Rudy Frasca passed away

Warbirdnerd · **Joined:** Fri Apr 30, 2004 7:34 pm **Posts:** 2923

Sad news...
https://www.wcia.com/news/local-news/fr ... sses-away/

Michel Lemieux · **Posted:** Mon May 11, 2020 5:12 pm

RIP sir!

Just hoping that the man passion for warbirds will endure.

JohnTerrell · **Posted:** Mon May 11, 2020 5:41 pm

I'm sorry to hear that, though he sure lived a long and successful life. It has always been a pleasure to see the Frasca family's warbirds at Oshkosh over the years, including the Wildcat, P-40, Spitfire and Fw-190. With the Frasca Spitfire TP280 sold to Germany a few years back, the Frasca family has had another Spitfire Mk.XVIII, TP276, under restoration to fly at California Aerofab at Chino (or at least was reported so back in 2018).

Pat Carry · **Posted:** Wed May 13, 2020 7:39 am

RIP Rudy.

Dan K · **Posted:** Fri May 15, 2020 2:11 am

The first (and last) time I saw TP276 in person: Oshkosh 1979.

Does anybody else remember the donations box attached to the prop? :lol:

marine air · **Posted:** Fri May 15, 2020 9:16 am

They pretty much want airplanes to fly in. That is one of the very few times a junk or unfinished airplane was with the airworthy warbirds. One year there was a C-123 Procider that flew in with a few P-63 King okra parts on board. The Spitfire drew a lot of attention.

Bear · **Posted:** Fri May 15, 2020 9:28 am

marine air wrote:

They pretty much want airplanes to fly in. That is one of the very few times a junk or unfinished airplane was with the airworthy warbirds. One year there was a C-123 Procider that flew in with a few P-63 King okra parts on board. The Spitfire drew a lot of attention.

Don't forget about Glacier Girl. That was interesting to see all the parts they brought up from the ice.

phil65 · **Posted:** Fri May 15, 2020 10:38 am

Bear wrote:

marine air wrote:

They pretty much want airplanes to fly in. That is one of the very few times a junk or unfinished airplane was with the airworthy warbirds. One year there was a C-123 Procider that flew in with a few P-63 King okra parts on board. The Spitfire drew a lot of attention.

Don't forget about Glacier Girl. That was interesting to see all the parts they brought up from the ice.

I remember that... :drink3:

Phil

Matt Gunsch · **Posted:** Fri May 15, 2020 10:57 am

I always looked forward to see what Rudy would have at Oshkosh, I liked his Fiat, and saw Jeff Ethell fly the Spitfire. We had Frasca Beech F-33 sims when I worked for Lufthansa and at every airport in the system, somewhere on the field were Rudy's Warbirds,

JohnTerrell · **Posted:** Fri May 15, 2020 11:41 am

I forgot about the Fiat. Last night I was going through old photos from Oshkosh 2011 when the Frasca family had their Fw-190, P-40E, Spitfire TP280 and Wildcat all there at the same time (not sure if they had any of their other warbirds there as well). Leading up to that was the Frasca Field fly-in that year, about a month beforehand, for which the Fw-190 had been flown all the way to Illinois from Chino to participate and then was one of the stars at Oshkosh with the other Frasca warbirds.

Dan K · **Posted:** Fri May 15, 2020 12:06 pm

Bear wrote:

marine air wrote:

They pretty much want airplanes to fly in. That is one of the very few times a junk or unfinished airplane was with the airworthy warbirds. One year there was a C-123 Procider that flew in with a few P-63 King okra parts on board. The Spitfire drew a lot of attention.

Don't forget about Glacier Girl. That was interesting to see all the parts they brought up from the ice.

Also, the F3A remains were parked by the flyable warbirds when Lex trailered them in in 2005.

Same thing in 2013 with the Lake Michigan Wildcat Chuck Greenhill paid to have retrieved.

Around the same time, Roger Keys’ TDR-1 project was displayed with the training aircraft by Warbirds in Review.

Chris Brame · **Posted:** Fri May 15, 2020 4:04 pm

I remember seeing that Spitfire at Oshkosh. At the same time/area there was the wingless and very corroded hulk of a Beech Staggerwing partly covered with a tarp; were they connected?

Also the folks with the B-17C project have been bringing components for display in recent years.

bdk · **Joined:** Sun May 02, 2004 1:16 am **Posts:** 11324

marine air wrote:

That is one of the very few times a junk or unfinished airplane was with the airworthy warbirds.

They had the fuselage for what I think became the Collings TP-51C there one year as I recall.

Dan K · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2020 6:22 pm

bdk wrote:

marine air wrote:

That is one of the very few times a junk or unfinished airplane was with the airworthy warbirds.

They had the fuselage for what I think became the Collings TP-51C there one year as I recall.

...as well as Beck's P-51A project...

https://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51/p ... 28_dh1.jpg

https://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51/p ... 26_dh1.jpg

JohnB · **Posted:** Sun May 31, 2020 2:39 pm

Wow, a name pretty much synonymous with flying warbirds when I was a college kid.
And don't forget his P-40 was used for cockpit shots with John Belushi for the 1941 film. As I recall, they used Freca's ship because it was near Chicago where Belushi was filming The Blues Brothers.

RIP.

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Rudy Frasca passed away

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