Strange civilian uses of warbird parts

[K5DH]

I'm too lazy to dig back through this thread, but...

I recall reading about a DC-3 fuselage in Australia that was made into a motorhome.

I've seen pics of a Twin Beech fuselage made into a "bus" in the US.

A couple of years ago, a group of racers took a Cessna 310 fuselage and turned it into a race car for the "24 Hours of Lemons" race series, I believe using a Toyota minivan chassis. It was cool looking and was fairly successful in the race.

(Yeah, I know, these weren't warbirds, but all three types did see military service!)

[Ethan]

Found this in the L.A Times Photo Archive, from the UCLA Library Digital Collections:

http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewIt ... zz0002r5dn
"Surplus military cargo plane being transformed into a home in Riverside, Calif., 1947"
Wonder how long it was there? That fuselage is pretty banged up/buckled through the window area. I reversed the image since the way it was shown in the archive, the cargo door was on the wrong side.

The C-46 house is still in Riverside CA. Saw it a few months ago.

[Warbird Kid]

Found this in the L.A Times Photo Archive, from the UCLA Library Digital Collections:

http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewIt ... zz0002r5dn
"Surplus military cargo plane being transformed into a home in Riverside, Calif., 1947"
Wonder how long it was there? That fuselage is pretty banged up/buckled through the window area. I reversed the image since the way it was shown in the archive, the cargo door was on the wrong side.

The C-46 house is still in Riverside CA. Saw it a few months ago.

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!

[Chris Brame]

^^^ What he said! Or at least where to look on satellite view.

[needle]

^^^ What he said! Or at least where to look on satellite view.

33.968005,-117.409452

[maxum96]

Riverside, CA. C-46 here

https://goo.gl/maps/B1LmpvzrNJv

[Chris Brame]

Peek-a-boo.

[robkamm]

Thanks for posting those. cool house. I used my biplane (homebuilt) project as Halloween decoration on my front lawn last year.we were known as the airplane house.

[Barrie MacLeod]

In 1952 Kenting were surveying in Newfoundland with Walrus bi-plane flying boat CF-GKA.
The Royal Navy serial was Z1781.
The engine destroyed itself and they figured there would be no parts for a Pegasus engine.
Sam Blandford turned it into a houseboat on Gander Lake.
Later they learned that Shearwater had plenty of brand new engines still in packing crates left over from servicing Royal Navy Swordfish and Walrus aircraft at this end of the convoy run in WW II.
No. I do not know where it ended up when Mr. Blandford bought his post war yacht.
Sam Blandford photo.

[Chris Brame]

There's an outfit in Germany making tables and desks from Sabre/Fury and T-33 tails:
http://privatewing.eu/en/f-86-workbench.html
This appears to be from FJ-4B 143641, last based at NAS Glynco in Georgia.
I emailed the company to verify the BuNo but they said it had been sold. However they are working on more tables:

We are just working on a new catalogue where we also will have 2 new tables. One is from a T-33 (we have 8-10 different rudders) and one is from a F-86 (we have 5 elevators).

If those are interesting, we can provide you with some pics of them….

He sent photos of two tables in progress, one made from the fin and rudder of CL-13 Sabre RCAF 23308 and the other from the tail of a T-33/TV-2 with a BuNo ending in 857 - it was either 51-9062/131857 or 53-2751/136857.
I was just about to post the photos when the body of the message disappeared somehow... but I'll try to get more images from them.

[Ewan]

At Tocumwal, Wirraway frames were cut up and used as tree guards, you used to be able to see them on one of the main roads out of town. Also in town there is a house that has all manner of bits of canopy perspex set into the front porch floor like a mosaic. Nearby there was a Merlin engine with prop that was set on a stand and used to blow air across a fruit orchard to prevent mould setting in.

Elsewhere a house in inner Melbourne has Boomerang bay doors being used as a shed wall and the roof struts are Beaufighter and Mosquito undercarriage leg parts. There was another frame type that was used as a chook shed nearby but believed lost in a fire.

In NSW a dairy farmer was using Beaufighter wing panels as a wall in his dairy. They have now been saved (I pick them up next week !) A Beaufort cockpit section was being used in Northern NSW as a *ahem* hydroponic facility until rescued.

And of course in Balwyn, in Melbourne's inner East there was the fuse of a Beaufighter sitting in a backyard that was a young girls playground thing. That went to the US eventually.

Our Beaufighter at the Museum was used along with a Vampire, Canberra and Boomerang as playground equipment at the Lord Mayors Camp in Portsea.

Numerous B24 and similar wheels are still being used to this day on various farm equipment all over the place.

That's all I can think of right now

Cheers

[Chris Brame]

Somehow the message came back and I got the photos:



Registry entry on this one:
http://www.warbirdregistry.org/jetregis ... 23308.html

[Noha307]

I was looking through pictures the other day and I think I came across the predecessor to the C-46 house:

Rec Hall China Style - A Curtiss C-46 cargo plane that once blazed freight routes across the CBI theatre finds a new future. Resting quietly at a 14th Air force airfield it serves as a recreation hall for men of the "Flying Tigers" transport unit.

(Source: National Archives)

Based on the existence of a different example mentioned in another thread, it was apparently quite the trend.

[Noha307]

Another cargo plane residence: C-47 house trailer - 1946

[Hooligan2]

In England, on the A303 in, the road that passes Stonehenge in Wiltshire; a couple of miles to the East, at Amesbury's Solstice park, there is an ex RAF Gazelle fuselage upright with its tail upside down and fake wings to represent a dragonfly insect - it's visible from the road and is apparently one of a few fantasy statues dotted around the site.

The was also a Hunter painted silver in rhe middle of Woking town centre, ex Danish AF I think, it's gone now - something to do with a night club if if I recall...