Burchinal's Place - Flying Tigers

[C170BDan]

Made a flight up to a friends strip up in Paris, Texas yesterday. As I flew over I took this shot of Flying Tigers airfield. The only aircraft visible from the air is a Convair. Cant imagine operating all those Warbirds out of this grass strip! Sounds like the Burchinal's still live on the property.

[astixjr]

Is it a Martin 404 or a Convair 240? I've heard both.

[soko121]

Hello Albert,
It is a Martin 404. I stopped and looked at it a couple of years ago when my dad was ferrying one. We looked at Juniors as a possible candidate, has lots of corrosion in the wheelwell area and the rear spar.got to talk to Junior and he showed us all his old pictures and made sure that we did not leave without knowing that he flew in various movies!!
definately history there!
Simon

[C170BDan]

Ah.... could be a Martin! Looks like the wings of a Martin.

[Second Air Force]

This appears to be the perfect thread to add an update to.

Yesterday, (10.21.2008) Ellen and I were passing through Paris and went out to a place that captured my imagination as a teenager. I read about Jr. Burchinal and his amazing airfield all those years ago, and I finally, albeit many years too late, gazed on his field. Here are a few pictures we took before heading back home.

A "No Trespassing" sign that is hard to ignore:


Looking northeast at the runway and I can only imagine seeing the B-17 barreling down it throwing up grass clippings and dust!:


The two south remaining hangars:


These three photos are of the tee hangars and the two larger ones taken from the driveway west of the property:




This fuselage frame is lying in the west middle tee hangar--I don't know exactly what it's from and respected the "no trespassing" sign, so this is the best picture I have:


And these final two are of the Martin 404, N255S. It appears completely intact and unmolested, and I believe it has been moved since we flew over the field in June. It would be nice to think a museum somewhere would want the old girl, even if she has some corrosion issues.



Kinda made me sad to see the remnants of what was once a bustling warbird collection, but at least many of Rev. Burchinal's airplanes found new homes to care for them.

[Matt Gunsch]

in the 2nd from the last picture, the campain poster for Eric Clifford caught my eye. Eric is a warbird owner with a T-6 and C-45. The T-6 is named Bigfoot, and if you know Eric, you know why.

[Kdmoo]

Thanks for the update. I wondered if the 404 was still sitting there.

Kevin

[Ztex]

It was a heck of a place back when I was a kid.

[Dudley Henriques]

Made a flight up to a friends strip up in Paris, Texas yesterday. As I flew over I took this shot of Flying Tigers airfield. The only aircraft visible from the air is a Convair. Cant imagine operating all those Warbirds out of this grass strip! Sounds like the Burchinal's still live on the property.

Junior's was probably the most unique operation of it's kind ever to exist in the United States.
If you had the money, you could fly into Paris with a J3, spend some time with junior and solo a Corsair or a Mustang or whatever he happened to have in inventory at the time.
No one was turned away if they could cut it.
Many general aviation pilots out here are still around who through junior got to fly one of these airplanes.
And I can tell you, if you could operate a prop fighter in and out of junior's, you could fly one just about anywhere )

[Steve Nelson]

I've got an old audio casette of some sports show I recorded back in the mid '70s featuring rodeo rider Larry Mahan visiting Junior's place. He flies in a Stearman, Mustang, and B-17. I wish I'd gotten it on video, but it was in the pre-VCR days.

SN

[C170BDan]

Great shot, Zane!! Wish I could have met him.

[GARY HILTON]

I remember watching a Saturday afternoon TV show back in the early-mid 70's, that did a feature on Jr's airfield and the different aircraft you could fly in there or get instruction in...Had an excellent film clip of a takeoff and landing from the Paris strip, taken from the upper turret of a B-25....Also had film of the P-51, a P-38, and a Corsair T.O. and landing....those were the days!

[aerovin]

For anyone who wants to read some good stories about what went on there, get ahold of the three or four articles Budd Davisson did for Air Progress in the 1970s on his checkout in the P-51, B-25, and a couple of other types with Junior.

Some good audio podcasts of the same checkouts at his website at http://www.airbum.com/.

Good stuff.

[Vessbot]

http://www.airbum.com/pireps/PirepMustangBurch.html

Direct link to Davisson's article on his Mustang checkout at Burchinal's.... wonderful reading

What all did he operate out of there? I can't imagine flying a T-33 or an F9F out of that strip.

Dan