What's still out there ????????????????????

[Speeddemon651]

The Harvard was picked up much later and has quite a story behind it. A famous airshow pilot was killed in it and that wasn't known until well after it was acquired. The previous owners son who is now a very accomplished and quite famous airshow pilot tracked him down as he was looking for it.

[Stephen Apple]

Back to the original topic, a guy in our model club was telling me once about a collector in Indiana (not Dean Kruse) who had a bunch of WWII military vehicles, and a largely complete Japanese Zero. The collector was supposedly very private, but had once showed my friend and his buddies around the treasure trove (sometime in the 80s as I recall.) He claimed to have gotten inside the Zeke, and I think he's knowledgeable enough to tell if it was just some old T-6 or the real thing.

SN

Is this the museum you are thinking about? http://www.ropkeyarmormuseum.com/index.html

Hi Jeremy S,

You wrote a post a couple of years ago about some papers that belonged to B-24 pilot Gerald Apple. I am his grandson. Could you please send me a private message?

Thanks

edit: thanks for getting in touch with me.

[Wildchild]

Does Kermit Weeks count now?

In all seriousness, the older these gentleman get, the more private collections we will see for sale. That, or they will all be sold for scrap like some guys entire locomotive collection was sold for scrap by his wife after he died...

With regards to wrecks, if you want one, come to Florida. I made a list a few years ago (I haven't been here in awhile... Nice to be back guys ) that detailed a ton of wrecks from aviationarchaeology.com that probably weren't recovered. One was actually the crash record of a B-29 that ditched 4 miles off of Apollo Beach, FL, into Tampa Bay.

Of course I can't confirm if any of these actually exist or not, since I'm 17...

Ill try to find the list as I clean out my files.

[eLaReF]

In '74 we visited what I called Thurmond Field near Tucson
The owner, John Thurmiond, was well past retirement & had a barn full of stacked wings & fuselages, with T-6 & BT-13 cockpit sections lying around outside.
He had just finished this restoration https://www.flickr.com/photos/elaref/83 ... 436840124/
and a period treatment of it https://www.flickr.com/photos/elaref/83 ... 436840124/
Unfortunately I wasn't then into old civil things so, to my eternal regret, didn't photograph the hangar contents!!!
The background of this shot shows a typical collectors yard, with bits lying around
https://www.flickr.com/photos/elaref/83 ... 436840124/
I do have a list of what we saw.