As I understand it, Richardson willed it to the Museum with the understanding that they keep it a flyer….but they seem to have forgotten about that part and decided NOT to honor a dead man’s wishes….nice mentality, they would’nt HAVE that B-17 if it was’nt a flyer…

M

LF390…not too far from LF 363, huh?

The Hurricane took its base coat of paint tonight….I finally got a proper air tank at the auto parts store and filled it with 60 psi of air then came home and hooked it up to the airbrush, and off we went…a slight air leak where the hose connects to the tank but nothing a little bit of pipe tape won’t fix….anyway, the underside of the Hurricane is now a ‘sand’ color and REMARKABLY similar to some of the photos in Dibbsy’s book ‘Flying Legends’ (actually I’m basing the paint scheme on the Duxford based ‘XR-T’ with the fighting Eagle painted on it…repainted last year as HA-C, I know, but the photos are great to work from) and the upper surfaces are now a medium tan and waiting for the right color brown, which I don’t have here at the house…so I continued on to my Birdcage Corsair and finished its upper surfaces in dark blue before I ran out of air pressure…unfortunately I was’nt able to make any headway on my Wildcat which will take a good bit of the same color of dark blue, but let me fill that tank again and I’ll get to her…

Mark

Actually, as of about a month ago, Aluminum Overcast flew back to Oshkosh to undergo her repairs, so TECHNICALLY she has flown recently….and will again, you can be sure…

Mark

I’m classifying them as flying B-17’s in the simplest sense…they once flew and they are expected to fly again, and if they can be pictured flying in the last few years then they count…some have said that ‘Chuckie’ might be out of the game also, but I’m counting her here because the pic was shot in 2000 and I’m sure she could be made ready to fly again if needed, if she isn’t ready already…likewise, although ‘Killer B’ flew recently, apparently it was her final hop to the Museum of Flying in Seattle and she will fly no more, so I am counting her now as a museum piece, like the ‘Mary Alice’…not active, not included (sad but true)…

Thanks for the comments on the pics…some better than others but that’s due to improving autofocus technology (all pics are print scans by the way, no digital here!)

Mark

Hmmm…interesting….I was convinced that none were ever painted as such, but once again, surprise rears its head….I was looking for a different paint scheme for my Mk IIc cannon armed Hurricane model here, but these planes are earlier marks of the Hurricane…

Maybe I’ll just paint it the way the box portrays it, as a SEAC Hurricane…

Mark