June 22, 2011 at 3:19 am
Last week I was lucky enough to visit California and amongst all the other treasures I saw was this rather crumpled Hunter nose. According to the locals it was lost on approach to Chino about 2000 or 2001. I have tracked down an accident report which records the registration as N72602 and the FAA wbsite links this to G9-434. With the nuimber of experts on this site I am sure this is a really easy question, does anyone know the RAF serial and was it really an F4 as the FAA indicate?
Second question relates to this B25, photgraphed at Lancaster, the same place as the Hunter. The story goes that this B25 belonged to Howard Hughes and he used it for his honeymoon to ? He left it somewhere in Nebraska or Oklamhoma and continued by road and train. On completion of his honeymoon he flew back to the West coast by commercial aircraft having completely forgotten where he left the B25. It was returned to him after the owner of the airfield where it resided, managed to contact Mr Hughes and demand a storage fee. Anyone know if there is any truth in this story? Sounds to me like a bit of a fairy tale to make up some interesting history for an aircraft that otherwise had no significant history, other than being a B25 of course.
Thanks in advance
QP
By: T J Johansen - 22nd June 2011 at 08:43
Check out this thread regarding the B-25.
http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=38927
T J
By: wieesso - 22nd June 2011 at 05:23
According to this site it’s the Ex-Danish E-403
http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/hunter/survivor.php?id=773
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Denmark—Air/Hawker-Hunter-F51/0187571/L/
By: ZRX61 - 22nd June 2011 at 05:20
You can almost see my house in the B25 pic. Yes, that one did belong to Hughes.