Warbird Information Exchange

The old Shannon Air Museum at Shannon Airport in Fredericksburg, Virginia is reopening on June 3. As some of you will know it closed down in the early 1980s after the founder Sid Shannon died, and the aircraft were transferred to the Virginia Aviation Museum at the Richmond airport. That museum recently closed down, and most of the aircraft there are going back to Shannon. It is planned to restore some of them to flying status. Shannon Airport has been purchased by a new owner, and there is now a nice café on the field, and soon to be a neat airplane museum.

Aircraft in the collection include this mighty beast, the sole surviving 1936 Vultee V-1A, powered by an 1820


1929 Pitcairn Mailwing


Original 1917 SPAD VII


and others including a Curtiss Robin, Travel Air 2000, Bellanca Skyrocket, Bucker Jungmeister, original 1918 Standard E-1, J-3 Cub, Aeronca C-3, and others. Well worth a visit, and only about an hour drive south of DC.


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http://www.biplanerides1.com/

Does this new/old museum have a website or any contact info? It's within easy range for me.

They don't seem to have a website up yet, but the Shannon Airport Facebook page has some info:
https://www.facebook.com/ShannonairportFredericksburg/



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http://www.biplanerides1.com/

Aw, who cares about that old Vultee thing. Check out the Aeronca in the top right of the frame. Now that's an airplane!

Sorry, had to say it. My father owned a C2.

Watched an aviation movie a while back "The Tarnished Angels" with Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. At the end of the movie, Malone and her son climb into an airliner and flew away. I couldn't ID it then, but I think it might have been like the Vultee pictured here.

You are correct, a V1-A was used in "Tarnished Angels". Probably not as nicely appointed as the one Baldeagle snapped. His pic is of the sole example of a V-1AD Deluxe, an executive version formerly owned by William Randolph Hearst.

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Apparently the FAA outlawed single-engine airliners in the mid-30s, so few of these were ever built. I'll have to go see this one this summer; not much farther than Udvar-Hazy from where I live now.

Per Richard S. Allen's article "Jerry Vultee's V1" in the June, 1976 issue of Air Classics, it's the same plane; it was already the last one left in 1958 when the movie was made. It was painted white and red and marked as "Sierra Aviation/NC158":


Excerpt from the article:

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)