Warbird Information Exchange

When I was a kid a guy named Paul Booth told me a story about the boneyards. He said that Jesse Stallings of Nashville and founder of Capital Airways, hired him and 3 other guys to go out there and buy and bring back 4 BT-13's.
They took the train from Nashville and after a couple of days they called Jesse back and asked "how do we narrow this search down there are thousands of BT's out there?" Jese said,"Well I dont want any Wright engines, just the Pratt's, and delete the ones that have the rear plywood fuselage and any wood control surfaces, or wood anywhere." After this they still had a couple hundred serial numbrs on their clipboard.
They then decided that anything that had rough fabric, or the canopy left open, flat tire, anything whatsoever would be off the list. They still had dozens, so they checked the perfect ones and if the battery was dead, they scratched them off. The final deciding factor was if the battery was good, the fuel tanks were full and they could fly them home without any work whatsoever. He said they paid about $50 bucks apiece for them!

Just to depress you all, and me, even further.

Back in the fifties, my friend (and some years ago - boss) worked for an aluminium company. He bought Mosquitos for scrap.

Not a huge amount of aluminium in a Mosquito. They burnt them, after paying less than a dollar each...

Didn't the B-32, XB-19, and many of the other aircraft being held for eventual display get the axe due to the Korean Conflict? I seem to remember reading that the Congress was up in arms about defense spending and the Air Force disposed of the less "historical" aircraft in order to paint a smaller target for the legislators.

The stills of Dana Andrews don't show any, but many of the B-17s in "The Best Years of Our Lives" had Ardmore and Rapid City tail codes and were well-worn crew trainers, some of which were also combat returnees. I've stop-framed that movie many times to the consternation of those watching with me!!

Oh-I would have the B-32 (fourth production aircraft) and the XA-38--who wouldn't want a C-45 with two R3350s!

There are some still from "Best Years of our Lives" showing those tail codes at http://www.aerovintage.com/bestyrs.htm.

I would go out to kingman and just as they started pulling the engines and props around late 46 or early 47. Our Gal Sal, 100th bg would have been mine.Disassembed is alot cheaper to store as well. The problem is we would all be 80 plus now.

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