Warbird Information Exchange

Going to be in the Chino area next month - would appreciate any brief comments on when & how to best see the air museums there.

Thanks in advance

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Chris

A great time of year to go. Weather is usually great.

Check on the Planes of Fame website to see if they have any engine runs or other demonstrations of interest, but the summer season has peaked for that.

Depending on your level of interest of course you can do Planes of Fame and Yank's on the same day. Check both for hours of operation on the day of your visit. I'd suggest Planes of Fame as it opens in the morning, walk the whole place, including the outdoor bone yard, then go back to the hangars of most interest. If you stop in every hanger and start reading placards your will suddenly find you have only done a building or two. There are hangars that are not as obvious (like the P-38 off by itself), sort of a Hodge podge, so walk the grounds first to orient yourself.

Grab lunch and then hit Yanks. I love boneyards, so I actually spent more time outside at both PoF and Yanks than the museum.

If you are an enthusiast you could do a day at PoF and a half day at Yanks.

Not a whole lot around there, while the cow poop pastures are rapidly losing their place to sprawl, not much else to do if your whole group does not (gasp) like warbirds.

You will want to hit Flo's Cafe for lunch. It is outside the perimeter fence off Euclid on the NW corner of the field. Decent food, classic greasy spoon service, and everyone who matters in the warbird field has eaten there over the past 60 years or whatever, so it is almost as historic as the airplanes.

August

Thanks to both of you! Good advice all around

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Chris

Just to update, the advice from k5083 and sandiego89 was spot on. The only change we made was stopping at Flo's for breakfast instead of lunch:



This was fortuitous, as both museums offer a pretty good discount when you show a Flo's receipt. Very cool place - the waitresses all had t-shirts with an F-7F on the back. Had none left for sale, though.

Disclaimer - the photos that follow will not be news to many and in fact you can find better ones on the museum websites. They are mostly glamour shots though, while these are "where is, as is". Also, I didn't take the time to photograph all of the info placards. That info is on the websites too. I didn't hit all of the trainers, either.

In order then, starting with many of the flyable ships:











The P-47 was missing the R-2800, but looks otherwise intact:





Museum staff said it's pretty easy to tell which ones can fly. If they're not dripping oil, there's no oil in them.

Much more to come, but I'll go away if these have all been posted recently.

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Chris

Then there's a Korea/Vietnam section (with some older inventory):









Outside on the ramp was a B-25:



Steve Sr (far left) was flying rides in Spam Can. No, I didn't ask how much:



Finally, the stuff being actively worked on. Wee Willy still has the commemorative Bud Anderson graphics:



I believe that this P-51 was built up from pieces of the RB-51 that was the Red Baron. Some other pieces are displayed elsewhere:





The Mosquito was behind ropes, but one of the staff kindly did a walk around with my cell phone:







Next, the foreign stuff and the boneyard

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Chris

A quick walk through the outdoor boneyard:













The P-38 has its own hangar - looks like some prop maintenance was underway:



All for today

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Chris

Here's the foreign stuff:











This one's a replica





This Emil is as is from the bottom of a Russian Lake:



This Spit Mk I appears to have had a ground contact issue:





This is the Flugwerk new build Fw-190 originally purchased by Rudy Frasa:



Next is Yanks

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Chris

Yanks is similar in layout, but their boneyard is much more in line with the definition of that word. Starting with display aircraft:











Don't knoww that I've ever seen an actual F-5 with the photo nose:











Next, the in progress projects

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Chris

Thanks for posting your pics! I am hoping to visit Chino again this time next year and can't wait.

Staff said that the Hellcat was closest to flying:



This P-40 appeared to be current:





All of these were in the same hangar - I can't imagine what the restoration labor flow chart looks like.

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Chris

Mostly intact specimens in the Yanks boneyard:









These are the remnants of Bushmaster 2000 N750RW which crashed some years ago due to a takeoff with a cargo strap still in place as a gust lock:





Sounds like someone wants to rebuild it...



The rest of the boneyard looks a lot like this:



Go ahead and try to name all of the types; F-4, A-6, EA-6B, etc

Possibly the largest collection of N3N fuselages on the planet:



All from these two places, but this was CA, so there is more to come. Both of the Chino facilities were amazing and staff were very courteous. You would need at least a day in each to do a Vagabond-style photo essay. Didn't have that kind of time, so this is more of a travelogue.

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Chris

Thanks so much for posting those excellent pix!!

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Cheers,
Kurt Maurer
League City, Texas

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

So, Mrs Garbs and I went to the Wisconsin/USC game that Saturday. The only thing worse than LA traffic was the second half of that game. Did find out by chance that Eddie Kurdziel had his Firefly at Miramar for an airshow through Sunday:




Didn't pay to get out to the front line, so all I have is this Balbo-Style Rotorcraft pass:



Wasn't a real Warbird airshow, though. The only other ones on the ramp were B-29 Doc and A-26 Million Airess.

So, in keeping with the Travelogue format and per a pre-nup with Mrs Garbs, I get to see air museums as long as we visit at least one National Park; we did Joshua Tree:





As it turns out, when you leave Joshua Tree on the south east end via I-10, you go right through Palm Springs:







That's some of the ramp stuff. More to come.

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Chris

Sorry to see the Japanese aircraft so closely packed together - these are extreme rarities!

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Kevin McCartney