Warbird Information Exchange

I received these two photos from Bob Burns today that he took in the mid 1960's at Friendship Airport, MD. lst one is B-25H, N5548N, 43-4106 now Barbie III. 2nd one is B-25J, NX69345, 45-8835, now Betty's Dream

interesting stack arrangement on the second pic. my a&p is an ikd timer whi used to work at teterboro and was/is friends with guys who flew bendix's b-25's. aside from being deaf, they have some interesting stories. i'll forward these pictures and see if it sparks any worth sharing . . .

Nice pctures.I'm assuming that the item that looks like a steering wheel attached to the wingtip in the top picture is some sort of antenna?

On the first picture notice the smaller wheels and tires. I have seen this before but not really sure on the details of the mod. Anyone know the details on this, why it was done, etc? Being a Bendix aircraft I first think possibly some sort of a test setup for a braking system. I know later on that B-25 tires became somewhat scarce but that postdates this picture so I am guessing it has something to do with brakes.

I talked to the one of Barbie III's crew at an air show a few years ago. He said Bendix used the plane for landing gear tests. At one point they apparenlty equipped it with a second complete nose gear assembly, that operated independently of the original nose gear.

SN

Here is another photo of N5548N which I had posted back in January of 07. This photo by Vince Reynolds. Taken at South Bend, IN. Dec 1964

Thanks again to Bob Burns, here is another Bendix B-25. B-25J, N3184G, 44-28945.

The CWH have a similar stack arrangement on their B-25.

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Olivier Lacombe -- Harvard Mk.4 C-GBQB

Yeah that is sort of a dual collector ring arrangement where the top cylinders exhaust from the top and the bottom cylinders exit from the bottom as opposed to a single collector ring or half collector half "S" stacks.

Ollie--

That may not be a coincidence...I think CWH's Mitchell belonged to Bendix too at one point. B-25J, 45-8883, one of the very last Mitchells built. Anyone got confirmation she was with Bendix?

S.

B-25J, 45-8883, N75755, (Now C-GCWM) according to Wardbirds Directory, was indeed a ex Bendix, Corp. aircraft.

The blue and white paint scheme is one of the better Civil paint jobs I've seen.

While we're on the subject of the CWH B-25, are there plans to eventually equip her with a glass nose? I seem to remember one of the museum guys mentioning it a year or two ago. And what happened to the upper turret?

Not a complaint, just curious..

SN

Steve N--

The top turret was removed as a precautionary measure because it was thought the cupola might come off in flight! The intention is to refit it eventually.

The glass nose for C-GCWM is a longstanding rumour, but there must have been some substance to it at some point, since there was, at least until two years ago, a complete Mitchell glass nose frame stored at CWH. I last saw the frame in the ramp shed just north of the main museum building, at the June 2005 Soar With Legends event. C-GCWM's longstanding configuration as an eight-gun, solid-nose factory-built strafer/shipbuster has always irritated me a bit, since the 2nd TAF in Europe did not (to my knowledge at least) ever use those. But it doesn't bug me that much. I can drive 15 minutes and see a flyable Mitchell (and plenty else). That's just way too cool to get annoyed about the details!

Steve T

I've heard talk about a glass nose for the -25 ever since I first joined CWH in 1984. Saw the turret glass being re-made on my last visit to the museum

Glenn

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"Remember....it's always better to overshoot and have people think you can't land than to crash and prove it!"