Speedy wrote:
I know there are a lot of people on WIX who's hair stands up when they see those 1970's 'restorations' and paint jobs....but man, that, for me, is just the 'golden age' of the Warbirds. It was before the era of $2 MILLION dollar Mustang restorations that look better than ANYTHING that ever rolled off the production line at North American.
Some of those were the first 'warbirds' I can remember seeing (not counting the 'racers' imprinted on me at Reno in those years)...and the glossy, inaccurate paint schemes will always be special to me. Somewhere I still have a poster of that Corsair with the CAF logo and the tri-color GLOSSY paint scheme. Tumbleweed in it's FAF green? Ugly as heck...but one of my favorite CAF flyers of all time. Texas Raiders with the cargo door....AWESOME! Gary's P-38 the first year he put the low-profile cowlings on the engines (and you have to love the Braniff logo on the gear door--Big John Rader was one of Gary's mechanics and worked for Braniff).
You may look down your nose these days at the Colonels taking themselves way too seriously with the rank and the uniforms (or look at them as old guys trying to re-live their youth and "play war")....but they were the guys who saved it and started this whole thing. I doubt there would be a WIX today if there wasn't the interest of the CAF back then to do this. And I'll bet that they were having a heck of a lot more fun doing this back then than 95% of the Warbird community does doing this today--too many egos, over-restorations, and pretentiousness abound.
Someone made a comment that the FM-2 was being rebuilt. Awesome. I hope the CAF has the cajones to repaint it in the pre-war USS Ranger markings again!
Fuggin' A well-tol, bubba!
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
