Boneyard photos

bdk · **Joined:** Sun May 02, 2004 1:16 am **Posts:** 11324

http://www.barnstormers.com/bones041027 ... 027-01.htm

O.P. · **Posted:** Thu Oct 28, 2004 11:41 am

Someone send the picture of the T-28's in the desert to me awhile back. I believe those are in nevada. I was told over a year ago that two brothers bought the last big lot of T-28's, took them to nevada, and was selling them. There was supposed to be an ad in NATA magazine sometime in 2002. They got so many responses, they didn't bother placing another.

Maybe, Hopefully, one of our wix buds, is a member of the NATA, has the magazines, and could verify this.....ooooohhhh please,please,please, let it be true.

C170BDan · **Posted:** Thu Oct 28, 2004 1:33 pm

To me this looks like two different places. One looks out in the desert and another in a location where there are more trees.

I saw pictures of the place in the wooded area a few years ago. We counted well over 20 T-28 airframes and a couple T-34s. Thats why I thought these pictures look familiar. A friend of a friend was trying to work a deal to buy all the T-28s and the two hangars full of spares. Bad part about it was that some of the 28s were just sitting in the mud. Would me a big jump in the flyable population if some of these made it on to the market at projects!

Is this one of those collections that will still be around many years from now?

Tulio · **Joined:** Mon May 03, 2004 1:05 am **Posts:** 3236

Back in 2001 (May-June) I almost bought three derelict T-28s in the San Antonio, TX area.

John Gibson, from "near Las Vegas. NV" came to Texas and if I am not mistaken, bought the cowlings and possibly other parts, from two model As, and one model B. The rest of the fuselages, well . . . main spars badly corroded, and fuses were mostly just the shells, nothing else.

John mentioned through e-mail, that he was at that time, rebuilding a T-28C that came from Laos, and he also mentioned that he had several other T-28 projects for sale.

This is why I wonder if the pictures are not from his collection, although I don't know that for sure.

If anyone is interested, I have three telephone numbers for him.

Saludos,

Tulio

Cvairwerks · **Posted:** Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:41 pm

Sounds like the birds that were out in Boerne behind a friend's old hangar. If they were the same, they were in real bad shape back in '88 or '89 when I saw them.

DanteC · **Posted:** Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:49 pm

I agree that it appears that the photos are taken in different locations. The first one, at least, is pretty recent, judging by the white '03-'05 3/4-ton Chevy Silverado pickup.

I sure wish there were some higher resolution photos to look at...

Tulio · **Joined:** Mon May 03, 2004 1:05 am **Posts:** 3236

" Sounds like the birds that were out in Boerne behind a friend's old hangar. If they were the same, they were in real bad shape back in '88 or '89 when I saw them."

Yup, same T-28s.

I have probably 30 or so photos of them, when I was ready to buy them. I had the money, but the guy instead of trying to make a deal, thought he had a fool with cash in hand, and hiked the price. This in effect, killed the whole thing. Even if the airplanes were non-flyable, I was willing to spend the money on them, to try to save as much as possible out of them, and possibly to build a good airplane. They were in bad shape, because the mexicans who supposedly had sold this guy, good airplanes, cheated him at the last moment, and what he paid for, was not what he received in the USA.

No names, but the place is at the Boerne Stage Airport.

Sadly, by June 2001, the airplanes had been dragged with a chain, away from the concrete pad behind the hangar, and were sitting on their -now more- damaged bellies. Not very likely these will fly again.

Saludos,

Tulio

Stoney · **Posted:** Fri Oct 29, 2004 9:38 am

John Gibson, Boulder City, NV had the T-28s

Cvairwerks · **Posted:** Fri Oct 29, 2004 10:49 pm

Tulio, good thing that you didn't part with cash for those birds. The people that you thought owned them didn't.....The actual owner was from the Carolinas and was willing to sell them pretty cheap just to get rid of them as the one of the guys you were talking with screwed him on the deal to get the aircraft. At one point I could have had the entire batch of parts for less than a couple of grand. I won't name who you were talking with as one guy is fairly well known. My personal opinion is that I check to see if I still have my watch and rings on and a billfold in my back pocket after shaking hands with him. The real owner was a great guy and a hell of a collector of all sorts of military stuff. Unfortunately, he passed away a number of years ago and left his girlfriend/live-in and siblings with a very messy estate. By the time the lawyers could even find his place, someone had already done a partial stripout of his hangars and storage facilities. Probably several hundred thousand dollars of really good and highly sought after stuff gone and no good records of what all was there.

We had one of his L-5's in our shop and I still don't think the ownership vs. shop bill issue has been cleared up yet even after all this time.

Tulio · **Joined:** Mon May 03, 2004 1:05 am **Posts:** 3236

Call it gut feeling, call it instinct, but as soon as I had met the guy (during a CAF open house at Boerne) and he found out that I was inquiring about the T-28s, his behavior told me that I should be careful.

For this reason, I bought an airplane ticket for a friend of mine who has restored several T-28s and had him inspect the T-28s in Boerne. He told me to save my money, because those would never fly again.

Even then, I thought that I would want to buy one airframe, but the guy was not interested in selling one, but the three together. That kind of clinched it for me, since I did not have a place to keep them, but to put the cherry on top of the icing, several people at the airport warned me about this individual, and the words they used to describe him, well, I use them when I am not in polite company.

It was a good lesson though.

Saludos,

Tulio

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