Paul Thomas wrote:
Just as an update on the T-Bird at Trenton from JAM:
Our maintenance team was at Mountainview preparing our last three T-Birds for ferrying to London when the incident of another T-Bird going off the end of the runway at Trenton occurred. The team took part of their last day of the expedition to go to Base Trenton and take one of our empty engine containers and remove the engine from the crash and seal it into the container for transport to the USA. The owner, Anthony Garrison, has now donated the airframe to the Jet Aircraft Museum and we have a team again going to Trenton this week to remove valuable parts and arrange to have a scrap dealer pick up the carcass; a sad end of a beautiful airplane.
BTW, we hope to ferry the last 3 CT-133's the week of September 8th. One aircraft is ready now, and the other 2 need a little more work, but should hopefully be completed in August.
We are also planning an open house the week-end of September 12th and 13th, and will also be part of Doors Open London the following week-end. Sure will be cool to see all 6 T-Birds on the ramp! There will be more details on the website, as soon as I get them.
Paul
I'd suggest at the very least, not scrapping the cockpit section. There are people out there that look for cockpit only projects. Even in stripped condition the cockpit a useful project for someone. For example, I'm restoring a F-84F cockpit at the moment. I just wish the airframe wasn't so far away or I'd be interested in picking up the cockpit section myself.
Why doesn't your museum cut down the cockpit section and make it into an interactive display. Run Microsoft flight simulator hooked up to it. Certainly much better use of it than just scrapping it.