Warbird Information Exchange

They did. It was the last combat missions of the A-7's. I have some pics of them in service in the Gulf war. I will try and find them. My buddy had some that he took when he was over there.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Glad to see I am not losing my mind, yet.

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"It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane." Charles Lindbergh

http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.s ... entry=true

Take a look there Stephanie, or at the next link to the Corsair and some of the rest of the fleet.

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showth ... p?p=557485

As Mike said she really did look good when she had the French markings, I did some work on her after Mike had moved on to other things.

Not at all. The A-7 was a cool airplane. There are two near where I live. One is at the 171st Air National Guard Base, and the other is at the end of the runway at where I work with an F-4, and an F-84 that I mentioned in another post.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Thank you for the links! She really was gorgeous, wow! I love it.

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"It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane." Charles Lindbergh

O.K. guys I found out that A-7 were flown from the U.S.S. JFK during Desert Storm, and as a mater in fact was one of the few Navy aircraft that had the range to get there and stay over the target for any amount of time. As of 2006 Greece was still using them.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Stupid question... why are the aircraft grounded? The P-38 flew with the Collings Foundation bombers a few years ago (ok, more than five now) and I thought I had seen the P-47 in the air recently as well?

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Ryan Keough
Stow, MA

Actually, I don't know that they all are... there wasn't anyone around on their last day open aside from like the gift shop people that I could find to ask questions to... so I am not sure what the status of most of the planes are.

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"It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane." Charles Lindbergh

I believe that the law suit that followed Jeff Ethell's accident had a lot to do with the grounding of the collection.

Jeff Ethell was a great guy, I think he would be so sad to see that something he did have such a negative impact on the warbird community.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Sounds somewhat redundant but "Great Pictures" Steph. But they are great and they tell a story that scares me.. I know the Blimp hanger is great and historical but it's mostly wood and what a fire hazard with all that rare aircraft sitting around defenseless..I kinda wanted the L.S.F.M. to aquire and someway utilize the old WWII hanger adjacent to it's facility but that thing burned like the devil a couple of years ago. Some who lived on the island thought for awhile the museum was on fire.

"Silver Lady" still looks good. I was in Tillamook back in 90 and I saw the blimp hanger but for some reason it never occurred to me that there was a museum inside. I would like to return someday.

Thanks for helping us unload and stack bottled water this last November at our fly-in. Hope you can somehow return to help us this Spring.

Oh, somehow? No - I will, without question, be there this year! I will see you again in April and I am really looking forward to it! I can't wait. I am actually contemplating a move to your area actually. I fell in love with your museum and the weather. Just have to work out a few kinks and get up the nerve to move. It's a little, overwhelming figuring out where to go exactly, since I don't know the lay out of the state too well. I definitely want to be within fairly close proximity to the museum though.

Anyhow... yes, you definitely need to make a trip up here again. See the "Spruce Goose" in McMinneville and then check out Tillamook post restoration. I hear there is a decent museum up at Boeing Field too as well as another in either Olympia or Tacoma, WA.

I can't wait until April!!!

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"It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane." Charles Lindbergh

You should have see the other one burn!! It was full of hay and straw. The FD couldn't put it out. It burned then smoldered for weeks!
Has for the airplanes Jack E. always has had his favored few which were kept out and ready. I haven't heard much about any flying in the last few years. Some like the B-25/Corsair/SBD/FM-2/P-51/TBM/A-26 ect haven't flown in years. Don't forget the original museum director was killed in the museum's L-29 Delphin a few years back also.
Has was the corrosion issue brought up in another thread. It just doesn't get much worse than Tillamook
I've always thought that it was a strange place for a museum ie out of the way and right on the coast. But, it's perfect for JE's need for a large place to put his collection.

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Don't touch my junk!!

. . . . I watched their video on it, it really did just go up in nothing flat.

I was sort of thinking this weekend along the same lines that you mentioned, that Tillamook really maybe isn't the best place in the world for those planes. It's unfortunate that Tillamook County is such a poor small coastal county. I am assuming that they probably don't have many volunteers either to assist with some of the maintainence. Even just regular dusting and whatnot... sort of sad to see some of those planes in the condition that they were in. Makes me wish I could clone myself... send one me down there to do what I could around there, keep one here to make money and send the other to TX to spend time at LSFM.

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"It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane." Charles Lindbergh

Galveston's climate is probably as bad or at the least on a par with Tillamook but thank goodness Mr. Waltrip and I suppose some others at the getgo saw fit to construct environmentally controlled hangers for the collection. Personally I just wish I had the bucks to bring "Silver Lady" back to Texas where she belongs and needs to fly. She had a nice comfortable home in Breckenridge. Call me sentimental...