Visited Yanks and Planes of Fame during a layover in between Tokyo shuttles. Apologies in advance if some of this is old news to some of you and for the amateur photography. Got to chatting with a Yanks docent and he was kind enough to take my coworker and I "behind the ropes" up close to some of the museum planes, the restoration shop and their "boneyard/junkyard". Used my Droid X for Yanks pics before battery died, then borrowed my coworker's camera for PoF pics which he's sending me later. Ran into PoF's main man and aquaintence Steve H. on the ramp at POF and chatted/caught up and he kindly took my coworker and I on a personal, impromptu tour of the musuem and restoration shop. Was interesting to hear the individual histories on some of their planes...for example, the static P-39 was retieved from the jungle in New Guinea, the flying Corsair (minus everything firewall forward) was procured from a backlot at Universal Studios, is one of the very early models with no provision for external fuel tanks. While I was there, I watched their Corsair and P-38 return from an air show, along with Jack C's silver P-38 w/invasion stripes. PoF had just replaced the inner and outer banks on the left/#1/port engine on their P-38 after they got singed from yet another cooling system malfunction. They put in a highly modified radiator that's been working great after fighting radiator leaks on and off for some time. Coincidently, their P-51A is in maintenance for cooling system problems too--it was in hangar sans radiator. Steve said (not so kiddingly) maintaining one P-38 takes the same amount of time and effort as maintaining three P-51s. Don't know if he meant it literally, but didn't sound like he was being sarcastic. In any case, you get his point. He talked about flying the N9MB Flying Wing and how it sort of wallows a little before finding it's equilibrium in flight and his technique of "throttle twisting" (my words) or slight differential power application helps turn it but overall he says it flies pretty nice considering what a radical design it is. The Bell P-59 is coming along nicely and they hope to fly it some time next year. The Friedkins' time capsule Bf-109E was sitting on it's gear, hasn't been worked on yet and is just as it was when it was pulled from a frozen lake. It's got bullet holes in it from the Hurricane that shot it down. Steve said they plan a full flying restoration on it. When we got to the Heinkel He-162A, I was surprised to hear him say they planned to restore to fly...wow! Saw their O-47A under restoration, it's got a ways to go. Was blown away to see they had a Horton flying wing glider. Went through the jet/race hangar and talked back and forth on T-33 systems (PoF's T-33 is a sister ship to mine from the same upgraded RCAF "AUP" batch), mentioned how he thought the MiG-15 gets a bad rap on flying characteristics (just keep it in it's happy place in the envelope). Especially loved seeing up close the F-86, Gloster Meteor, Ryan Fireball, Seversky AT-12, P-26, N9MB, Zero, Raiden, D-558 Skyrocket. Steve reiterated the F-86 is his favorite warbird to fly and I reiterated my obsession to own one some day from our previous conversation at an Oshkosh evening "debriefing". We went through the PoF restoration shop where they're working on the museum Bearcat and a Tigercat for a customer. Steve said the Tigercat will be really top notch restoration when it's done. Anyway, great day, lucked out the Yanks docent gave us a closer look and that I ran into Steve H., perhaps the most prolific warbird pilot in the world and hands down one of the nicest and classiest guys in the business. Thanks again Steve!
Here are some of the pics from Yanks, will post PoF pics when I get them:
Yanks Helldiver restoration
Yanks Corsair restoration
Yanks Wildcat restoration
Yanks Avenger restoration...note ball turret just to the right of the cowling
Tail of Yanks Avenger resto...docent said rectangular metal patch was original combat repair from WWII...wow.
Waco CG-4 glider, private owner who recently passed so project is in limbo
Just thought this old piece of machinery was cool
Yanks...Dauntless wing found by itself near Henderson Field, was deduced it was removed from Dauntless damaged from Japanese shelling. Damage is evident.
Yanks P-47M, IIRC was the highest performance production P-47 built.
Yanks P-51A
Yanks P-38/F-5
Yanks P-39
Yanks P-63
Yanks Hellcat
PB4Y flown in two years ago and hasn't moved since...
Yanks boneyard
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