Warbird Information Exchange

For years, there was a “gate guard” T-33 outside the hangar for the Lively Vo-Tech school A&P class area at the Tallahassee, Florida airport. It was painted off white and had full markings. There was another T-33 still in silver finish also with full markings sitting in front of the hangar doors, off to one side. I spent a day with them back in 1988, making a short film with both of them when I was a student of the school’s Commercial Art program. I know they were gone by the time I left Tallahassee for good in 1998. Does anyone have a clue what happened to them? I’d like to think at least one is still out there somewhere, but as I know they scrapped a C-47 right next to the building around the same time, I’m not too hopeful…

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

Aw c'mon, doesn't anyone have info on these aircraft? I found few references to it:
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/N63313.html

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

Don't know about the T-33, but there was a P-80 "Gate Guard" at the entrance to the Montgomery Airpark in Gaithersburg, Maryland during the 1980s that isn't there anymore. I was kind of wondering the same thing about what happened to that plane as well.

Well, I found good photos of them at this site, taken not too long after I first saw them:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=1 ... id=1002347

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=1 ... id=1001952

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

Apparently, one of them was still in Florida, at the Florida Military Aviation Museum at Clearwater Airport. Apparently, the "museum" was a outdoor collection of aging aircraft which was scattered to the four winds from what little I can read. A lot of the planes at Clearwater were picked up by the MAPS museum in Ohio but no T-33's are listed on their site. Here's a photo of one of them at Clearwater: http://aviation-photo.fvr-home.nl/pic_b ... -0470.html The other was in pretty sad shape when I saw it in 1988, so I wouldn't be shocked if she was scrapped by now.

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

I was a student at Lively Vo-Tech for awhile (avionics) and I remember them well. I would sometimes eat my brown bag lunch sitting in the C-47 cockpit. Too bad it got scrapped.

You’re probably thinking of the Twin Beech they had. The Gooney Bird was sitting over at the next hangar and was wingless wonder for quite some time. I was told back in the 80s that every now and then, they’d fire up the engines on the Beech. When I was going through the commercial art school, we went down there to film a short movie with the T-33s. I played the pilot and got to sit in both of them. The unpainted T-33 was pretty complete, with full instruments and sticks still in place. The rudder pedals worked nicely as we got shots of the control surfaces being tested before “take off” (which we filmed with a model from a moving car). Being students, we moved on to other projects and never finished the film, which I now realize would have been quite cheesy indeed. I still have the unedited footage on a VHS tape. Man, that was 20 years ago!

_________________
Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)