Mystery Bird at Pima - 2004

[Steve Nelson]

I was going through the pics I took at Pima back in the summer of '04, and ran across these. I've always wondered what the heck it is. It was out among the hulks in the back 40..looks like a fuselage section, wearing what might be a very weathered JSDF Hinomaru. Sorry for the quality..I was shooting from the back of a moving (more like low flying) golf cart.

Thanks,

Steve

Last edited by Steve Nelson on Wed Mar 11, 2009 4:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Mark_Pilkington]

.
I understood they had some B-26 Maraulder sections that had been given Japanese markings for movie work? this is a centre mounted wing similar to the Maraulder but I didnt think that fuselage had breaks to remove the top section or cockpit in that form, (it in someway looks a bit like an A-20 hulk? except the second photo gives away the round shape of the fuselage as not being A-20.)

see this WIX thread on the B-26 project at Hill AFB Museum.

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=23594&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=b26+maraulder+pima&start=15

This is a David aircraft. The meatballs were painted on there when it was used in the film "A guy named Joe". I believe the rear fuselage is in Akron with the MAPS Air Museum.

The rear fuselage with the meatballs is at Pima. The camper guy had 2 nose sections. The one at Pima is one of them.

James

regards

Mark Pilkington

Last edited by Mark_Pilkington on Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:55 am, edited 2 times in total.

[mustangdriver]

I worked on several of the DT airframes. The Japanese art work was from "A Guy named Joe". That looks like the rear fuselage of the B-26.

[Steve Nelson]

Actually the Marauder chunk of which you speak was in the hangar, along with the A-20 fuselage. I believe you're right about the wing mounting on the Marauder..and the wing on this hulk is mounted much too low for a B-26 anyway. It's also too fat to be an A-20. I have to admit, it's got me baffled.

Here are the Marauder sections, and the A-20.

[Clifford Bossie]

I was going through the pics I took at Pima back in the summer of '04, and ran across these. I've always wondered what the heck it is. It was out among the hulks in the back 40..looks like a fuselage section, wearing what might be a very weathered JSDF Hinomaru. Sorry for the quality..I was shooting from the back of a moving (more like low flying) golf cart.

Thanks,

Steve

It is an SB2A Brewster Buccaneer. Or in this case a Bermuda.

[Dan K]

I was going through the pics I took at Pima back in the summer of '04, and ran across these. I've always wondered what the heck it is. It was out among the hulks in the back 40..looks like a fuselage section, wearing what might be a very weathered JSDF Hinomaru. Sorry for the quality..I was shooting from the back of a moving (more like low flying) golf cart.

Thanks,

Steve

It is an SB2A Brewster Buccaneer. Or in this case a Bermuda.

Cliff speaks the truth. Check the link and believe:

http://www.pimaair.org/collection-detail.php?cid=41

This is a DT-/MARC-owned machine. I believe its former home was somewhere in upstate New York (but I'm too old & lazy to confirm!).

[Steve Nelson]

Thanks, guys!

The embarrasing thing is that the answer was literally right in front of me. I shot these pics outside the restoration hangar at NMNA the following summer..it's definately the same type (note the three prominent fasteners below the "turtledeck" on the fuselage.) What I took to be a weathered Hinomaru may actually be a British roundel.

I never even considered an SB2A, because I thought the only surviving bits were the ones at P-cola. I understand that once the example on display was finished, the hulk I photgraphed was scrapped (it had been used as a parts source.) Too bad..I bet the miracle workers at Pima could have scrounged some usable parts off it.

SN

[mustangdriver]

I thought that most of the usable stuff was sent to Pima?

[bilwor]

A shot also taken in 2004.
bill word

[Dan K]

I thought that most of the usable stuff was sent to Pima?

Fittings, yes.

Centersection, wings, and remaining fuselage & empennage were all scrapped.

[Clifford Bossie]

This is how the airframe looked last April. Not much has changed since 2004.





There are also parts to a Lysander and a Beaufort in that area.