A Pretty Seminole

[Scott Rose]

L-23 Seminole/57-6084

[quemerford]

What a lovely machine. Makes a change from your run-of-the-mill Spitfire or Mustang.

[shrike]

And a Beech Seminole is a great way to win a bar bet around Piper owners too

There was also a Beech Cardinal (MQM-61) if your local crowd is more Cessna oriented

[p51]

Nice!
I graduated from Florida State as an Army 2LT through ROTC there in the late 90s, so any aircraft with my alma mater's mascot for a name has to be good to me.
Great looking bird, too!

[Scott Rose]

I chatted with the owner, and he says it will be restored to military markings soon. Almost a shame to change the civie scheme.

[DB2]

That's great news! IIRC that airframe was close to be broken up for parts a few years back. It had been a jump ship and had no interior save for a single pilot's seat.

Now what would be cool is if the owner would install the blade antennas through each wing.

Picture from https://www.combatairmuseum.org/aircraf ... nanza.html

[JohnB]

Those are surprisingly large. Think of them as a cabin class ship without the aisle.
It was fairly easy I suppose to redesign the fuselage and make it the Queen Air.

There is an excellent book on them "Beechcraft Twin Bonanza...The craft of the Masters" by Richard Ward.
It is the most complete book on a general aviation type I've seen; development history, detailed look at civil and military variants, sales brochure excerpts, restoration tips and stories, pre-purchase checklists, lots of photos.

A great book but now out of print and the used book bandits want a fortune for copies now (really, how much demand is there for a pretty esoteric book?)