the cargo door, he said "I used to fly produce out of the Caribbean in a B-17 with a door just like this..." Turns out it was "His Ship"

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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Here's another one from the Collings Foundation. Their original A-26 was a known combat veteran of Korea. They knew the group it operated with but not the squadron so they picked a particular plane from one of the squadrons of that group and duplicated the markings. Some years later they were in Tennessee or Kentucky and a former A-26 crew chief was looking over the plane and talking about his days during the Korean war.
It seems his ship took a flak hit in the bomb bay that resulted in a unique repair scheme. The chief says let me show you where it would have been and lo and behold there was his repair!

Now that the Collings Foundation knew the actual aircraft markings they proceeded to replicate them to make the plane one of the few combat veterans flying in original combat markings. The plane had even had nose art of a beautiful reclining woman. They used the daughter of the former crew chief to duplicate the nose art, taking tastefully clothed photos of her in the original reclining position. She was a beautiful blonde with the perfect figure for nose art. (If you know what I mean!)

After the plane crashed they basically transferred the data plate and all surviving components to an airframe that had lost its data plate.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

In the mid 90's I was at a Corsair symposium at Planes of Fame East. The pilots had a card with their name and unit in front of them. I noticed "John Wastvedt VMF-124". After the event, I approached and asked if he was at Mojave in the spring of 1944, he said "yes". I asked if he still had his logbook, he said "yes". I asked some other third question and he again replied "yeessss, but why are you asking me all of these questions?". I explained that I had a wrecked Corsair that was assigned to VMF-124 and just wondered if he flew it.

It was the days before cell phones, so on the hour drive home I wondered if it were possible. When I got there my wife said that John had called all excited and that he had found in his logbook he flew it "6 times" He has since been reunited (local CBS WCCO did a story) with his former bird. He brought all of his photos while at Mojave but none of "L69" were in his collection.

Pirate Lex
http://www.BrewsterCorsair.com

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An ego is no match for gravity.

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-Bill
B-17E 41-2595 "Desert Rat" Restoration Team

I worked with a mechanic at Polaroid in Waltham MA. He retired and moved to Henderson NV. We met at the gift shop at Chino the day before this years show. I was waiting for the wind to calm down so I could go up in Spam Can, we wandered around the hangers looking at the aircraft and the models. We were looking for a F-106 for he was a crew chief on F-106s at Loring AFB. Well dont you know we found a F-106 with 27th FS markings in the case. When he saw it I thought he was going to cry. He said "That's my plane". 90044 was his aircraft many years ago.

Rick

While rebuilding "909" at beaver after the wreck, a gentleman stopped by and asked if we were in need of a ball turret. the turret that was in it before was smashed. He said, I have an entier ball turret with all of the interior in my basement. You cna have it as my wife is mad that it is still there. he brought it out and that is the one in 909 today.
Another gentleman had a gameroom and wanted a bent prop for it. We had four of them, and he traded us a bent one for a brand new one still in the crate.
Another was at the NMUSAF when I was talking to a B-17 crew member infront of the B-17 when he started laughing. joe!! He yelled out. his pilot was walking around the other side of the plane. There was no reunion going on and no plans to meet. Just same place at the same time.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Here's another Chuckie story:

I am an amateur radio operator. I was chatting with a fellow on SSB on 20 meters one Sunday evening while I was on the way home from the VFM hangar (I have a mobile station in my pickup truck). The subject somehow got onto aviation (I think he mentioned that his son was in the Air Force somewhere in Texas). He said that he was currently working as an air traffic controller in Fallon, Nevada, but he used to be a pilot. He and his father both flew airtankers for many years, and before that, they flew aerial spraying aircraft. . . including several years flying B-17s and Harpoons with Hugh Wheelless out of Dothan, Alabama! It turns out that both he and his father had flown '543 on numerous occasions! He was surprised and pleased to know that both of Wheelless' surviving B-17s were still flying, the other one being Aluminum Overcast (the third one crashed and burned in Georgia; the crew made it out okay). He scanned some old 'Fort and 'Poon photos from his Dothan days and airtanker days and emailed them to me. I've posted them on WIX before.

Think about it. . . out of the over one million hams around the world, what are the odds that I'd randomly make contact with this one particular fellow? It's a small world, for sure!

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

OK, one of our guys, a Maj. Bill Voight, is a volunteer at the Dover AFB Museum. Bill is also a Berlin Airlift Veteran of 100+ missions.

Now, when the C-54 they have arrived from the FBI, it was flown in by helicopter as the wing spars were cut, so it arrived in three pieces or so.

Well, Bill looked at this airplane and copied the USAAF # and compared it to his logbook and wouldn't you know it, its his plane!

So, if you get the opportunity to visit the now AMC Museum at Dover AFB, hopefully you will meet Bill, although he's getting up there in years. IF you do, ask him about his C-54. oh.. It's also a specially modded C-54 as it has reinforced floors specifically for hauling coal during the airlift and actually has the designation C-54M. (Not to be confused with the MC-54, which was modded for litter transport)

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Kevin Kearney
Vice President
Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation


C-54D "Spirit of Freedom" 43-17228
C-97 "Angel of Deliverance" 52-2718 (painted as YC-97A 45-59595)
C-54E/R5D-4 "Spirit of Freedom" 44-9144 BuNo 90414 (wfu April/2020)
http://www.spiritoffreedom.org

Wow! The museum there has done a great job with it. It looks great.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Living in Kansas City in the mid-80's, I was a volunteer worker on the B-25 "Fairfax Ghost"...at the time it was based at the old Richard Gabaour AFB. I had been going through the aircraft logs with the then present owner, Frank Howerton, and discovered that the head mechanic at North American that signed the B-25 over to the U.S. Army, was the same name as my nextdoor neighbor...Leroy Salisbury...When talking with Leroy previously, he had told me that during the war he had worked at a bakery and had also ran a service station.....When I approached him the next evening, I asked Leroy if he had worked anywhere else during the war, and he told me that he had during the last half of the war, worked for North American....It was his signature in the aircraft logs....