Warbird Information Exchange

The Vintage Flying Museum is the place to be tomorrow (Sat) for Fly Day. Four military aircraft are still slated to sell rides including the A-26 Night Mission. Three WW2 vets will be speaking and answering questions. One is a Pearl Harbor Survivor and one was a POW/Survivor after his B-29 was shot down over Japan. The third is a Navy vet. Kay will be available for tours along with the T-33. Don't miss out if you are in the DFW area. May your Memorial Day be a great one. Thank a vet for the opportunity!

Kay picked up the Rio Grand Valley CAF show at Cameron Co Airport (Port Isabel) on 22-23 June. This was formerly known as the Brownsville Air Fest which had a hiatus. We are very happy it is back and glad to support the new effort. See y’all there if you can make it.

Thanks for the update. I look forward to seeing K one day. The A-26 got me into warbirds and the Ks are my favorite model.

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Scott Rose
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Thanks Scott. Do you recall which A-26 it was or where? Interestingly, I didn’t think a whole lot about the airplane until I saw the one in Amarillo that became the Spirit of Waco and is now Night Mission. That was about 1976 ish. Fast forward to 2011 when I finally got to fly it.That made a believer out of me. Getting to know the A-26 vets made it all that much better. They are the real reason we have put so much effort into the project. Thx

This may be a little silly, but it was the movie Always. The A-26s in that movie had such presence that it made an impression and triggered my interest in warbirds. To this day it holds a special place in my heart.

_________________
Scott Rose
Editor-In-Chief/Webmaster
Warbirds Resource Group - Warbird Information Exchange - Warbird Registry

Be civil, be polite, be nice.... or be elsewhere.
-------------------------------------------------------
This site is brought to you with the support of members like you. If you find this site to be of value to you,
consider supporting this forum and the Warbirds Resource Group with a VOLUNTARY subscription
For as little as $2/month you can help ($2 x 12 = $24/year, less than most magazine subscriptions)
So If you like it here, and want to see it grow, consider helping out.



Thanks to everyone who has so generously supported the site. We really do appreciate it.

Follow us on Twitter! @WIXHQ

Staying in Fort Worth at this moment visiting sister in law and giving granddaughters a cowtown Tour. I’ll see you and Special Kay Friday for sure

We may not have anybody there on Friday, but the museum will be open. If Chuck is there working on Kay, just introduce yourself. He will be glad to give you the tour.

Scott, your story about the movie “Always” brings up the connection to Special Kay. Those two A-26 air tankers were provided by the Lynch Flying Service. Denny Lynch and Steve Hinton did the actual flying portions. One of the scenes called for a deadstick landing when the hero ran out of gas. To do that scene required numerous takes where the engines took a lot of abuse. They had to be replaced to finish the movie so the stock B Model engines and props that had been installed on Kay to ferry her from the crash landing site in Macon, GA to Billings were pulled. Later, Denny bought the correct CB3 engines and big props to put on Kay. We got Kay at the end of 2009 and ferried her to Texas for restoration in 2010. The pilot was Al Maxwell who later flew and worked on one of the movie tankers in Houston. It has since moved to the Rio Grand Valley. The other tanker ended up in the Palm Springs Air Museum painted up like a Navy JD1.

