Warbird Information Exchange

For those who have not had a chance to visit the newly opened Golden Hill Storage facility at the Fantasy of Flight in Florida, there are many interesting treasures hidden there:

Lockheed P-38 44-26761







Fairey Swordfish



PBY:





Gloster Meteor



A well worn Zero:



Kawasaki Ki-46 Hein wings:



And engines, engines, engines!





I have been to Fantasy of Flight several times before, but seeing the aircraft that have formerly been in deep storage was a real treat-- thanks Kermit for opening them up to the public!

Michael

I went there in March and noticed something strange on the P-38...

What happened to it? It looks like it's tail was sawed off and the frame behind the pilot was busted in....

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My racing will fund my warbirding. Hopefully...

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When the aircraft was recovered from Paraguay in the 1970's the tail booms were not removed for transport. Half way on it's trip to the shipping dock it was discovered the load was to wide to clear some obstacles along the road so the booms were sawed off! This was before we owned the aircraft. The canopy damage is courtesy of hurricane Andrew.

Great pics!!
Kermit has an unbelievable collection..

Great pics! They only had the first hangar open when I was there last August, so I didn't get to see the P-38. Does anyone know the provenance of the Zero? It was obviously given a fresh coat of paint for display.

Of course, Mr. Weeks seems to have a particular fetish for aero engines (this is a very good thing)..we got to see his "engine barn" as part of our tour last summer. The "Rosie" is one of his "character" tour guides..a bit campy, but fun.









SN

I keep thinking how cool it would be to make a hotrod from a P-38 pod

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Magister Aviation
It's all in my book

Pretty sure this has been done for a film, but not seen it for a while....

Road Raiders (1989)

IMDb link --> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098207/

Cannot find too much from a quick Google, but seem to remember a P-38 pod being used on one of the vehicles.

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John

HEY MOM!!! NO FAIR!! KERMIT'S HOGGIN' ALL THE AIRPLANES!!

Such an amazing collection. Would it be fair to say that Mr. Weeks has the biggest collection in private hands?

Hopefully he lives to be about a hundred and sixty to see them all restored

That Swordfish has a post war canopy that I think was put on by the RCN. I'm sure open cockpit flying on the Atlantic coast would get old in a hurry.

Andy Scott

This has probably already been asked, but what are the current projects underway with Fantasy of Flight? It's always interesting to know which airframes have Mr. Weeks' interests piqued at any given moment.

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Rob Mears
'Surviving Corsairs' Historian
robcmears@yahoo.com
http://www.robmears.com

Two offsite ones are the PV-2 with Aero Trader at Chino and the Lockheed Vega which is being rebuilt to fly again.

The Vega is especially interesting because of Kermit's references on his blog to the possibility of establishing a production line of Vega/Sirius/Air Express fuselages along the lines of the NZ Mosquitos. Kermit allows as how he might be tempted to get one of each for himself, and then the line could be opened to others.

August

I was at FoF twice in the last 5 or 6 years, the restoration hanger had the L-1, P-35, and F6F in it. The L-1 looked to be having the most work accomplished, the F6F none.

http://blog.kermitweeks.com/?p=4118

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45-47=-2

Don't forget the Allison Mustang with Art Teeters:

http://blog.kermitweeks.com/?p=3204


And dare I mention the Tempest V at PPS?

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Both extremely valid points fellas. Mr Weeks has class and taste!
Dan, the Tempest V is so cool I can barely dare to believe that it might happen one day. The prospect of hearing a Napier Sabre run again is one of the most exciting possibilities for us s. Like I mentioned previously, I hope he lives to like a hundred and then some, to see all this stuff through. My favourite quote in one of his blogs. "When I grow up, I wanna be me!" No kidding!!

Andy Scott

He's got quite the number of projects, doesn't he!

Some that come to mind that he has provided updates on over the past few years:

1914 Benoist
de Havilland DH.4 (a couple?)
Fokker D.VII
Ford Trimotor
Fw 44 Stieglitz
Lockheed Vega
Boeing 100
Boeing P-12
Boeing F4B
Seversky P-35
NAA P-51A (being restored as a P-51 - the few early pre-A types that had four cannons)
Douglas A-26
Goodyear FG-1D
Tempest V

And of course attention is being made to repairing/restoring sections of the S-38 he recently purchased. It appears that work on getting their Spitfire XVI flying again is quite active, and the B-25 has had its engines and systems brought back to life to fly again soon as well.

While not a warbird, he's got a Ford Tri-Motor under loooooooooonnnnnggggggg-term rebuild with Maurice Hovious just up the road from me. It's been in the shop since being trashed by Andrew in 1992..he recently posted some pics on Facebook that showed the first visible progress on the project in years. I'm especially interested in this project, as it's the very aircraft in which I got my very first airplane ride.

SN