Warbird Information Exchange

All this great foto posting of the Beijing Instit. P-61 got me thinking outside of the box.

HYPOTHETICALLY, Could a trade like this ever happen?

Step 1) Museum of Flight purchases a Static Display P-40 (AVG paint and all).
Step 2) Trade the P-40 for the Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Engineering's P-61.
Step 3) Museum of Flight ships the P-61 over to California from China. P-40 arrives in China.
Step 4) Museum of Flight trades the P-61 for the Boeing P-26 Peashooter at Planes of Fame.

Pro's
* China gets a P-40 AVG to display in its Museum (hopefully indoors). Much more historically significant in China's history.
* Planes of Fame gets a P-61 Black Widow to restore/fly. Only P-61 on the West Coast and back in California. Much more historically significant in Hawthorne, CA/US history.
* Museum of Flight in Washington finally gets a BOEING P-26 for its collection. Much more historically significant in Washington/Boeing/US History.
* Promotes Us/China relations

What would be the con's to such a brokered HYPOTHETICAL trade?

Sounds like a win/win concept to me. Someone should put a bug in Steve Hinton's ear and see how he responds to the idea.

_________________
Rob Mears
'Surviving Corsairs' Historian
robcmears@yahoo.com
http://www.robmears.com

Interesting idea, but the P-26 was one of the first planes acquired by Ed Maloney when he started the museum. It has more history at POF than it ever did in service, and probably as many flight hours. Furthermore, POF would lose a centerpiece of its collection and replace it with a 20 year restoration/fundraising project. POF has been fundraising for a few years now for its B-17. I don't know how much they have collected to date, but not yet enough to start the restoration I guess.

Of course I am only a member of the museum and not their spokesman or agent. Feel free to pursue this but it seems unlikely to me.

We need about 1.5 million for the B17 restoration. We have about 100K. We have started reworking the control surfaces and doing some corrosion control. We also started stripping the paint off the inside about 2 weeks ago.

Cindy Novak
B-17 Support Crew

Thanks Cindy for the update.

Please keep WIX in mind as the Picadilly Lilly 44-83684 restoration continues. You've seen the wonders this board can do with Gary & Ol' 927...

Cindy, would you be willing to start a thread documenting the progress of the restoration, where it is at now and the planned next steps (you mentioned control surface recovering and internal paint stripping for instance)?

The MOF doesn't fly their planes so we all lose.

Norm

I'll be happy to post updates periodically on Picadilly Lily. As a starte, I'll try and get some pictures after the airshow next weekend.

I may also start a separate thread on our tank rebuild (we're getting ready to pull the engine and rebuild and possibly put on new track as well). I'll have a separate site for the tank in a few weeks, so I'll post a link here.

Thanks Cindy, didn't mean to try to sign you up for anything, but...

Which tank? They replaced the engine in the Sherman a couple of years ago, didn't they?

it's the sherman engine. it was last out for an overhaul about 4 years ago, but we've got some cylinders going south so we want to do a rebuild. I'm working on a site for the entire motor pool. I'll post a link when it's up and running

see ya at the airshow!

One thing you all missed that just might squelch the deal.
Communist China would NEVER display anything that had the Nationalists insignia on it.
Even the1/18th scale P-40B's from 21 Century Toys come to the US without Nationalist Insignia on the aircraft. They insert stickers here in the US into the box for you to put on the plane when you open it. They also but stickers over the nationalist markings in the photos on the box before the boxes are shipped to Communist China for packaging the finished product.
Pretty weird.
Jerry

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