check this out USS Midways restored warbirds

[sabredriver]

http://www.midwaysaircraft.org/

check out the midways photos of the restored birds 8 pages of VERY well done birds

[bdk]

Interesting Skyraider conversion!

From:



To:

[O.P.]

WTF?

2 SBD's?
A Panther and a Cougar?
Not open to the public?


I'm sorry, I guess that last beer tonight put me in a bad mood when I saw this. If whoever it is decided to let 2, TWO, II, SBD's rot away in some salt water floating skimmer target sh*thole, they could have at least have the good graces to let low lifes like me come around now and again to watch it happen.

Sorry dudes, that bums me out.

[Jerry O'Neill]

I believe that the Skyraider is one of the Swedish Target tugs that Tallichet importedto the U.S. back in the late 80's early 90's.
Jerry

[retroaviation]

Here's one sitting behind AeroTrader in Chino.

[CorsairFreak]

One of the SBDs is the Tallichet one that just left MAPS Air Museum.

[O.P.]

Hmmmmmm,

SPONSOR WANTED -- Mr. Tallechet has agreed to loan this aircraft to SDACM Midway for ten years. It could be made a permanent Midway exhibit if an individual or group were to buy the aircraft from Mr. Tallechet and donate it back to SDACM Midway as a sponsored exhibit

I wonder how much he wants for it?

http://www.midwaysaircraft.org/acft/sbd5.htm

[TimAPNY]

WTF?

If whoever it is decided to let 2, TWO, II, SBD's rot away in some salt water floating skimmer target sh*thole,

Spoken like a good "bubble head" about the surface fleet.

Tim

[O.P.]

WTF?

If whoever it is decided to let 2, TWO, II, SBD's rot away in some salt water floating skimmer target sh*thole,

Spoken like a good "bubble head" about the surface fleet.

Tim

Heeheheee

Hi Tim!

I guess so. I just can't see why it would seem to be a good idea to put rare warbirds 50 feet off of the surface of the ocean.

I actually have a U.S.S. Midway story though...

1982 or 3, (it gets fuzzy sometimes). Yokuska Japan.

Young O.P. and friends pull in. They put us into the drydock on the other side of the hill. Thats where we usually parked. I got duty, so me and my bud spent all night throwing heave-ies through jellyfish in the drydock while standing topside watch. It was fun, except when the tentacles were stuck to the line and you got your hands burned by them. Morning came and there was a couple hundred blowed up jellyfish floating around the boat and about two million miles of tentacles. 07:30, Section 1 relieved us. Cool.

My buddy Phil M says, "lets go look around." We bail around 10:00. Phil had a good idea, that was to take our white hats with us, in case boat hats were not allowed. So, white hats in the back pocket, we head out.

We just came back from a long time at sea. I had a cool Fu-Manchu thing going on, and some seriously long hair, and Phil was no different. Our dungarees were yellow, from the amine and hydraulic oil, our moulders boots were brown from having the surface scaped off of them, and we smelled like the perfect combination of Diesel exhaust (Yeah, on a nuc, gotta practice), wet trash, and San 1 (aka, a$$).

We get over to the other side of the hill and what's there, The U.S.S. Midway. Thats the first time I had seen it outside of a periscope (Sight system baby!).

Thats when Phil had the million dollar idea, "Lets go take a tour of the Midway!". Cool! This was going to be awesome! We start walking down the pier. It was abuzz with activity. Probably loading up that big mother with some desperately needed self respect, seeing how we had been handing them and their screening force their collective anuses for the past week or so ("Oscar, Oscar, Oscar",,,green combo, hehehee).

We get up to the brow. It's huge, and it leads up to a lowered elevator. We start walking up. The cats coming off are looking at us weird. I figure its the Indy hat. No biggie. We get up to the elevator. There is a big podium there with a First Class standing behind it. He's got one of them gigantic flags behind him with the gold frizzy stuff on the edges, and ten seaman apprentices standing tall waiting for him to tell them to do stuff. This dude and his compadres are seriously 4.0. We salute. This guy looks at us like we're, like, well, dried, brown and smell like the south end of a north bound dog.

Phil asks "Can we take a tour?". Photographers/Postal carriers/Bun Boys, mate First Class, says "Yes, stand right there", and he points to a spot right next to the podium. He's got the cookie eating grin. I got a real bad feeling about this. It got worse as I looked into the hangar bay and see a line of about two hundred 4.0 dudes snaking through there. There are some seriously senior Chiefs just walking down the line throwing dudes out of it. The only times I saw that many senior enlisted dudes in one place was closing time at the Dolphin, out in the parking lot fumbling for their keys.

I point this out to Phil and say "We gotta split dude." The first class turns around and says "You two stay right there!". Good things happen to good people I guess. Right about then, the ole podium got real busy, crowded actually. The least of which was a LTJG with a seabag. Sweet! Bun Boy was so involved in kissing the JG's aft facing part, that I just started walking. We got halfway down the brow, when I heard "Hey! HEY! YOU TWO!". We just kept on walking.

We got down to the pier and kept walking. Towards the end we saw a burger place. A Burger Place? These mothers had their own burger hut? WTF? On the pier? It said "THERES NO SLACK IN LIGHT ATTACK!" on it. Oh Well... Phil said we should switch. It was cool, kinda like the movie. Indy hat off, White hat on. We took our TLD's off our belts and put them in our pockets. And went in and had burgers. No one asked us anything. They just gave us the stink eye. I guess Midway folks don't normally look like us. We just tried to stay cool. It wasn't the best burgers I ever had, but they are some of the most memorable.

Well, thats my big Midway story, and thats the first and last time I ever tried to go voluntarily on a skimmer.


I just had a kind writerey thing going tonight. This is a "Sea Story". heheheee

You all know the differnece between a "Sea Story" and a "Fairy Tale" right?

A fairy tale starts with "Once upon a time".
A sea story starts with "Hey, no sh1t man!"