OK, here are two more C-46s…

N800FA at Geneseo NY (since moved to the Glenn Curtiss Museum at Hammondsport via Wings of Eagles at Elmira…for a non-flyer she gets around!)

C-FAVO at Penhold (Red Deer) Alberta in 1995.

S.

Um…

Aren’t the third and fourth flying boats, the two with darker-coloured hulls, earlier wooden Supermarines (Southamptons or something of that ilk)? They sure look too rounded for the Seagull/Walrus series to me, to say nothing of the two-bay wings…

S.

Peter–

Thanks; went onto WIX afterward and saw the news obituary there. (The hint of doubt was due to the fact I’d heard about Walt’s passing at least twice before…when it had not in fact happened!)

Couple reminders of why it is we owe Walt a vote of thanks…

NAA TB-25K, now flying with Jerry Yagen in Virginia

Goodyear FG-1D, now with Ken McBride in California

NAA EF-82E, now with C&P Aviation in Minnesota

Goodyear F2G-2, 1947 Thompson Trophy champion, now being restored to fly for owner in Ohio

That, of course, is the tip of the iceberg.

Thank you again, Mr Soplata.

S.

Hi Cees, Peter et al–

The CWH Boly spares were NOT lost in the February 1993 hangar fire; what Boly parts were indoors at that stage were in the south bay of Hgr#3 where the Lancaster was, but most were stored outdoors. There were parts of at least nine airframes. The one now under rebuild is 10117, or at least the aft fuselage is and that’s apparently the ID being used. It was to have been restored as a 119 (BR) Sqn Mk.IVW with Pratt & Whitney engines but that plan has been changed and it will now emerge as a standard Mercury-engined Mk.IV in the same unit’s markings.

The spares were moved, first to an open space near the new airport firehall, then most went to O’Con Aircraft near Uxbridge.

The Ansons at Nanton were a marvelous sight in a ghostly heap amid the hay on Mr Evans’ farm years ago…but as has been said they were in pretty sorry shape, some being tough to identify at all, and everything useful had been removed. One or two hulks went to other museums before the Gravitas installation took shape. Being a straight-arrow realist aircraft painter myself, I nonetheless think Gravitas is rather nifty…

S.

Magnificent.

This story appears to take place at one of the three National Warplane Museum “Wings Of Eagles” airshows that were held at Genesee County Airport, Batavia, New York…specifically either 1995 or 1996, as it was one of those years the (then) Confederate Air Force A6M-2 Zero attended. Those three shows were the best Warbird events I ever witnessed, and I’ve witnessed a good few! PV-2 “Hot Stuff” from Indiana was a fixture at Batavia and at the preceding big NWM Geneseo shows.

Noted, too, in this beautiful story is the fact that the PVs have not received their due; even the veteran in the story believes no PV survives…until he sees “Hot Stuff” proudly parked at Batavia. Here’s to the Indiana group, and the two or three other groups who have tried to give the Lockheed mediums their due. This crew’s encounter with this veteran must have been such a wonderful reward for keeping a “what the heck is that” warbird flying…

Again, magnificent.

S.

…Just noted the ref to Berlin Airlift, yes there’s a film, “The Big Lift” with (iirc) Montgomery Clift, ca.1951. Plenty of fine footage of C-54s. Found it not too long ago in a dollar store on a three-on-one DVD!

…And I think there was indeed a TV doc on Carolyn Grace and her Spitfire T9, as well. The title may have been “Perfect Lady”, but am going on memory from magazine accounts, as I have never seen the doc…

S.

Bump!

Lost track of this one…never confirmed the location of my ’95 Yale/Boly shot. The most popular guess as to where it wasn’t…is correct for where it was! Nanton, Alberta, remote museum storage site on then-curator Robert Evans’ farm property. May 1995. Besides the pictured Yale and Bolingbroke parts, there were more Boly sections, a T-33 fuselage, several sizeable chunks of a former range-target Lancaster X (sadly the soldiers’ aim had been pretty good), a Battle wing panel, two Crane fuselage frames, and in one corner of the field an amazing “crop” of over twenty derelict Anson I/II airframes. Eventually I’ll post pix of some of that.

S.

Brian–

I doubt EHF will be restored any time soon…these photos were taken between 19 and 26 years ago, the Proctor was disassembled afterward and has been in storage in pieces for well over a decade. The collection to which it belongs, also, is famously private, much more so than when they were based at Mt.Hope twenty years ago.

S.