Warbird Information Exchange

3 u.s. navy p-3 orions were destroyed beyond repair in a freak heavy snowstorm in atsugi japan, collapsing a civilian hangar where they were stored in.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

http://www.stripes.com/news/three-navy- ... s-1.281753

Sounds like the snow storm occured in February.

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Yes it did. These planes were supposed to be brought back to the US just a few weeks after this happened. My Brother was scheduled to go there as a part of the ferry crew to bring them back to Hawaii (I believe)

They will now just be scrapped in Japan.

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Tyler Pinkerton
Active Member of Air Heritage Inc. of Beaver Falls, PA.
Aircraft: C47B, C-123K, Fairchild F-24, Funk Model B, L-21B, T-28B, T-34B
Static: F-4C Phantom II, F-15A, T-3 Provost

why was the news of this suppressed for 3 months?? it hardly makes sense. nothing top secret or a matter of national security.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

It was not suppressed. Our news reporting agencies just don't care about anything that has to do with our country or it's assets.

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Tyler Pinkerton
Active Member of Air Heritage Inc. of Beaver Falls, PA.
Aircraft: C47B, C-123K, Fairchild F-24, Funk Model B, L-21B, T-28B, T-34B
Static: F-4C Phantom II, F-15A, T-3 Provost

I assume you never served in the military.
There's no way you could know if these were the only planes of their type available in the region, and if so, how that might change the minds of people nearby to do things that they normally wouldn't do, knowing we wouldn't be able to see them.
I was an Army officer and something simple as an armored company being delayed for the COBRAS exercise near the DMZ was something we badly wanted to keep secret due to other things going on at the time within the region.

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

Reported widely in my perception at the time, in vaguely specialist media.
e.g. my second Google result for "japan p-3 hangar collapse" was this story from Feb.

http://www.stripes.com/news/navy-orions ... e-1.268275

The 3 stricken birds were "straight stick" P-3C models...none the less a pretty significant impact to the community. P-3s don't typically get much press coverage or "glory" ( until recently of course with the MH370 search) but operationally they are spread pretty thin and the P-8 replacements aren't coming fast enough.

What squadron are you with and how long have you been there?

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Tyler Pinkerton
Active Member of Air Heritage Inc. of Beaver Falls, PA.
Aircraft: C47B, C-123K, Fairchild F-24, Funk Model B, L-21B, T-28B, T-34B
Static: F-4C Phantom II, F-15A, T-3 Provost

Retired in 2011. My P-3 time was with VP-26 (NAS Brunswick) and Naval Research Lab (VXS-1).

Ok, was just curious as my brother was VX-1 from 09' to 12'.

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Tyler Pinkerton
Active Member of Air Heritage Inc. of Beaver Falls, PA.
Aircraft: C47B, C-123K, Fairchild F-24, Funk Model B, L-21B, T-28B, T-34B
Static: F-4C Phantom II, F-15A, T-3 Provost