THe year at Sun N, Fun that he brought the F9F, I sat across the table at a seafood restaurant from Dr. Levine and his girlfriend Jill. It was a big crowd of warbird people and Dr. Levine talked the whole time about his two fighters.
As I recall, he said the FPF cost about $450K to restore which would have bought him another pristine P-51 in those days. It has a lot of compound curves on the fuselage, and it was really expensive and difficult to rebuild the aircraft. The engine was so rare they had to borrow one from a museum, and no one in the world was doing overhauls on them. He used to make claims of having been a Navy combat fighter pilot in them, which later turned out to be untrue.
The thing I remember clearly is that he said while doing those low level passes in the airshow, at sea level, he was burning 600 gallons per hour, and landed at min fuel each day.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
