Flying Heritage Collection

If there is someone who can afford it, it will be him.

Good move

Cees

Well if there was one warbird operator with enough clout and cash to do this after so many tried, it was Paul Allen.

Great achievment really, but I bet we’ll never know at what cost…. 😉

Looks like this was in fact the case.

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1877&sid=53aff71b933eec33a59ba36d0f05fd1d

I’m still curious about the rumored disappearance of the (way overpriced) P-61 in Bejing. Anyone care to speculate on who might have acquired it? The FHC is one of the only entities I can think of with a huge budget, and an express desire to operate completely under the radar.

There’s this story of a Do 335 being tested by the French after the war and they accidently cut open the headrest cushion. It was filled with human hair.

About 10 years or so ago, I attended a fasinating ‘live’ 😉 lecture of the history of small arms, given by a chap from the Pattern Room, and he said that the stocks of late war produced German K98 rifles weren’t wood as such but a resin of compressed human hair……… 😮 🙁

There’s this story of a Do 335 being tested by the French after the war and they accidently cut open the headrest cushion. It was filled with human hair.

The pilot refused to fly the thing afterwards…

🙁

I seem to remember an RAE operated Fiesler Storch crashing post war and the reasoning was put down to sabotage by the workers in the occupied territories.

Very small world…I just finished said book two nights ago and it was indeed an outstanding read.

Incidentally, the Operations Officer of the 379th at the time was a Lt Col Louis ‘Rip’ Rohr. A relation I believe of a certain member of our little congregation who writes from Maine each evening.
Cheers
Andy

Hi Andy,

Now who could tha happen to be :p speaking of Col. Rohr if everything goes right I’m going to be seeing his daughter over the Hoildays.

Cheers Crazymainer

I think there was also an instance where a dud German shell was disarmed and found to contain a piece of paper with the words “This is all we can do…”, which was thought to have been put into the body of the shell by a forced labourer. Not sure where I read that,

Steve
it came from ‘The Fall of Fortresses’ by Elmer Bendiner.
He was a navigator with the 379th BG at Kimbolton. Those shells were dug out of the leading edge of the wing of the B-17 he flew in.
I think it was called ‘Tondelayo’–great book. I read it twenty years ago when I was still a student.

Incidentally, the Operations Officer of the 379th at the time was a Lt Col Louis ‘Rip’ Rohr. A relation I believe of a certain member of our little congregation who writes from Maine each evening.
Cheers
Andy

I think there was also an instance where a dud German shell was disarmed and found to contain a piece of paper with the words “This is all we can do…”, which was thought to have been put into the body of the shell by a forced labourer. Not sure where I read that, but as Dave says, it sure makes you think about how awful their situation must have been for them to have taken such risks.

I seem to remember a tale on here a year or two back where someone claimed that the enforced labourers who’d worked on the Jumos had made a small hacksaw mark at the base of many of the blades during assembly. I’ve searched for this message several times since, but without any luck. Does this ring any bells?

I do remember that Robbo, but I won’t bother trying to find the thread. In my opinion the search engine leaves a lot to be desired. Perhaps you could search it on Yahoo.co.uk though as I was using that the other day and it came up with many hits from threads on this forum – you’ll probably have better luck there.

I have also heard of the enforcred workers in ammunition factories continually adjusting the tooling so the rounds and shells didn’t fit the weaponry, and in some cases the ammo would misfire killing the user. Pretty brave stuff, but I guess they were in such a desperate situation they had to do something to rebel against the Hun.

Hi

If his restorations were as reliable as Winduz there would be smoking holes all over Washington state – you can’t reboot a 262 when it quits on you!!

Regards
JP

Would anyone care to hazard a guess as to the cost of commissioning and testing a batch of turbine blades for 2 flightworthy engines and however many spare Jumos?

That’ll be why MS are tightening up on Software piracy then 😀

Couldn’t the same be said of the Gladiator? That’s got an engine that’s prone to rich mixture cuts, if mishandled. Why is the Me262 more valuable than that? Where do you stop – “that aircraft is a genuine combat veteran, you can’t fly it!”? “That aircraft is genuine WW2 production, you can’t fly it!”?

It’s not just the same as getting one of the replicas, in my opinion – the real 262 will have the real engines in, and won’t have some of the compromises that have been made on the replicas. Not to mention the provenance issue.

My guess would be…….. a shed load of $$$$$ however good luck to them it would be interesting to see if they can get the reliability.

Maybe so..but my point is why risk it ??

Dave

From what I understand, the Jumo was a fundamentally good engine, when handled correctly. The unreliability was due to the poor alloys in the turbines, which caused a lot of turbine failures. I presume that the engines will be well tested before they are flown.

I’m aware that the Jumo has to be handled very carefully, but there are other aero engines that will get you in trouble – eg the Bristol Mercury.

The Me262 will fly..with 60 year old Jumos !! Why risk an original aircraft with engines that were notoriously unreliable when new ?? Leave it on the ground and buy one of the new builds. Is this a case of more money than sense ??

Would seem to be the case… 😮

And then you would have to find a pilot stupid enough to want to fly it…..

Interesting…. I can think of at least 3 organisations in the UK who are working on aircraft for this collection……