Having grown up in the Texas Panhandle and learning to fly there in the usual windy conditions was good preparation for unexpected gusty high winds at the Port Isabel-Rio Grand Valley CAF Airshow this past weekend. It felt like the temperature and humidity were both 98. Wind gusts over 35 hampered the show some and cut into the attendance probably. But surprisingly, the real fans showed up in spite of the heat. The field elevation is 19 ft but the density altitude soared to over 2300 ft. On Saturday evening, the crew followed up on a great tip to find excellent seafood at the Sea Ranch restaurant at the marina on South Padre Island. Can’t say enough about how good that was and the fun we had. The shrimp, Red Snapper and oysters were the best! During Saturday’s show we chased the CAF P-63 and B-25 Devil Dog around the pattern while the CAF EOD team fixed us up with all the good pyro. It is a very satisfying to feel the slight thump of the blast caress the underside of the airplane. Sunday, we did a solo performance and then left for home early due to threatening weather coming in from the North. Solo, we can open her up a bit more and show just how fast Kay can accelerate. It really is impressive in that there is no need to touch any of the trim wheels during the entire show until configuring for landing. Just point the nose and she goes there. Most other airplanes need to be retrimmed with a change in speed. Overall, we were tired and glad to be back home in Fort Worth, but we had a good time talking to the fans and sharing Kay’s story. One of them actually loaded ordnance on Kay at England AFB back in the day. Another’s dad flew A-26’s at England and Hurlburt AFB as an instructor. We hope somebody got some good pics or video of the show. Will have to check YouTube and other sources. If anybody finds any, please let us know. Our next outing is a Warbird Fly-in at New Braunfels on July 4th sponsored by the Texas Aviation Academy. There will be live music, hamburgers and hotdogs as sides for feasting eyes on the expected turnout of birds. See y’all there!

Kay and the crew are still planning an 0830 departure from Meacham and arrival at New Braunfels about 0930 Thursday, subject to weather considerations. Be good to celebrate the 4th holiday with other Warbird lovers who appreciate what the vets did with these airplanes to assure our independence. May it last forever!

We made it to New Braunfels in good order Thursday, the 4th. It was hot, humid and windy and several Warbirds had to cancel due to IFR conditions or high gusty winds. We still had a great time visiting with the folks there. Texas Aviation Academy went all out for the hospitality. Sure would be fun if their Warbird fly in would grow into a full fledged airshow. There are some pictures and videos posted on our public Facebook page (no login required) from Port Isabel and New Braunfels. http://www.facebook.com/a26specialkay
This coming weekend, Kay will get a good cleanup and then we will start inspections and repairing any squawks that pop up from that. Since we don’t have another show until the first weekend of Sept, we wanted to cover as much of the winter maintenance items as we could now so we would be prepared earlier next Spring to start the circuit again. Stay tuned as we get those shows scheduled. We have some exciting possibilities.

Happy 77th anniversary of the first A-26 flight by Benny Howard, Douglas test pilot out of Mines Field, CA. 10 July 1942.

Friday July 12 at 10 am, the Vintage Flying Museum will hold a groundbreaking for the first Rosie the Riveter Memorial Rose Garden in Texas. The DFW area had numerous aircraft manufacturing businesses during WW2. Consolidated, North American and Chance Vought turned out thousands of aircraft with the help of female labor. The population of the US was roughly 130 million so with all the needs of the military, women stepped up to fill those vacancies. Some WW2 vets and “Rosie’s” will participate along with many mayors and other dignitaries. The public is invited. After the ceremony inside the hangar with the B-24, the proceedings will move outside to the garden area. Light refreshments will be served. Come on out if you are in the area of Fort Worth’s Meacham Airport.

A fine time was enjoyed by all at the Rosie ceremony today. A surprisingly number of former WW2 Rosies and veterans showed up for it. There was an excellent turnout. Besides Betsy Price, Mayor of Ft Worth, the Mayor of Haltom City showed up. Dr An Truong is a former Skyraider pilot in the S VNAF. He was very pleased to meet Kay. The event was topped off by a flyby of a new F-35 right out of the factory across the way at neighboring Carswell. The Lockheed Martin plant has a number of modern day Rosies in their labor force. Photos are on our public FB pg. No login required:
www.facebook.com/a26specialkay

Kay is down for maintenance until the last w/e of August so will not be attending OSH this year. Her next appearance will be the first w/e in St Louis with the RAF Red Arrows and Navy Blue Angels. She will be flying in the show as well as being on static display. We are looking forward to that immensely. Should be one of most unique shows this year.