Depends on time of year, I reckon….Texas has three in October at the CAF show at Midland (usually ‘Texas Raiders’, ‘Sentimental Journey’, and ‘Thunderbird’, all usually attend the show, but you might also see Doc Hospers ‘Chuckie’ on the line, or another visiting B-17)…the Collings Fndtn. B-17 ‘909’ is always in tranist from one place to another except when being maintained over the winter in FL, Tom Reilly’s bird is still being worked on, Kermit Weeks bird is being worked on and is almost ready to fly (I think)…have never seen ‘Fuddy Duddy’ but know it’s active in NY…’Aluminum Overcast’ is out of the game for a while…The ‘Yankee Lady’ is based in MIchigan, i believe, and Bob Pond’s Fort is out in Calif, where they are also restoring a B-17 at Chino…Evergreen’s B-17 ‘Shady Lady’ is up at the museum at McMinnville, OR and is active…north of her is ‘Killer B’, which is SUPPOSED to fly as per the will of the former owner who passed away and left it to the Museum of Flying up there…but don’t know if it does…any I missed?

You guys have NO IDEA how loud a real .50 calibre gun can be…I got to fire a .50 calibre in the US Coast Guard, we would put a 55 gallon drum half filled with gas in the sea and shoot at it..WITH tracer rounds so the gas would ignite if we hit the barrel…I was STUNNED by the incredible noise that gun could make, and having six or eight of them in a plane in combat in WWII just amazes me…how the planes did’nt shake themselves to pieces is beyond me! That and the propensity for the gun to pull itself downward (barrel pointing at the water in front of you) as you fired the gun were some of the interesting results of firing such a weapon…we only fired 3 or 4 rounds at a time so as to save the wear on the barrels……would’ve LOVED to cut loose with a good long stream of bullets, but it was’nt allowed…
Collings Foundation bombers just came through my neck of the woods out here, someone told me that their guns are ALL ORIGINAL with just the firing pins removed…put that back in and the things could go back into combat if anyone had any .50 caliber rounds!!

Mark

Mark V…how about that smaller model of a Corsair that was being displayed alongside Gary Kohs FG-1D…get any pics of that? It was amazing….the judges even asked which plane they were there to judge, the big one or the model? I would post them but my scanner does’nt work…maybe you can show them some of it. It was a great Oshkosh, my second go around….sounds like I’ll do another next year!

Mark

Anna’s left breast? Curious about that one…any pics?

Great pics…ALL of them….have an 8×10 on my wall from one of my trips over there of BM597 (the Mk.V Spit) with a army Jeep parked beside it…two of my favorite things in the whole world, Jeeps and warbirds…now if it just had a Hockey player in it, THREE of my faves would be covered…
Funny to see the ex-Morgan Corsair flying over there in England as it did for three years, now back here in Texas (and under repair after it’s gear up landing)…somehow I always knew that thing would come back….unfortunately under sad circumstances.

Mark

I have to think that the wood would’ve not taken all too well to the stresses of combat flying from carrier decks and there would have been some structural failures of the plane at one point or another…but an ‘A’ for effort and ingenuity on behalf of those who thought of the idea….they did achieve the first ever landing of a multi engine aircraft on a carrier, opening the door for a lot of more signicant ‘twins’ in military service….anyone know where the link to the footage of a C-130 landing on a carrier deck can be seen?

Mark