Warbird Information Exchange

I just read a story by a Canadian who as a young boy stood fire guard on a Mustang that overnighted at his local airport on its way to Expo 67 in Montreal. The story ends with the tall lanky American doing a high speed low pass at the request of the tower controller. While reading it I thought only of Bob Hoover but at the end the American is identified as the actor Jimmy Stewart. I know Stewart owned a Mustang racer in the 1940s that was raced by other pilots. I remember seeing Stewart on TV shows about ten years later talking about flying. Did Stewart own and fly a Mustang in the 1960s?

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

That story has been around a long time. I've never seen proof that Stewart was flying P-51s at that time. He had ownership of a couple of racers but I never saw proof that he flew those. Maybe someone will answer those questions here. I'd like to know too.

I realize it's a few years after 1967, however in 1975 I saw him in the play Harvey in London.
According to the playbill, his bio said he still owned and flew a Super Cub. No mention of a Mustang.

If he did own one at the time, I'd think they would have mentioned it to a UK audience...since their level of interest in WWII is higher than the average American.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

This story has been around before. I researched it and it appears that Stewart and a friend bought a surplus P-51 after the war to be used in air racing. He had a half interest in it. Someone else was to fly it for them and there is no record of Stewart ever doing so. He sold his interest in it sometime later.

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Lightninglover

It was a P-51C named "Thunderbird". Joe DeBona raced it in the 1948 Bendix Trophy and won the 1949 trophy with it.

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

Cook Cleland told me about Jimmy Stewart and "Thunderbird" at the Cleveland Air Races.

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remember the Oogahonk!
old school enthusiast of Civiltary Warbirds and Air Racers