Soccer War War Birds

[Randy Haskin]

Does anyone else think that top cowling piece looks like it came off 44-73422/N103TL, which is a Mustang that most believe was illegally imported to El Sal during/after the 1969 war, but was never heard from again?

Check out the photo from Martin's page:



http://www.swissmustangs.ch/35872.html? ... on*id*val*

Not implying that it's the same airplane, but noting that it seems parts of that airplane are on FAS 411.

[Marc]

Hi all,

Regarding the mystery Mustang with Major Regalado standing on the wing, here’s my theory, for what’s it’s worth:
Like Randy, I came to the conclusion by elimination that it was most probably FAS 408, with the upper cowling panels of FAS 409.
Compare the pattern of black anti-glare panel, white outline and red/orange with the photo of FAS 409 on the last page of the Dienst/Hagedorn book: the areas seen on the upper cowling panels of the mystery Mustang match with areas seen on the fuselage of FAS 409 behind the firewall.
Compare colours and pattern with the photo of N6451D before it went south, you also have a possible match.

A couple of other remarks:

On the second photo, you can make out an inscription in white under the cockpit that looks like ‘Monkey Vega’, which is plausible as I understand this was his nickname in the FAS.

Randy, regarding FAS 402 (2), in my opinion it had three different liveries during its military service:
- first the grey livery with the horizontal stripes on the vertical tail and wings, with ’YS-210P’ marking removed on the fuselage side, FAS roundels on the wings, flag and serial on the vertical tail.
- then a camouflage pattern of brown and green, with possibly two shades of green, and black serial on vertical tail. Later yellow stripes and a fuselage roundel were added, and the serial was applied in white instead of black. The colours faded terribly and the original grey paint became visible. These variations are visible on page 175 of Dan Hagedorn’s book on Latin American Air Wars.
- eventually, and I insist this is only my opinion, FAS 402 (2) was repainted in a different scheme with larger patches of green and brown, and this is the livery it had when at Connie Edwards’ ranch.

Cheers!
Marc

[Randy Haskin]

Compare the pattern of black anti-glare panel, white outline and red/orange with the photo of FAS 409 on the last page of the Dienst/Hagedorn book: the areas seen on the upper cowling panels of the mystery Mustang match with areas seen on the fuselage of FAS 409 behind the firewall.
Compare colours and pattern with the photo of N6451D before it went south, you also have a possible match.

Good point...I don't have the Dienst book in front of me to make the comparison, but it seems valid based on my memory of that photo.

[Marc]

Here is the photo with Major Regalado:



And this is FAS 409 upon return to the USA:



And finally an inverted pic of N6154D:



You can see some continuation of the paint pattern between the top cowling panels of the mystery Mustang and aft of the firewall of FAS 409.
It's also noteworthy how the original paint pattern of N6451D became visible under the faded camo paint of FAS 409, mainly under the cockpit and on the vertical tail. The antenna blade is also similar, but the tail wheel appears to have been locked in down position, I wonder if this was done by FAS.

[Randy Haskin]

I dunno...I don't think that the cowling on FAS 408 matches the line on N6451D. The line appears to match N103TL more closely, in my opinion.

Certainly FAS 409 is N6451D, though.

[Marc]

I would say that the white line on N103TL is closer to the last exhaust pipe compared to the mystery FAS Mustang and N6451D.
It's also 'lower' than the bottom windscreen frame.

Maybe another one of the Mustangs 'gone South' had a smilar red/white/black pattern...

[Jones Santana]

And this is FAS 409 upon return to the USA:



And finally an inverted pic of N6154D:

I would say that the nose of #409 is from another Mustang, you can see that it has a different paintjob under the FAS one.

[Marc]

I would say that the nose of #409 is from another Mustang, you can see that it has a different paintjob under the FAS one.

My opinion too. And I think that the nose panels, or part of the nose panels, of FAS 409 are installed on the other Mustang, the one on the photo with Major Regalado.

[clipper]

