Warbird Information Exchange

Heres a good way to tie in both stories.
There was a guy in New England that had it in the works a while back. He had two DC-3s, One in civilian form, and one in Canadian military markings. I saw the cockpit section of the Glider he was involved in and the C-47 had a short tailcone and tow hook on it.
Then He met a girl. And that was the end of that story!
Both airplanes were sold, and he was playing with horses from then on.

The Cockpit section looked really good when it was on display at an airshow back in the day, but I had not heard anything of its whereabouts.

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"Hindsight is usually 20% off!"

Thanks for the info, Bill (I feel like I should call you "Mr. Greenwood"..somewhere I've got a copy of AC with your Spit on the cover, which you autographed for me at the 1984 Jeffco Airshow..but I digress..)

I was coming home from work one day in 1992, which required driving past the airport..and saw the Gee Bee was sitting there. I had a dentist's appointment, but when got back to the airport as quickly as possible (minues wisdom teeth and with a mouthful of cotton and novocaine.) Mr. Benjamin told me he was on his way to a show somewhere, and had to put down to wait out some weather. Like you said, a heck of a nice guy, and more than willing to talk to a star-struck airplane geek. A few months later I got to see him fly at (of all places) the Cleveland Air Show. Really a spectacular performance!

John: Thanks for the words of encouragement..I really do miss the Zoo..guess I'm just an old stick-in-the-mud when it comes to aviation museums. As for my girlfreind, she's an airplane geek and model builder as well (who has some sort of sick fascination with that pink thing hanging in the lobby!)

Cheers!

Steve

YAnks has the nose section finished, but have so many other projects in the queue, as well as new acquisitions to recover, that it will probably take some years to complete.

Steve, thanks for the courtesy, but it is not necessary. I really prefer to be called Bill, not Mr. and not by my last name as some authors do. Frankly it makes me feel old to be called Mr., and I haven't done anything to put me above anyone else. There might be a few people worthy of "MR or such, like Sir Winston Churchill or Dr. Martin Luther King. Only nosewheel pilots should refer to the rest of us as "Sir"! Keep that AC autographed copy, some day it will be worth as much as perhaps $1.75!

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Put away somewhere amoungst all of my video stuff, I have some that was shot with the 1st Air Commandos, in either India or Burma. Most of it is doing practice snatches of CG-4's and also includes supposed combat recovery of a CG-4 and crew. There is also several minuets of someone trying to loop a CG-4 and falling out at the top in a inverted spin then recovery and then back at at before he gets it right and does a couple for the camera.

As to the snatch gear, think giant Penn fishing reel....dial in tug speed and glider weight for the "G" limit and watch it work until it was time to reel the glider into the proper tow position. When I can find it, I'll transer it to CD.

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"Hindsight is usually 20% off!"

It's been interesting to look through a reprinted CG-4 Flight Manual that I picked up recently.
Ryan

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Ryan, perhaps you could photocopy a few pages of the manual and bring them to Midland, or even post some of it on WIX. I am a glider pilot and I'd enjoy seeing that especially any detail about takeoff, tow, release, and especially landing speeds, etc. If I had a chance to fly afull scale replica it would be hard to say no. Anybody else here fly gliders?

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I have the commercial and the CFIG in gliders. Have been flying them off and on for about 20 years. They definitely helped my skills.