Versatile wrote:
Back in the early 90's a man from Eastern Tenn; used to advertise parts in TRADE A PLANE. The man's name was Mike and was a great guy to talk to. Mike had a list of parts he had for sale and it was quite varied. I do remember he had some floats for a HU-16. I think the town name started with a C. Mike told me a story about being in a ferry flight of some P-63's going south to somewhere i don't remember. Mike said he had engine failure on take off from Tegus and sat the P-63 down on top of the hill just off the end of whatever runway he used. Mike said the AC was not all the broken up and he was uninjured and he just walked down the hill/mountain and got a ride back to the airport and got on a airplane and went home immediately. He told me that he wasn't that interested into talking to any officials at all.
I never knew if the story was true or not. So here we are with Zorros7. A pm from him tells me.
The aircraft that you are talking about was FAH 403. It is now on display by the O'club at Tgu
Does anyone remember Mike and his last name or the story he told?
Mike’s (?) idealistic, quixotic account is far from true. According to the testimony of two former Honduran Air Force (FAH) pilots I interviewed some years ago and had witnessed the arrival of two P-63s ferried from Miami by two USA pilots on October 15, 1948, one of them made an extremely hard touch-down on the runway, which resulted in a colapsed nose landing gear and the main landing gear struts ruptured one or both wings.
The aircraft was declared unrepairable and removed from the flight line permanently. It is now in the custody of the air museum.
There have been unfounded claims that a sixth and even a seventh P-63E may have been acquired, however, no sort of documentation or testimonial evidence has surfaced to the fact.
Just for he record, the official documents and testimonial evidence I have obtained and been able to verify with reliable sources, suggest the damaged King Cobra is not FAH-403.
Should there be any ‘evidence’ about a “burried P-63 at Toncontín”, why not contact TIGHAR? I just can’t wait to see their future expedition plan: "The Burried P-63 Project".
Dear Tighar, …
AAF
Thanks for the info. Around the office we called him HIGH TIMES MIKE because of the great stories he told. I had no way back in the early 90's to verify or call him on anything. This was back when there were only dial up bulletin boards instead of what we have today and phone calls weren't cheap.
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