I just skimmed reading the 9 pages about the Soccer War in Cent. Amer in 1969. and I know that some hve asked me about Archie Baldocchi and his P-51 he owned there. I see that there was 9 pages of hot action going onthere between talking about Bob Love and his kills etc, but I am sorry that i did not get more involved in that war when I was thereworking for Panam from1965 to 1970, and I transferred to JFK then. i did see lots of the preparations for that war, and actually, when it wAs getting close to startoing the war, the PAA airport manager and our director, botjh americans, were both out of the country, and I was the 3rd amer there, so I was acting for everyone andI was the assist mgr./Ops Supvr who was orig. sent there to train the Ops staff. The govt was kicking me out after 3 yrs, but we got a 2 yr extension for me. Also, we changed managers in 1970, and I had to stay 6 months with the new mgr, who wAs manager at SAL for 9 years before. But I was pretty busy sending coded msgs to NY HQ so that we did not endanger out flights. I did see lots of allcolors of P-51 coming in daily and went right to the paint shop at the military side. It was my info that there were at least close to 40 planes that left the night of the attack on Honduras.and most were the few Corsairs we had(maybe 5 or 6), and the rest P-51s. I knew we had mercinaries too, but not exactly how many. I kew the name bob Love but never met him and he did some air shows at times. Archie, by the way did pass away in 2010. I heard that Archie was a former panam pilot and he married the rich family there(Duenas), and they were one of the 14 rich families that owned the country there. I never confirmsd that Archie flew for us. The Pres, was General Fidel Sanchez Hernandez , a little guy about 5 ft 4 or so. Archies p_51 was a gift from his wife I heard and it cost 30 thousand dollars, but I am not sure of anything there. We wud eat at the aero club with a bunch of Americans, but I never officially met Archie. I do remember there wAs a P-51 trainer type, a 2 seater, that crashed off the side of the runway before the war, andI was there watching them pull the pilots out and they were screaming of burns, but the plane did not catch on fire, but they were sprayed with oil and fuel i guess. The govt, airport Manager, Maj.dominguez also flew a Corsair in the attack. Panam loaned our crgo pallet rollers to the AF to use to roll bombs outof the C-47;s. The night of the attack, we got rid of ourflights around 6PM, and all fighters and bombers took off. I had to drive home to other side of the city with no lights, and I had about 6 TACA loaders in my car leaving the airport. One bomb landed near the runway, and in our parking lot damaging a TACA stws car, but the airport never got damaged. I did not go bck to work for about 2 weeks . So, I am sorry that I have no better recollection excpt times when planes came of=ver my house, and I did not know whose they were, so I had to get my kids inside. But it was interesting and saw a little of what WW2 was like i guess. So,I can say that I saw that war, and just before that, I was in the 1964 earthquake in Alaska wiith panam, so I have a few stories to tell. sorry for boring you, and i cannot settle the arguement over Bob Loves kills or not. Rgards Semper fi Paul(clipper)

[Noha307]

While searching the forums for something else, I found this thread. Anyway, I remembered that a while back I saw a very relevant video to this discussion on YouTube. A quick check through the discussion didn't seem to reveal that the, or any, video had been posted before, so I figured I'd add it. Maybe one of you guys can ID the airframe involved.

Honduran F4U Corsair Gets A Rub Down

I just now noticed that there's also this, submitted as a video response to the above:

FAH 609 CORSAIR F4U5-N FIRST START AFTER 30 YEARS

[fahnach]

F4U-5N BuNo. 124715

[Wildchild]

Does anyone else think that top cowling piece looks like it came off 44-73422/N103TL, which is a Mustang that most believe was illegally imported to El Sal during/after the 1969 war, but was never heard from again?

Check out the photo from Martin's page:



http://www.swissmustangs.ch/35872.html? ... on*id*val*

Not implying that it's the same airplane, but noting that it seems parts of that airplane are on FAS 411.

What happened to FAS 411? The whole plane (look at the paint job on the wing) looks like it could be N103TL

[zorro7]

Cavalier II Folks:

Good day!

A fine & recent article about the "100 Hrs War" posted in LAAHS published the included picture as a FAS Cavalier aircraft c.1968 somewhere in Guatemala territory. Photo via Puente Family.

The picture indeed is interesting as it's dated only c.1968 & no FAS Reg # is given. Do we have then 2 different N4222A Cavalier aircraft in the region?? We believe by doing a bit of research that this aircraft is the Demo COIN Prototype Cavalier II in an earlier scheme. S/N 44-13257.

You can still barely see on the aft L/S of the fuselage the previous N4222A reg in a black background & camo letters. The pic also shows a mixed configuration of wingtip tanks & rocket pods.

[valdez25]

Brief history of the war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War

[Randy Haskin]

That's definitely a photo of N4222A.

Nothing strange about it --that's the same paint scheme and arrangement of the N number that it had during that period.

Do you have the original negative of this photo? Do you have other shots that may have been taken at the same time on this flight?

There are a lot of air-to-air shots taken of N4222A (both color and B&W) with that same loadout of six rocket pods -- most of them show Jerry Tyler in the cockpit with a tan baseball cap and a headset. The shot you posted certainly looks like it is a part of that series, all probably from the same flight (or couple of flights) over the Sarasota area.

As there's nothing in the background of the photo to indicate where it was taken, there's just not any way to verify that it is over Guatemala. I don't have a copy of this exact shot, but I have a similar shot taken out the right side of the photo ship of the left side of N4222A, with a hazy background and a low sun angle from the left side of the aircraft (right side of the photo).

So, until we know more about the source of that photo, there's nothing more to conclude about what it might "mean".