Second restoration

I believe the second restoration was caused by acute pilot discomfort following the discovery of the amount of putty & paint covering active corrosion of main structures.

I don’t think the aircraft was converted from an Allison A-36 variant. If memory serves me right, Regina started with a P-51B/C centre section, which he completed with a D mainplane and sundry other components.

Veltro

Stewart

The G.50 is unique (sole survivor, in storage in Belgrade).
The Macchi C.202/5 family is very rare – five survivors of about 1500 built.

Veltro

The latest issue of LE FANA DE L’AVIATION has an inflight photo of the unarmed no. 82, clearly legible on the rudder, in service with the 4th Escadrille of the Cazaux fighter school in 1948 or 1949. The photo is credited to “BA 120”.

Veltro

The Spitfire IX MK805 in the Italian Air Force Museum has a nice replica crowbar, made by the late Aldo Marchetti in 1989. Unfortunately it is usually hidden inside the closed cockpit access panel …

I forget whether the drawings were supplied by the noted Spitfire historian Peter Arnold or whether Aldo, an accomplished artist and model builder, sketched it himself from photographs.

Veltro

You are probably right when you that we cannot prove either point: lack of information, different accounting systems and so on.

Certainly in my neck of the woods there is one museum which was never rich and is now hurting , one which was a private collection and got substantial money in the early Nineties and is now regularly open with a small staff and one which is military and therefore carries on as ever. A medium private museum opened in the Eighties and subsists, without ever having had any scientific pretensions. A small private museum opened without a business plan and closed.

Most of the WW2 and pre-WWW2 stuff is better looked after than ever before. Some of the post-WW2 American stuff is somewhat worse for tear. Except for the great Caproni push in the early Nineties, virtually everything worth doing has been done by volunteers.

For all the tweed in the world, looking at the overall balance I can’t say much changed here in the sunny Med in the past 20 years.

Veltro

PV140 was probably photographed in Britain, as the picture appears in many old publications including (IIRC) the stalwart Aircam. It was sold to Turkey but the ferry flight was unsuccessful and the aircraft ended up at Brindisi. It was eventually taken on charge by the Italian Air Force at Lecce on 19 May 1949, becoming MM.4286.
The same occurred to RK803, which became MM.4287, but for which no photo seem to have emerged so far.
Prints or very high resolution photos of either Spit very welcome!

Veltro

ZX-J

Mark 12,

The lake is very deep and many years ago an underwater exploration revealed nothing but an HU-16A Albatros which had crashed in a known location.

Bear in mind that the lake is extremely deep and that much of the accessible wreckage was recovered for scrap just after the war. This included the Cant. Z.511 four-engine floatplane, which had been scuttled to prevent it from falling in German hands.

The lake has since been designated a water reservoir for Rome and all power navigation banned. Still, I would imagine that with proper paperwork and funding a dedicated search might be attempted.

Veltro

All hope not lost

My dream is for TFC to have the Fiat CR.42 flying at Legends. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until 2006 to see it shoot down Gladiators once again. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Veltro