Warbird Information Exchange

Let's try this again. Amazing depth of knowledge and information shared by John Terrell! Happy to see it being shared again!

Boring YL-15 took post WW-II Grand Champion and the A-20 took WW-II

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Chris

Which ones got the Reserve Grand Champions? They are always just as nice as the Grand Champions and in a number of cases more authentic/detailed (but don't get as many points due to level of rarity/difficulty in restoration).

Can somebody explain to me the difference between these 2 award categories and why they are two different aircraft?

Judges’ Choice: P-63
CAF Dixie Wing
Peachtree City, Georgia
Bell P-63A Kingcobra, NX191H

Best P-63
John Bagly
Rexburg, Idaho
Bell P-63 Kingcobra, NL163FS
Silver Wrench
John Bagly
Rexburg, Idaho

Interesting awards!

I didn't know the USAF was eligible (Judges' Choice for the B-52)!

Surprising, but nice, to see Briefing Time win Best B-25 in such an impressive field - maybe the oldest restoration out there, but still a deserving favorite.

Looks like it was a great time all around this year.

August

Disappointed that the A-20 didn't go up while I was there and that Madras Maiden departed early and didn't go up in the bomber Parade. I still loved the bomber parade, that was great - just wish we had that extra B-17 and the A-20 in it as well as a few more B-25s. Next year I will go for the whole week as it seemed a lot of stuff departed before I got there Friday.

Madras Maiden had to be in Erie, PA for rides on Saturday........

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Rod Schneider
Ball Ground, Ga

Thanks to everybody for the most interesting input!

There's plenty of interest in more photos, in case anybody's on the fence about whether to post or not...

I want to specifically mention that Garbs' pics from past years still rank among the very best I've ever seen, and I miss them. Not complaining, I understand as well as anyone that it's a lot of effort, and that focus, interest, and priorities change. Just wanted to say they were great and I still remember 'em and miss 'em, that's all. The night shots were killer!

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Cheers,
Kurt Maurer
League City, Texas

PIC, Ford 6600 pulling Rhino batwing up and down the runway

2 P-63's do they needed 2 trophy's...

I miss seeing the night shots from "The Cat"... Same guy??

but there were 3 P-63's at the show.

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remember the Oogahonk!
old school enthusiast of Civiltary Warbirds and Air Racers

It's great to see the CAF Minnesota Wing awarded with their B-25 "Miss Mitchell". As I recall, she won Grand Champion in 1992 and the aircraft is now more WWII-authentic/detailed than ever. Among the top four most authentic B-25's active/flying, and the most authentic B-25 with a ride program. The "Best P-63" awarded Kingcobra owned by John Bagley is also a past Oshkosh WWII Grand Champion, winning in 1998 as I recall, when owned by Frank Borman. Congratulations too for the Fagens for multiple awards for their SNJ (a new benchmark in T-6/SNJ restorations, as far as I'm concerned), and to Mark Denest/MD Aero for the Gold Wrench award for its restoration (I miss your posts/participation here, Mark!). This of course is not the first award-winning Fagen Fighters trainer restored by the Denests/MD Aero. I had the chance to see a bit of Pat Harker's award-winning L-5, a couple years ago, before the restoration was completed, and I would love to see more photos of it from this past week. I saw some photos of a really cool WWII-authentic restored L-4 there too, which even had paint over-spray from the code letters being applied on the side of the fuselage and hand-scribed markings, matching an original photo of the depicted scheme.

I wonder what sort of gripe the Lewis guys had? Their B-25 was the only airworthy one on the field that didn't participate in the mass B-25 flights, and the A-20 was scheduled (for some weeks) to fly in yesterday's show, but it scurried out of town early yesterday morning (the EAA Museum was nice enough to have housed the A-20 for a few months leading up to the show).

"The Cat" dude, Al S., was the guy who did the time exposure night photography at Oshkosh for many years since he was an annual volunteer. Al hasn't been here on this forum in many years.

Exactly!!!

We were very bummed that the A-20 did not participate in any of the daily airshows!! We had made the trip to Osh last year to see it and were disappointed, so this year hopes were very high to see it fly. We DID get a glimpse of it on Tuesday AM about 0645 apparently coming in from a photo shoot. We were setting up for the day near show center on N/S runway and saw it coming in to land on the E/W runway WAY FAR AWAY. Mrs VB snapped a quick photo and I watched it through binocs. Missed it leaving Saturday AM as again, we were setup for the main airshow. Really disappointed at not seeing it fly during the airshow!

That being said, we DID get to see an amazing bunch of stuff in the air and on the ground through the week. Now comes the process of sorting through the many photos and hours of video we shot!! We'll post as soon as we can get the galleries together.