On February 8 this year the Malta Aviation Museum rolled out the newly-resotred Tiger Moth, a real beauty. One of the bonuses here is that one can see all restoration taking place as its done in the same hangars. Together with the stored remains of other awaiting restoration – Swordfish, Meteor, Sea Venom, etc.

An appeal has been made to fully restore the Sea Gladiator, with the museum holding all extra parts needed. Red tape has prevented this so far, so your comments in favour of this restoration when visiting the War Museum would be appreciated.

RJC

Polish flag

Nice link and very good pics timwing.

It has always intrigued me to see the Polish flag on the nose of aircraft painted in ‘normal’ and ‘flipped’ versions. Going through the pics one can notice the flag painted with a red square either at the top right or top left.

Anyone can put a reason to this anomaly?

Museo della Scienza e della Tecnica, Milan

A very interesting glider is preserved in this museum, also know as the Leonardo da Vinci museum. The Caproni C.A.T. TM.2 was first flown in the spring of 1943 but was extensively damaged during trials. Was rebuilt but never went into production.

Quite novative in the design was the inclusion of four large lateral doors, two on each side, that virtually opened most of the fuselage sides for quick loading and unloading. Payload was estimated at 4,400lb.

Only WWII shots I have ever found below. Should have pics I took at the museum but need to dig these up as they were taken in 1978.

Looking great. Good luck with the project.

This one’s probably a better quality.

RJC

OK Tim, give me some time and I’ll dig out the rest of the details.

The bands above the wings would be slightly inboard of the roundels. Italian aircraft carried two weight tallies on their aircraft, usually on the fin, but these could also be found on the rear fuselage, below the tailplane, sometimes. The first ‘PV’ is Peso a Vuoto, meaning ’empty weight’. ‘CU’ stands for Carico Utile, meaning ‘load capacity’. Adding both one gets the all-up weight.

The undersides bands are very much like those painted on RAF aircraft in layout, including the black underside to the fixed part of the tailplane and the yellow control surfaces.

More here… looked in pretty good shape in 1988!

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/corsairregistry/f4u-123168.html

AND…

“You’ll also notice that the aircraft carries a bureau number of 122179, in place of its real ID number. 122179 is another ex-Honduran aircraft that suffered a forced landing near Houston, Texas in 1984 and was badly damaged. In 1987, work began to restore 123168 to airworthiness, with a large number of parts from 122179 used in the restoration. At some point over the years, 123168’s data plate was lost, and at the time of the restoration, no one seemed to know the true identity of the airplane.”

FROM:

http://agapemodels.com/?p=1243

AND MORE:

“123168 to Honduras AF as FAH-603 in 1956. Recovered from Honduras as a
collection of components in 1979. Rebuilt to airworthy using
parts of 122179. Original plate was illegible, adopted the ID of
122179. Registered as N179PT Oct 1987. To Warbirds of GB Ltd, Biggin
Hill Aug 14, 1988. Registered as N179NP. Damaged after running off
runway to avoid collision at Oshkosh, WI Jul 29, 1999 but rebuilt to
airworthy. Flown as Marines 122179/WR-5.

FROM:

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher/thirdseries13.html

RJC

Here’s Another!

OK, do I have to tell you what’s wrong with this one?