Liberator – Duxford 1973 & '75

Looks like they did some cleaning & painting on the Liberator since I saw it in 2002!

There was a lengthy cleaning and polishing session about 6 months or so ago IIRC.

As far as I am aware it is airworthy but I stand to be corrected.

does it fly?

Which Kermit owned airframes still fly?

I stand corrected on the Tri-motor.

The main problem they have at the moment appears to be space. The aircraft that are operational are taking up space that could be utilised in restoration and maintenance. I was told that once the new hangars were built they would then be able to up the pace of restoration and maintenance.

The first new hangar was receiving its roof trusses when I was there.

Looks like they did some cleaning & painting on the Liberator since I saw it in 2002! (Also photo of Trimotor at same time)

st170dw, I was under the impression that the Tri-Motor in the photo was aquired at a bankrupcy auction for $600,000 about a year after Hurricane Andrew. I thought the damaged Tri-Motor was either stored or under restoration.

The B17 is in the paintshop (and other parts of the complex) at the moment and the trimotor is as in the picture below.

Hurricane Andrew & Weeks

As a USAF captain I was dispatched to Florida as part of Hurricane Andrew recovery. As a public affairs officer, I was allowed to “borrow” a HH-60 helicopter (with crew) to show media the area and the military recovery efforts.
The helicopters were temporarily based out of Tamiami (Sp?) which was then the site of Weeks museum.
We got there just as a crane was lifting the steel roof joists off the ground. Amazingly, damage was somewhat limited by the fact they had snapped in the middle creating a “M” shape. Most planes seemed to have been parked on either side of the building’s centerline and avided a lot of damage. As I recall, a Corsair wing was nicked, and the J2F-6 Duck and A-26 Invader received some fairly minor damage (I can say “fairly minor” because I didn’t have to fix it or pay for it!!!). The only total loss I saw was a Boeing P-12 wrapped up into a ball..it was so badly mangled I had to ask waht it was.
However, his B-17 was blown a half a mile down the field and his Ford Tri-Motor was severely damaged when the hanger it was parked in at Homestead AFB (for safekeeping!!) collapsed. I can’t speak for Mr. Weeks but from what I saw the majority of his collection wasn’t badly damaged, so I can’t say how long it took him to recover from the storm.

No – my impression was that the priorities at F of F were to

(a) build somewhere for the restored a/c to live

(b) restore the other a/c in the collection to flying status

(c) expand the collection

The feeling I got was they were still recovering from the devastating effects of hurricane Andrew and this was now beginning to happen. The collection is massive and cannot all be done at once.

The collection is governed by the vision of Kermit Weeks and even he cannot achieve everything at once!

-and permanently glued to Terra Firma?

ST170dw

Thanks for posting the pic. She looks pretty good.

Here is a pic of it at Fantasy of Flight in April this year. 🙂

Thanks Mike

Black Knight

Many Thanks. What was the reason for its retrn to DX in ’75?

They were both the same and at the time was owned by David Tallachet. It is now known as Joe and owned by Kermit Weeks.