Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: MacLeod on January 21, 2003, 12:03:50 AM
-
They found a P-38 in Alaska and restored it. The Lost Squadron Museum has videos of it flying. Check it out.
http://www.thelostsquadron.com/firstflight.html
-
Not Alaska. They dug it out of the ice sheet in Greenland.
-
I believe it was in greenland.
-
Good stuff. Thanks.
-
oops, you are right, it was Greenland. I mixed it up with something else I was reading. LOL
-
One of my customers was a mechanic on the trip to pull glacier girl out..We got to talking about it and 3 hours later we laughed cause we had been talking so long... Great story..
I also worked for David Tallechet for 10 years, got the opportunty to see a lot and here some good stories...
Later T0J0
-
They wrote a book about the adventure to recover it. "The Lost Squadron", which is a great read with lots of glossy pictures.
-
I too tojo have done some restoration work for him through a non profit organization based just outside of columbus ohio. I dont work for him, i work for myslf and fo the airplanes because they are meant to fly. If i had my way, i wouldnt turn another wrench for him, horrible experience and holds to his deals like a con artist at a nursing home. just my $.02
By the way, ever notice he never even attempts to make it known that he doesn't own the 'real' memphis belle, just the one from the movie. The real one is parked gathering dust and sunrays. He wont tell you that though. or about the multi-millions of dollars worth of warbirds hes crashed.
-
the real memphis belle still exists ? and is unrestored?
wow
-
yes. its not in bad shape i bet you could start it and do some taxi tests who knows what sort of boogers are in the engine though. overhaul the engines, get it annualed and i dont see why it wouldnt fly. its no wrecked or anything just a static display.
-
From our internal Lockheed Martin newsletter:
Glacier Girl
Lockheed P-38 flies again after being recovered from 268 feet of ice
When eager expeditionists set off more than 10 years ago to recover a downed airplane deep in a Greenland ice cap, the group was initially propelled by a sense of adventure.
It wasn’t long after they’d recovered the Lockheed-built P-38 warplane that their focus changed from adventure to a deep sense of history and purpose.
“Once we started talking about our discovery with men who had fought in World War II, we realized that what we were doing was a tribute to the veterans who fought for the freedom we have today,” said J. Roy Shoffner, who funded the expedition and is sole owner of the aircraft, which today has been impeccably restored. “So many of them have told us that when they were pinned in foxholes, they’d hear the distinctive sound of the P-38 and would say, ‘We’ll be all right. Here come the P-38s.’”
Designed by Lockheed’s legendary Kelly Johnson, the P-38 Lightning was the fastest and highest-flying aircraft used in World War II. Flying high above the U.S. bombers, it effectively protected them from enemy fire.
Of the more than 10,000 P-38s that were produced, only 24 exist today. And of those, only six — including Shoffner’s, which he dubbed “Glacier Girl” — are capable of flying.
In fact, last fall, the unbelievable recovery efforts and 10 years of restoration work culminated with Glacier Girl’s first flight. The event took place in Middlesboro, Ky., where Shoffner lives, and it attracted 25,000 visitors — more than two and a half times the number of people who live in the town.
“There were people stacked four abreast on either side of the runway, whose length is the equivalent of 10 city blocks, and there were an additional 200 people at each end,” Shoffner said. “Every parking lot in town — at the Kmart, the Wal-Mart, the high school, the churches — they all were full.”
Hundreds of veterans and their families attended the first flight, as did people who had heard about the expeditionists’ wild excursion to Greenland, their incredible tale of lifting the airplane — piece by piece — from 268 feet of ice, and their dedicated restoration effort.
When the team members headed to Greenland, they followed in the footsteps of 12 teams that had previously tried to locate the plane. Shoffner’s team found success using a global positioning system to locate the aircraft’s general vicinity and low-frequency radar to pinpoint the exact location.
The team recovered the aircraft on July 15, 1992, exactly 50 years from the day when the plane was forced to land due to poor weather conditions and shortage of fuel. Lt. Brad McManus, who was flying the plane when it crashed on the ice cap in 1942, was on hand five decades later for the recovery celebration.
The expeditionists spent 14 weeks in Greenland, using a specially designed melting unit to reach the aircraft 27 stories below.
Once that feat was accomplished, the team used a special water pump to move water away from the aircraft so it could dissemble it down below. And it used specially designed gantries to lift the pieces up one by one. All 35,000 of them.
The aircraft arrived at Shoffner’s hangar at the Middlesboro Bell County Airport in late October 1992. For the next 10 years, a team of 12 mechanics with experience working on World War II planes restored the aircraft to its original glory.
“This is a one-of-a-kind aircraft, the only P-38F in the world,” said Bob Cardin, who served as project manager for the recovery and restoration and now is curator of The Lost Squadron Museum where the aircraft is on display in the same hangar where it was restored.
Cardin noted that the aircraft was 62 days old with only 74 hours of flight time when it crashed. It is the only one in existence from the beginning of the war, and it has the only complete set of P-38 guns in the world. It also has its original ammunition.
“We recovered not only an airplane, but an artifact from World War II,” he said. “This is a symbol of the freedoms we have today and the tool used to guarantee us the preservation of those freedoms.”
