Madras Airport getting crowded

[Mark Allen M]

Ahhh! Yes! That P-47 is priceless and one of the very best schemes out there IMHO. Lovely indeed. Going to take a little hop up there as soon as all is ready to go with the museum. Thanks again to Larry for the outstanding 'photo tour' and free advertising, it worked for me

[Stoney]

and we had to put bandaids on her in certain places when she went to some airshows when Rose was based at Pearson.

[Larry Kraus]

Photobucket is back in business,so I'll continue with pictures from yesterday.Here are some more of the P-47:














Here are some shots of the Oscar:














The mechanics were working on the P-51 prop yesterday:







A couple of P-38 pictures:






A study in folding wings (or not):


































And then there's the poor old P-39 still sitting like a mascot in the maintenance hangar:



I have more,but these are enough for the moment

[C VEICH]

Most of their birds look really good. The Jug is particularly nicely finished. Then there's the Mustang...

[CH2Tdriver]

Seems like an epic move! Do we have a list of what got trucked up to Madras as opposed to what was able to fly in?

Is the plan for the collection now to be more actively flying from the new location?

[Chris Brame]

More terrific photos - as always, thanks! (And thanks for your firefighting service as well.)
Are the other three white MD-80s there for conversion, or are they being parted out?

[Warbirdnerd]

Seems like an epic move! Do we have a list of what got trucked up to Madras as opposed to what was able to fly in?

Is the plan for the collection now to be more actively flying from the new location?

Everything flew in except the P-39.

[Mike]

Is the Buchon likely to be made airworthy, or will it be trucked in?

[Ryan Harris]

Mike, the Buchon is at Pacific Fighters to be made airworthy with a conversion to an Allison in the works last I heard. I guess the thinking will be along the lines of the Allison 190.

[Steve T]

Wow. Those ramp lineup shots remind me of nothing so much as old shots I've seen of the eyepopping fleet arrayed on the ramp at the Ontario Air Museum, half a century past...except the Hayabusa would be a Hayate! Many thanks for posting these, really exciting to see them.

S.

[Larry Kraus]

I'll have to ask some questions of the museum and MD-87 guys before I can answer most of the questions above.I did ask one of the mechanics about remaining flyable airplanes that will be ferrying to Madras from Tillamook.Off the top of his head,he mentioned the B-25 that should be arriving in the next few days as well as the Stearman and the AT-6.He said that there were a total of 7 or 8 to fly over,but the rest have slipped my mind for the moment.I asked about trucking more airplanes over and he said that the AM-1 Mauler will be trucked over.He also said that there's been some talk of trying to make the Mauler flyable.That would be worth watching...A cockpit picture of Tanker 103 ended up in the middle of the nose on warbird shots and Photobucket won't let me put at the bottom of this post without starting over.Just use your imagination....

Here are a few shots taken this morning in the south museum hangar bay.About the only good vantage point was nose on with most of the airplanes under the lighting conditions:















Here are a couple of shots of the nose art on the P-38:





One more of the P-47.You can see the floor being painted in the center bay.It was pretty fumey in the hangar today,even with all of the doors open:



The Forest Service maintenance inspectors conducted the contract inspections on the Md-87s yesterday and the pilot carding is supposed to take place tomorrow.Two of the MD-87s should go on duty within the next week or two.As to the stored MDs at Madras,I believe that the master plan calls for converting a total of 7 MD-87s eventually.I think that covers all of the extra airframes,but I won't swear to it.

Here are a few shots of Tanker 103 in the Madras maintenance hangar this morning:

[DH82EH]

Best thread in a long time, thanks Larry!

Great shots.

Andy

[Al Moore]

Thanks so much for taking the time to post these photos Larry. This is a collection that doesn't seem to have much photographic coverage on the web. Hopefully these birds will been seen out and about more often.

[Pogo]

Best thread in a long time, thanks Larry!

Yes, absolutely! An astonishing collection of a/c, and a fine job of bringing it to us!!

(Plus Larry has the coolest avatar on WIX -- that guy and photos just get along, lol.)

[Larry Kraus]

Kurt,that avatar is a real picture taken by my c/p Greg Rowe while we were in an orbit around the Million Fire north of Durango,Colorado in 1999 or 2000.This was an Initial Attack mission out of Pueblo and I was trying to figure out what to do with one load of retardant without completely wasting it.

I finally decided to drop at the origin of the fire and provide an anchor point of sorts for the ground guys.That ended up putting me at the bottom of a canyon pointing the wrong direction once we were empty requiring a tight right turn (blind from the pilot's side of the airplane) to escape.Not my favorite fire,but pretty much my favorite picture.I'll have to get in touch with Greg someday and see if I can get a Hi-Def copy of it.



By the way,I remembered that the Grumman Duck is another of the flyable museum airplanes that will be coming to Madras in the near future.