Warbird Information Exchange

or another Mosquito anyway-

In 1990 I had just started working for the old Weeks Air Museum in Miami, and we took the Mosquito and P-51 to Sun 'N' Fun. I rode up in the Mosquito with Kermit and rode back in Cripes A' Mighty 3rd with Linda, and took these photos from the back seat of the P-51 leaving Lakeland. Pretty good week....







And Kermit gave my dad a ride in the Mosquito during one of the airshows, which I thought was pretty nice of him-

Have been scanning some old photos, and thought these were good enough to share-



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http://www.biplanerides1.com/

Good enough? They're awesome... thanks for sharing!

Hmmm...
I dunno how many WIXers would say that this qualified as a " pretty good week".....
Maybe more like.....

Thanks for sharing those most worthy photos!!

I've been fortunate enough to meet Kermit a few times and he is always willing to talk airplanes.

How long 'til the worlds population of airworthy Mosquitos doubles?? Next year maybe?

Andy Scott

That was nice of Kermit and Linda.Thats a ride that not many people will get to experience ever.

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Hang The Expense

Here are a couple of more Kermit's Mosquito Taken in 1989.








Mark Fidler

What happened to his Mosquito?

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"According to the map, we've only gone 4 inches."

On display in the EAA museum in Oshkosh.

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Keep Em' Flying,
Christopher Soltis
Dedicated to the preservation and education of The Sikorsky Memorial Airport

CASC Blog Page: http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/
Warbird Wear: https://www.redbubble.com/people/warbirdwear/shop

Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?

Thank you Andrew, and Mike, for posting the photos! It's been great to hear Kermit talk about this aircraft in the last few years, and about the intentions of getting it flying again. He provided an update about the aircraft on his Facebook page as recently as only about a week ago. He touched on how he was planning on flying the aircraft from Oshkosh in 1990, where it had been displayed at the air show, to Florida, hitting some military shows along the way, but how that plan fell through as the shows got canceled due to what was happening in the middle east at the time. Then, with Hurricane Andrew and having to deal with that mess, the situation with the Mosquito languished. The aircraft has remained on display at the EAA Museum now for more than 22 years. The hope expressed, is to get it to Fantasy of Flight once there is some hangar space devoted to it, where once there, the paint and fabric would be removed, since it is cracking, and the wood skins and glue joints inspected (though nothing is anticipated to be wrong with the wood or glue joints).

A most enviable experience Baldeagle. Do you have any from-the-right-seat impressions to share about how it handled?

August

Linda holds darn good station, I'd say!
Chris...

It is a heck of a ride, better than the P-51, which is obviously a high bar. In the back seat of the '51 you can see the back of the pilot, and the two wings, and it makes a lot of glorious noise (plus all of your friends on the ground are jealous). In the Mosquito there are Merlins roaring away on both sides, props spinning almost within reach, you're looking out through lots of canopy framing instead of a bubble, the cockpit is so tight that the seats are staggered, and you can see everything the pilot is doing. There are stories that on long flights Kermit would get up to 10,000 feet and swap seats so that the rider (one of his employees) could fly a little, but the Lakeland trip was the longest I got in it. The neatest ride I had was one of its last flights, near Oshkosh, when Kermit rolled it. Just from watching I'd say that it looks like it must be a very nice flying airplane.

Another good ride is a Curtiss Jenny, lots of stuff going on around you, engine rocker arms jumping, brace wires vibrating, struts everywhere...

My first Mustang ride is kind of a good story too. Not long after I moved to Miami we did a show at Homestead Air Force Base, and Kermit took the Mosquito, Mustang (again flown by Linda), and Sopwith Triplane. It took some shuffling, and after the show Linda and Kermit took the Mosquito and Mustang back to Tamiami, and then she flew him back in the P-51 to get the Sopwith. As they came down final I was standing next to the CO of the based F-16 squadron. He said, "Every guy in my squadron would give his left nut just for a ride in that..." Linda taxied up, Kermit got out, and she pointed to me and motioned, "Let's go!" So I said goodbye to the F-16 CO and went for my Mustang ride....

While I'm telling Weeks Air Museum stories, another good one happened over the everglades one fine afternoon. I used to fly Kermit's Piper L-4 a lot, and was giving a ride to a friend one day when we spotted Kermit and Pete McManus chasing each other around in their Mustangs. I switched to A2A frequency, could hear them talking, and transmitted, "I'm going to shoot you both down"
Kermit said "Where are you?"
"About 2 miles east of you"
"Don't go anywhere"
OK. So we flew along as they flew past and pulled up into what looked like it was going to be a half cuban. I didn't want to get in the way so turned right.
I heard Kermit, "Where'd you go"
"I turned west"
"OK, fly straight and level"
Hmmm?? OK. We flew straight and level. A minute later there was the most hellacious noise you ever heard coming from under the floorboards of the Cub, and a Mustang pulled up in front of us and started to roll. As our jaws hit the floor and we hit the wake the noise came again and the second P-51 followed the first. Wow!
Wonder how many times that happened over England in '44-'45.


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http://www.biplanerides1.com/

You definitely need to tell us more stories!

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."