Fighter Factory FM-2 Wildcat

[Pat Carry]

:D

NICE!!!!

[12XU2A3X3]

beautiful, she's in good hands.

[the330thbg]

:D

Wow.., that is the most beautiful scheme on a Wildcat I have ever seen!!

Awesome job!!!!!!!!!

[seabee1526]

Can't wait to see her at TOM?????? pleeeeze

[planenutti]

Craig,
to you and the rest of your crew, Congrats, she looks fantastic especially knowing what you had to start with. Did Don A. make the first flight? She sure will look great next to the Corsair at the show next month.
Congrats again,
Bob

[CraigQ]

Thanks folks for the kind words, we are very proud of the ac and again I am very proud of my crew. The initial and following flights all went off without a hitch, she is good to go.

Bob, Don A. did make the first flight, Mike Spalding the following.

Craig

[Pogo]

:shock: Hard to imagine that was once Lex Dupont's bird! Awesome.

I don't know what that means, but can someone maybe illustrate the point with a photo? Before-and-afters are always so much fun!

Oh, and, that is one GRAND looking bird, just beautiful!!!

[marine air]

Love the new, hated the old paint!

[12XU2A3X3]

[marine air]

That schewme probably looked nice when it was new. It just got so old, faded, chipped, oily, etc. Those aircraft in WW II were typically only a year or two old, beat to heck, greasy and dusty. THe paint is both almost new and severely worn from use at the same time. Mr Du Pont's scheme looked like an old freighter flying south out of Miami on one if its last hauls before crashing, or being abandoned somewhere!

[TAdan]

I was a big fan of the old scheme... and here is why, as a young'in, before I knew the difference between an F4F and an FM-2 I was attending the World War II Weekend in Reading PA on a Friday afternoon.

Lex Dupont showed up in this Wildcat, with its stains and paint chips it looked to me as if it had just returned from a patrol over Midway. I watched Mr. Dupont throw the canopy back, hop out, push the aircraft into its spot right near where I was standing and fold the wings back. It was a very cool moment to see as a kid.

So, while it looks gorgeous now, I'll always be fond of the old markings.

Great work Craig and crew.

[Pogo]

Thanks for that. Now, why is the old paint job so awful? The new one looks much better, but I still wonder why....?

Whoops, didn't update the page before posting. Never mind.

[JohnTerrell]

And photos like these furthermore show the state of the paint/airframe from a couple of other vantage points, before it was obtained by the Military Aviation Museum/Fighter Factory and restored and refinished:
http://www.taildraggersinc.com/images/g ... 20Rear.JPG
http://www.taildraggersinc.com/images/g ... 20Prop.JPG

Excellent work Craig, and it is great to see it in what can be called its original paint scheme! Even better in that I had never spotted a Wildcat, in the three-tone Navy scheme, with those specific demarcation lines before - something fresh and new, but straight from the past!
http://www.daveswarbirds.com/usplanes/photos/fm-2.jpg

[Nathan]

I was a big fan of the old scheme... and here is why, as a young'in, before I knew the difference between an F4F and an FM-2 I was attending the World War II Weekend in Reading PA on a Friday afternoon.

Lex Dupont showed up in this Wildcat, with its stains and paint chips it looked to me as if it had just returned from a patrol over Midway. I watched Mr. Dupont throw the canopy back, hop out, push the aircraft into its spot right near where I was standing and fold the wings back. It was a very cool moment to see as a kid.

So, while it looks gorgeous now, I'll always be fond of the old markings.

Great work Craig and crew.

agreed. But can't expect many warbirds these days in accurate schemes anyway. No one seems to care.

[over/out]

Meow!! The head-on pic. of the old paint job looks like one of my old Schwinn Tandems before I restored it! The new paint/restor. job is GRRRRReat! (sorry, T.Tiger). Anthony