Warbird Information Exchange

Hi all,

Any news about the several Fw 190's the Texas Air Museum were rebuilding at Rio Hondo? At least one of these is now under restoration for Mark Timken, but what happened to the others?

Cheers

Cees

Good timing Cees. I visited the Stinson Field museum in San Antonio yesterday while on a business trip. I spoke with two museum volunteers and got two slightly different versions of the Fw-190's status.

A deal was made with Norway that four airframes would be transfered to the museum with the understanding that a complete rebuild would be done on one machine and sent back to Norway. It appears that two planes were required to satisfy the Norwegian obligation. That leaves the one being restored in Florida, the A-8 that I saw yesterday in San Antonio, and wahtever is in Rio Hondo - that was the part that was not made clear. The A-8 is on it's gear, but firewall forward, it is a bit rough. According to one of the volunteers, Steve Hinton was there not too long ago and inspected the plane, declaring it good for a "pattern".

The P-38 White Lightning was being stored at the museum up until late last week, but it was just trucked to Breckinridge, TX for restoration last Friday.

Thanks Stearman,

I have one of the walk around books dealing with the Fw190's with a radial engine and a lot of photo's were taken at TAM, Rio Hondo and it looked like three airframes were present or under restoration but White 1 was still with them. I understand that when the Norwegians received the restored Fw190 they considered the state of restoration to be insufficient (not my opinion) and it needs to be re-restored.

Cheers

Cees

I heard someone whon said that those Fw 190s had skins put in place with wood screws...

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Olivier Lacombe -- Harvard Mk.4 C-GBQB

Was that Deimert?

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Don't touch my junk!!

Are you implying that Diemert rebuilt any planes to anything but original specs... I saw an FW-190 fuselage at Gardermoen some time ago, and that was a bare fuselage. Never heard that any wings accompanied it. There was a photo in either Air Comics or Warbird Intl. of three or four 190s outside TAM in Rio Hondo. The joke at the time was they were all put together with steel wires!!!

T J

No, not Diemert.

Just someone who happened to have a close look at the 190s and reported.

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Olivier Lacombe -- Harvard Mk.4 C-GBQB

Cees

Only one 190 remains at Rio Hondo, one is at San Antonio, the Norwegian example is with Mark Timken for further rebuild, Timkens F-8 is at Gosshawk, and another unidentified Hondo fuselage is also at Timkens ( via Hondo and Chicago).

Dave

No, but I think the curator's name is Malcolm Laing. Does anyone know how to get in touch with him?

Chris

Curator of Hondo is Lee Labar. Laing is a private individual who has one and a bit 190 projects.

Dave

Jack Cook wrote



I wrote


Almost forgot, Mr. Laing built an airworthy Ki-51 replica, (it looks good), and is also rebuilding a T-6. Similar to Diemert in the sense that he is building up replicas and airworthy planes. [/quote]

If any of you guys are ever in San Antonio, another place to go is Cannon Field which is south on Loop 1604. There's a bunch of L-birds based down there.

Ryan

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

"Almost forgot, Mr. Laing built an airworthy Ki-51 replica, (it looks good), and is also rebuilding a T-6. Similar to Diemert in the sense that he is building up replicas and airworthy planes."

Mr. Laing uses Fairchild PT fuselage frames in the replica Sonjias that he has built/is building. I know one is flying, and they do look pretty neat.

I do have some old contact information for him Chris, if you want to PM me, I'll see if I can dig it up for you.

Steve

From what I have read over the years,Mr.Diemert used only the finest pop rivets,self tapping sheetmetal screws,bailing wire,duct tape and other quality hardware that Ace hardware stores had in stock at the time.First rate flight ratedhardware store hardware only was used!the nerve of some people to suggest that he used substandard hardware is an insult.

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"WHAT ME WORRY?"

Not duct tape, but ordinary masking tape as shims prior to pop riveting.