Warbird Information Exchange

Rick;
That’s funny what you say about the ring spar, Ironic how things and stories change. I heard the exact opposite, oh well. I sure do wish there were a few more K models out there though. My dad has a Vietnam buddy who flew them a bit in the war and loved them. He said that it was just a kick in the pants to go out and fly low and fast. I wonder if there are still left over there rotting away in the jungle.
Scott....

Chino!

I thought that was Wally Mcdonnell that crashed the 26 at Chino. I interviewed him in 1992 and asked him about it. Were they both on the airplane?

JH

Not correct. Wally McDonnell had three of them and he even raced one at Mojave.
64-17640 N2294B Now at Ellsworth AFB, SD.
64-17657 N99218 Crashed on landing at Chino, CA in 1978. As far as I've been told, McDonnell was the pilot. But as JohnH says, was Stewart also in the plane?
64-17676 N22939 Raced as "Mojave Kid". Now at USAFM in Ohio.


According to the book "Foreign Invaders", on the B-26K, the wings were redesigned and completely rebuilt, leaving only parts of the spar from the original wing. The early Grand Central and LeTourneau exec. conversions also didn't use the ring spar, and they were limited to only three, four pax in the cabin.


What did McDonnell have to say about this accident? Do you know if he's still around?


T J

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Make my day, punk!

There's a B-26K at the Hurlburt Field gate in Florida... saw it there two days ago. It's in beautiful condition too.

Cheers,
Richard

Wally is still around. I talked to him at Reno back in September. He said he was working on another A-26. I've never asked him about the accident though.

As a side note, we were talking about when he purchased Jimmy McMillan's Seafury at Breckenridge and was gonna fly it out during the airshow. He decided the runway was too narrow and got Loyd Hamilton to fly it to a bigger airport. He rode up in a Mustang and took the Seafury home from there. He said that as soon as he pushed the throttle forward, he realized all the horror stories were lies and you could "fly a Seafury off a sidewalk". He also talked about how many different ways there was to land a Seafury but said "If you really want to see how it's done, just watch Nelson Ezell do it."

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Brad

If available records are correct, none of the B-26K/A-26A Vietnam-era Counter Invaders went to the Forest Service or other agencies for use as tankers. Most were scrapped at DM and only a few managed to make it to static displays (plus the civil examples, as noted above).

If my memory serves me right, they did not have the ring spar as that was a purely civil mod for a "roomier" fuselage.

See Dan Hagedorn/Leif Hellstrom's Foreign Invaders for some good stuff on these On Mark conversions.

Thanks for all of the information guys! You (should I say: I) learn something new everyday. You have to love the WIX forum, it is a great place to exchange information along with some interesting stories and photographs.
Scott....

Too bad the Florence, SC B-26K got scraped acouple of years ago.
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

According to the Warbirds registry of the eight original K model survivors at least 3 were originally saved by the Georgia Forestry Commission. They were probably going to be bug sprayers but were never converted.

64-17640 registered N267G State of Georgia Forestry Commission 1971-78
Now static Ellsworth AFB property of NMUSAF

64-17676 registered N286G State of Georgia Forestry Commission 1971-77 Sold to Airspray
Now static NMUSAF Dayton

64-17679registered N269G State of Georgia Forestry Commission 1971-77 Sold to Airspray
Now at Lynch Air Tankers

Except for the aircraft wrecked early with Wally McDonald the other 4 survivors went straight to museums.

The rest were scrapped on site at Tucson.

One other note.............The Lynch aircraft, thought a B-26K, it never saw combat in SEA.

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005

These are probably all in the registry, but sitting here in Germany with nothing else to do....I found these on my computer.


Florence SC






Hurlburt Field, FL





Ellsworth AFB, SD



Pima Air Museum, AZ

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Brad

That still sucks about the SC bird............I dont care how much corrosion it had...........with todays abilities it should have been saved! My dads friend had pics of that airplane when it was operational in Vietnam.

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005

A friend who was there when they started to scrap the Florence bird says it wasn't severely corroded. It had some skin corrosion but nothing severe. The NMUSAF made the decision to scrap quite a few of the aircraft on site. Fortunately some found homes instaead. I'm not sure if anyone was ever offered the chance to save the A-26K.