I can find you an Intruder or Prowler pilot but probably not one that would fly the airplane in it's current state. The wings should be able to come off but I believe the main spar is one solid piece (I may well be wrong about that, I know next to nothing about them) which would add some complexity in it's removal. I don't think you'd have any height issues on interstates with the airplane loaded on a flat bed. You also don't need to have it on it's wheels during transport but could cradle it to save the extra few feet if need be.
The maintenance required to get a jet going again that's been sitting for 10+ years is going to be pretty involved but I don't have any maintenance manuals to offer for reference. The wings will come off however since rewinging them was a project toward the end of their time in service. It could be as simple as 2 bolts for all I know. Sounds like a neat project. If you guys are that short on cash and actually would get the thing on display I'd chip in a few bones to the cause.
When we brought the F-15 back, we had two semis plus our own trailer. The fuselage was on one trailer on its belly and the wings, horizontal stabilizers and vertical stabilizers were on the second. It was just a little oversized.
Your more than welcome to chip in if you want though, we always accept donations.
It’s not that we are short on cash per say, it’s just that the way that we are currently set up, we are completely self-sufficient. We never seem to get grants either. We have some investments and we have general funds for the Museum itself and each aircraft. If our finances ever drop below a certain point, we will sell a project in restoration before we do anything else. But all of our money either come from donations or from air shows.
The aircraft that are in restoration only get their money through our four fund raisers during the year (a pig roast, a hangar dance, selling placemat ads and our aviation appreciation day). Our flying aircraft get appearance fees at airshows and our C-123 actually can make enough money during the air show season to support our whole outfit to a degree. With the C-123, 1/3 of all profits must be sent to the official owner of the plane, 1/3 goes to the 123's own general fund (money for its maintenance and to keep it flying) and the last 1/3 (as of this year) will be put into another fund that will be used to provide needed money for the restoration project(s) that really need it, but currently don’t have it. Once the planes start flying and earning money, they will then payback the money they used into that "restoration fund".
But to make sure that we can continue on into the future, we really can't afford to spend that type of money to get a plane in flying condition and then actually fly it the couple hundreds of miles just to put it back on static display. We don’t intend to fly it even though we could if we really wanted to. I don’t know this, but I would bet money on it that the CAF either just barely breaks even or loses money on their F4 Phantom but are able to support the operations due to the other aircraft.
We figured the wings should be able to be removed, but we just don’t know where to even look. It could very well have a single piece spar, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all. The B-29 is like that.
As for the NADEP, i might give Norfolk's a shot. My brother is actually there receiving training right now, so i will give him a call tomorrow and see if he can find some connections for us.
