Trip Report: Deland Naval Air Station Museum

[florida.warbirds]

My son and I stopped by the Deland Naval Air Station Museum last week. Hope you enjoy the review.

https://floridawarbirds.wordpress.com/2 ... on-museum/

[Pat Carry]

[Chris Brame]

The TV-2 you posted is actually RT-33A 51-9098/N233Y which was the first civil T-33. Here it is in the 1960 movie The Crowded Sky (where, ironically, it plays a TV-2):



So the museum can boast that their plane was once sat in by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. and Troy Donahue!

[JohnB]

I love the HO-5S.
I wonder if they got he airframe from that Florida outfit that uses the rotor system in a homebuilt?
They had several S-52s/HO5Ss...but they didn't need the airframe.

[Matt Sharkey]

Great place to visit.

[raconnel]

A TBF-1, cool! Are there any other TBF/TBM-1 survivors in the US?

[JOMiller]

I remember the TBF from it's time at NNAM. Yet another example of their
attitude to share the wealth in spite of the naysayers. As I recall the BUNO
is not far off from those used at Midway by VT-8.

Do you remember is the squadron insignia (can't remember the unit) was
still visible on the fuselage beneath the pilot's cockpit? Is the early war
national insignia with the red ball still visible on the fuselage?

Owen

[Chris Brame]

A TBF-1, cool! Are there any other TBF/TBM-1 survivors in the US?

The Registry lists only ten TBF-1s total; six in the U.S. (three were Lake Michigan recoveries, including 01747 at Deland) and four in New Zealand. None are listed as airworthy.

No TBM-1s are listed as survivors; Paul Mantz had one (BuNo 46122/N9394H), the first one to become an air tanker, but it was lost in a fatal crash on a fire run in 1960.

If Flight 19 ever turns up, four of those five Avengers were TBM-1s.