Oh, let’s see….have a photo here I took of Kurt and Goldie at Aspen one year, they were nice….John Elway…Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz (Aspen air show sponsor, believe it or not)…Chuck Yeager, Bud Anderson, Gunther Rall, Johnny Johnson, Tex Hill, Bob Hoover, lots more aviationally famous folk…missed meeting Vincent Price by five minutes…Kurt Cobain WAY before he was famous (and was STILL an a**hole)…John Denver….Steve Guttenberg….

Mark

Kinda what I heard too…I think they did..

M

Merlin-

When are you flying into Denver? If it’s a night or two stay, I can get you put up in Denver easily no cost…let me know your itinerary and what to expect…

Mark

Actually, Brit, I reckon a lot of folks on here have heard of this stuff before (I know I have) and I have seen some pics that some folks have posted here of the pieces and parts that are being done, so it’s no HUGE news to us, but it is nice to be kept abreast of what is going on and where to go and what to read to glean more info on the whole operation…I’ll definitely pick up Air Classics nect time I’m at Borders and peruse the article…I would love to see a few Mossies up and going again, never seen one fly…

Mark

No, agreed, flying is NOT condusive(sic?) to keeping an aircraft in pristine condition, parts WILL need to be changed, etc and it does wear and tear on the airframe, and it IS his (Champlin’s) aircraft…no denying….I guess I just thank god for those who have ‘rare aircraft’ who choose to fly them….if we grounded every aircraft automatically that there were 5 or less of left FLYING in the world, we would be grounding:

1 SB2C Helldiver
2 Avro Lancasters
1 B-29
1 F2G Corsair
4 Japanese Zeroes
2 Fairey Fireflies
3 B-24/LB-30 Liberators

Etc Etc….don’t have all the numbers on what all is left flying but only in limited numbers (under 5 of them)….yet a good number of these folks who own and operate these planes do so because they believe they should be seen in the air, not in some stuffy hangar or museum…and thank god for them. Museums have their place, but I think the majority of folks prefer ‘live action’.

Mark

I gotta go with Italian Harvard on this one, when I heard it was getting a total rebuild to airworthy condition I was seriously jazzed…but then I heard that Champlin was’nt going to fly it and I was just dumbfounded….why even bother, then? More people would get to see the plane if you flew it around to shows than would EVER see it just sitting in a museum that SOME of them may never get to (Collings Foundation B-24 logic kicking in here)…sure it’s rare….but if it’s handled right and maintained well, it should be around a LONG time…and even if it does prang, odds are it would still be restoreable unless something REALLY went wrong….

Just my 2 cents…

Mark

They gave us all those great roman numerals with which to ID certain models of Spits, Hurricanes, even some american planes in UK service….the Mk. IX, the Mk. XVI, the Mk. IV….how I FINALLY came to grips with roman numerals really, after only SORT of understanding them in school…

Mark