Today, the Lockheed-built relic is on display at the unassuming Lost Squadron Museum. In the near future, it will move to a new home at the same airport — a museum built for the project by the state of Kentucky.
“Veterans react with a tremendous amount of pride and emotion when they see Glacier Girl,” Cardin said.
“The first time a fella came in and said, ‘That thing saved my life,’ I knew we had done something good.”
For comprehensive information about Glacier Girl, check out The Lost Squadron Web site at http://www.thelostsquadron.com (http://www.thelostsquadron.com).
-
There was a special on the Memphis Belle on Historys lost and found a few weeks back.
Last I heard, she was fully restored and on display in....you guessed it, Memphis.
I do not think she is flight worthy, though, and even if she was....who would have the balls to take her up?
-
IF she is fully restored I would pay for the gas to fly from NY city to Lost angeles Just to ride in the tail gunner position
-
IF she is fully restored I would pay for the gas to fly from NY city to Lost angeles Just to ride in the tail gunner position
That would be about 20 hours in the tailgun position. They'd need a crane to get you out of it. :)
-
Originally posted by rickod
IF she is fully restored I would pay for the gas to fly from NY city to Lost angeles Just to ride in the tail gunner position
If you want to ride in a b17, check out the confedarate airforce. They routinely tour the U.S. in the Sentimental Journey. For $350 clams, you get a 1/2 hour ride.
I filmed a good portion of my flight from the bombadiers position, including the takeoff. Best $350 I've ever spent. Not counting the young lady in Amsterdam.
WAIT, did I type that out loud? :D
-
As far as having 'balls' to fly a B-17 its no different than flying another airplane. A good friend of mine is the pilot for Texas Raiders and its a cinch to fly. If you're concerned about flying NY to LA, hell i'll do it! 20 hours? no. not quite.
Yes tojo, he really gave the H.A.S. the shaft. the deal was (sound familiar) we restore the airplane as an all volunteer outfit in return for x years of having the airplane (Douglas A-26 Invader) hangared with us. We'd supply a pilot and we'd put in the elbow grease. Well, he decided that now its essentially airworthy...hes going to move it to another hangar and that will allow us more hangar space for him to dump a wrecked DC-3 for us to fix up. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Tojo...you ever hear the story how the museum at WPAFB got their P-47?
-
He came in for a landing, touched down...'touch' isnt the right word. his 'touch' was forceful enough to drive the gearlegs right up through the wings...spar and all. i vote we instate the death penalty for people who actually walk away from wrecking a warbird.
-
Originally posted by Karnak
Not Alaska. They dug it out of the ice sheet in Greenland.
Oh, thought they were same place, well they're both cold. Its a big world isn't it?
-
Not counting the young lady in Amsterdam.
That's a good one! I had a good laugh when I read that.
Back to the subject(or part of it). I got to not only take a ride in the Nine O' Nine, I got to fly it for about 15 minutes over Puget Sound(Seattle area). The pilot(I was in co-pilot's seat)let me have complete control of the B-17 and even let me bring it about 180 degrees to head back to the field. Needles to say, I had a huge erection and a smile to match. The only thing that would be better would be the Amsterdam lady on her knees while I was flying the plane.
Stony
:D
-
Originally posted by Golfer
yes. its not in bad shape i bet you could start it and do some taxi tests who knows what sort of boogers are in the engine though. overhaul the engines, get it annualed and i dont see why it wouldnt fly. its no wrecked or anything just a static display.
The aircraft is a basket case that is full of corrosion and was poorly "restored" (actually bondo'd and sanded with shoddy repairs) by people meaning well, that know SQUAT about restorations. Ohh, and the engines WILLNOT turn as they are rusted solid.
Thats the problem, volunteers generally know jack squat about restoring an aircraft, and 9 times oout of 10 are know-it-alls, so they can not be taught a simple task such as drilling out a rivet so they do not egg shape the hole. I go through 25 - 30 volunteers before I find one that is able to handle the concept of doing productive work. Most just gawk, ask questions and take up time talking. Professional Restoration shops have become so sick of this, it is now the norm tha our doors are closed to visitors.
Ohh, and as for you Tallichet bashers, guess what, the Man has decided to put up money to keep the aircraft flying, and as for the ones that crashed, had he not bought most of them, they would long since been reduced to toaster oven bodies. So lay off of it.
Ohh and btw Tojo, claiming like you did about Tallichet is libel, and can be pursued... so knock that crap off.
-
Originally posted by Bodhi
Ohh and btw Tojo, claiming like you did about Tallichet is libel, and can be pursued... so knock that crap off. [/B]
Whatever....
-
Bout the level of response expected from someone of your calibre.
-
Bodhi
I choose to move on and not create a flame fest in a thread as respect for HT's wishes... I will keep my opinions to myself and I would ask you to as well and not prepetuate the thread... I don't have anything against you and don't know you.. Let go of it..
And lets move on...
I apoligize for hurting anyone's feelings and opinions on Dave Talichet... I guess I need to let go too... I have more important things I want to do and learn, and talking about the past isn't one of them..
Again..
Lets move on...
T0J0