Warbird Information Exchange

The collection just gets bigger and better. www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123297771

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

NEATO! t's just to bad no one back 'then' considered holding onto one of the first GLOBEMASTER I's (C-74) that would make an interesting family grouping.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

I feel really old! When I got out of active duty in the USAF in March of 1990, McDonnell Douglas was heavily recruiting us to go to work in Long Beach to work on the C-17 assembly line. Since the USAF was having a Reduction in Force, there was plenty of well trained aircraft mechanics looking for jobs. I moved out to Long Beach in May and went to work in Building 54 installing oxygen, environmental and hydraulic systems in C-17 T-1 and T-2. I watched them put the wings on T-2, I was part of the team that jacked and leveled T-1 for the first of many times I'm sure. Here's some pages of a pamphlet that I've kept all these years from back then.







It was a huge hangar!!

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Bill Gorin
Vintage Flying Museum
http://www.vintageflyingmuseum.org
https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=57513906106

It's hard for me to get excited about adding a C-17 to the collection at the AF Museum, when there are 200+ in service and it will probably be in active service for another 20 to 30 years or more.

A real shame they didn't save the last C-74 years ago for the collection and now it looks problematic as to whether they will ever restore the XC-99 for display......

I am looking forward to my next visit to the museum in a couple of years or so to see the new display building.

I bet the C-130 will out last it like the B -52

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PAPPY ch-46 phrog,endangerd species 40 years and still flying

No, I disagree. The C-17 has been durability tested to three lifetimes. The C-130 was tested to two lifetimes.

The mission profile is quite diferent between the two so the C-130 can never replace the C-17. The C-17 was designed to do most if not all of the C-130, C-141 and C-5 missions.

The only thing in the C-130's favor is the price.

Wasn't when I first got there! Only the center part was there- they hadn't added the north and south portions on to the core building yet. This was back when MD-80, DC-10 and KC-10 production was in full swing. You ought to Google map it and look at how different the DAC plant is now. I'm glad I got to spend some time in those old buildings before they knocked them all down.

The C-17 is a great airplane and will be around a long time. And the C-130 will not and cannot "replace" the C-17. But the C-130 is still in production about 55 years after entering service, and at this point I believe it is highly unlikely that any other U.S military transport type aircraft will ever exceed it in service life. Whether the C-17 or C-130 will be retired first is very difficult to predict, since it is very likely that both have very LONG service lives ahead with the U.S. Military.

Can't argue with that Jim! The C-130 has a loooooong head start over the C-17.

C-17 will be doing a fly-by at Long Beach Airport at 9:20 AM on Monday, April 23rd on its way to Dayton and will be inducted at the USAFM on Wednesday the 25th.

It's kind of neat to see something you actually had a hand in bringing to 3 dimensional reality in a safe place for others to admire, unlike so many of it's brethren who went to the smelters,and to know you're the ONLY person there at that time to have had that intimate 'hands on' part in what's before you now.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

I agree, I only wish they would repaint it in the camo scheme it originally had and add back the long pitot tube on the nose radome.

Hard for me to see a 17 as a museum piece, and it won't hold much interest for me in the museum as long as there are ones flying around in service. But, it is far sighted to sock one away, especially a prototype. That consciousness of heritage has been more the exception than the rule over the last century. Thanks to the exceptions we have precious artifacts like the Mosquito and Mustang prototypes. Thanks to the rule, we are without so many great airplanes that would have been easy to save, and were still available for preservation even when their future historical value already was apparent.

August

And worth pointing out, as often on WIX this is overlooked, that's what museums are for - a safe place for our heritage.

Flying some retired aircraft is great, too. It's not a replacement for the museum preservation though.

True - actually it's not so much an exception, as a recent, increasing trend.

There's now an assumption that a service example of an aircraft will be retired to the museum when the retirement comes up; snagging prototypes, usually earlier retired, is a further step on that line, and it's interesting is it not, that the responses in this thread show the latter idea of early preservation is still not as exciting / necessary. Thirty, forty years ago, that reaction was at retirement of the type "that was everywhere" and it took time to realise "they don't seem to be around so much" before the preservation drive kicked in.

Both prototype preservation and sequestering an example of a type on retirement are a function of the increased pull and capability of national and armed forces museums. Less than half a century ago, curators were lucky if they could manage a representative selection of the big name types under a roof.

We are lucky indeed.

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Some months ago there was talk of reconfiguring T-1 to the latest spec to replace the aircraft that was destroyed in Alaska. Unfortunately there have been too many changes in the production spec to make that viable. Just goes to show that even a few months ago there was no certainty that this aircraft would end up in a museum!

The experimental and prototype aircraft can be more interesting than the aircraft that were put into production. They represent the “what if”, and how many have wondered what they would have been like if they had entered service. Take the XB-70, every time you see it, you marvel at it. Just think if it would have been scrapped when testing was complete instead. I look forward to someday in the future seeing the XC-99 restored. I feel that the Air Force Museum should bring as many of these one off aircraft together so they can be preserved.

Speaking of prototype aircraft, the McDonnell Douglas YC-15 (72-1876) at Davis-Monthan sitting in Celebrity Row was scrapped over the past month. How hard would have it been to tow it to the Pima Air Museum!

Here’s just a small list of some of the prototype aircraft that I wish could have made it to a museum:

Boeing XB-39 Superfortress
Boeing XF8B-1
Commonwealth Aircraft CA-15
Consolidated YB-24N Liberator
Douglas XTB2D Skypirate
Grumman F11F-1F Super Tiger
Martin-Baker MB5
McDonnell XF-88 Voodoo
North American XA2J Super Savage
North American YF-93
Republic XF-12 Rainbow
Republic XP-72
Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III