Warbird Information Exchange

In honor of Gary Hilton's triumphant delivery of a Lodestar fuselage from Texarkana, TX all the way to Montana, I decided to have a small Lodestar moving ceremony. This poor Lodestar has had it pretty rough. It was submerged with salt water when Hurricane Ike pounded Galveston, Texas several years ago. The plane then ended up in a junk yard on Galveston Island. What the salt water didn't destroy, the Galveston Fire Department did when they used it to practice on with their cut-off saws. At some point in time, I lost my mind and decided that it would be a good idea to save it from the wrath of the fire department. I slid my 29 foot trailer under it, zipped off the wings Gary Hilton style and drove it away from the mean fire department bullies. The fuselage is in extremely poor shape but I can't leave a man behind so over the bridge back to the mainland we went with the relic of a Lodestar. The tail stuck out past the rear of my trailer only 16 feet, but the good news was that we were only 4ft over the legal total length limit. It was dark before we got off of the island and all of my trailer lights shorted out. The trailer brakes went out and the trailer license plate fell off . We past a ton of Texas D.P.S. cars along the way and we did so with no Imperial entanglements. Good times.

excellent save!!!

Nice save!

you Sir get the 2012 trophy for the widest picture post on the forum!

Well done saving this airframe!!

Jason,

Congratulations on the successful rescue! Whatcha got planned for that ol' relic? Something cool, no doubt. . .

Are you going back for the wings or just sticking to the fuselage?


Travis

Heres another atta boy, for you

U dun good!!!!

I went back down today and got what was left of the wing root and nacelles. This stuff is really corroded from the salt water bath. The wings, engines and tail surfaces have been missing for years now. I'm going to start cutting up the nacelles tomorrow to get panels to paint nose art on. I wish someone could use the landing gear, but with the amount of corrosion and rust, I don't see that happening. If any of you know of someone that might be able to use some of these parts let me know. I really don't want to send them to the smelter.
As far as the fuselage goes, I had high hopes of being able to patch up the holes and put the fuselage on a motor home chassis and drive the crud out of it. But once I saw how badly cut up she is, I'm rethinking that idea. I might just cut up the fuselage to make art work out of it. No matter what the cockpit and nose are getting repaired and staying with me!

Here are some pictures of what this one looked like in happier days. I remember this one sitting out behind the Lone Star Flight Museum for years as a static display. I wish I could have saved it before that terrible Hurricane Ike hit.

Was this one a Howard 250 at one time?

I don't know how to tell if it was a Howard 250 conversion. I'll get some better interior shots tomorrow. It had several passenger chairs in it and at one time it had a decent bathroom in the rear, but other than that I'm not certain. Note the full sized Chevrolet truck that someone in the junkyard parked in the passenger side of the Lodestar. We had to remove the truck with a forklift.

That long window looks to be sombodys' conversion, don't know who besides Howard did the but am sure there were others.

carlisle1926 wrote:

Fun hauling airplanes home behind a Dodge, eh?

carlisle1926 wrote:I wish someone could use the landing gear, but with the amount of corrosion and rust, I don't see that happening. If any of you know of someone that might be able to use some of these parts let me know. I really don't want to send them to the smelter.

The National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton, Ontario is currently restoring a Hudson to static display using Lodestar (?) wings from out west.
Not sure if they have landing gear or not. Worth a try I guess...
http://airforcemuseum.ca/en/restoration ... estoration

Congratulations and Thanks for saving this one!

Have you determined an ID for the airframe?