Now I own a Warbird and a Love Bird

[tex-fan]

your into the COOL stuff now. looks great, be safe, and have FUN!

[JohnB]

Great plane...looks fun.

Are you going to keep the Canadian flag on the fuselage?
I have nothing against it only that the period flag might be more appropriate...

Have fun, I'm envious.

[seaknight15]

Very Beautiful looking aircraft, May you have many great hours in the wild blue with it.

[LadyO2Pilot]

Congrats, Don.......as I said elsewhere....what fun..you now have Kermit and Tweety Bird, the fun characters!!

Seriously, both planes are great and you'll have a great time with both.

[Bill Greenwood]

That's is a beauty. I don't think the maple leaf detracts from it at all; maybe that was the original paint scheme.
You didn't say if you have a hangar. If if stays outside, subject to ultraviolet rays and the chemicals in the air around Houston, may I offer the suggestion of both a canopy cover and also a cover for that nice wood prop.
When you fly a fixed gear plane, I think it is a good habit to include a gear down check in your landing procedure, so that when you are flying a retractable plane you aren't likely to forget it.

Seeing Terrell, Texas on the side reminds me of a landing I had there. I had owned my T-34A for about ten years, with no real trouble other than oil consumption. I sold the plane to a man in Colorado Springs, with the agreement that he would keep final payment until I flew the plane once more to Sun N Fun and then delivered it safely back to him. On the way back from Florida, I was near Dallas Redbird where I would stay overnight. I had a headwind and so decided to make a quick stop for fuel. As I turned to land at Terrell, I put down the gear switch just as I had done hundreds of times before, but this time it did not go down. I try to be very careful about remembering and checking the gear down on landing. Really, having the gear down is the only vital thing for landing, other things like fuel pump, flaps, or prop are nice to have, but you can land just fine without them. Fortunatly, even though I was tired after flying all day; my training and good habits served me well this time, and I caught that there were no green lights. I was surprised, but went around, climbed up and cranked the gear down and landed ok. There was no shop open there on the weekend, so I got some gas and flew over to Redbird with the gear down. I found a shop there, perhaps the dirtiest and messiest one I have ever seen. There were two guys there working, pretty rough looking, lot's of chewing tobacco and not many teeth, but they were nice and set to work. We walked over to the fancy FBO next door to use a clean restroom. Within an hour they had found the problem. The gear switch in the Mentor has about 6 positions for wires on the back of it. One wire in the switch in the back seat had come partly loose and shorted out against an adjacent one, and that was enough to prevent the gear from coming down. Pretty good detective work even if they didn't look that spiffy.
I spent the night in Dallas and the next day we flew back to Colorado Springs, where I went up solo for a final session of acro, keeping the gs down to no more than 3 and I delivered the plane safely to the new owner.

In about 30 years of flying I have 3 times found that the gear was not down in the landing checklist. In my Mooney and my T-34 I had to crank it down. In the Spitfire, the gear was actually down, it was an indicator problem due again to a loose wire.

Incindently, if anyone is buying are starting flying a T-34, phone me if you have any questions. It's a fun little plane, and super easy to fly.

[Fleet16b]

Great plane...looks fun.

Are you going to keep the Canadian flag on the fuselage?
I have nothing against it only that the period flag might be more appropriate...

Have fun, I'm envious.

Great looking airplane , I also have a barn full of spares up here in Canada.
Our flag on your aircraft was designed in 1965, so it's definitely not period.
Before that flag we had the "Red Ensign" but during WW2 none of the RCAF Training aircraft had a flag on them. ( there may have been the odd example right at the end in 1945 but if so, it was not the norm.

[k5083]

Even though not accurate the flag looks nice and could help teach Texans that it is not a British paint scheme!

Red panels should be extended a bit though. Proportions for the Canadian flag are 2:1 overall, with the white panel being a 1:1 square and each red panel 0.5:1.

A beautiful plane, please keep us up to date on her adventures!

August

[JDK]

Information on the correct proportions of the Canadian flag, and some history here.

http://www.fotw.us/flags/ca.html#current

Good site if you are interested in getting flags correct, and learning the history behind them - plus equally abstruse arguments as you get here, except for flags rather than warbirds. (Respecting other's flags is, after all, a basic courtesy if we want them to respect ours - no criticism of Spanner, just a general point.)

Incidentally, while the Canadian maple leaf flag only dates from the 1960s, Canadians had used the red maple leaf as a nationality identifier for many years earlier, well before W.W.I, famous examples including Johnny Johnson's maple leaf on a white circle on his Spitfire Mk.IX when leading the Canadian wing.

Regards,

[SPANNERmkV]

Thanks for ALl the encouragement and info.
It WILL live in a hangar. Texas sun is death on cloth aircraft.

While I am tempted to take the maple leaf off in the name of authenticity it appears to have become one with the yellow paint under it.
For the time being it will stay put, because I want to fly it more than I want to repaint it.
If I do have to repaint it I would consult the Denests and fellow WIXers about the proper stencils etc.

I originally wanted a PT-19 with the open cockpit, but on the flight home even with the canopy closed it was chilly. There is a degree of practicality that comes with the option of closing the lid.

The adventure continues.

SPANNER

[JDK]

While I am tempted to take the maple leaf off in the name of authenticity it appears to have become one with the yellow paint under it.

I knew Spongebob had less grip than a Canuck.

[Bill Greenwood]

K 5083

I wouldn't put too much faith in being able to teach Texans much of anything. Of course if they are pilots they already know everything anyway.

[aeroeng]

Super cool beautiful plane. I bet the previous owner had kids or Grandkids that liked SpongeBob a lot. He probably liked making them happy the most and didn't care what others thought about it.

aeroeng

[Lynn Allen]

Congrats on the Warbird......

[Second Air Force]

Very nice machine, Don.

S

[Obergrafeter]

Very nice Don, just put invasion stripes on it and it will be perfect.