Warbird Information Exchange

I did a trip to BGR on Friday, spent the night and drove home yesterday morning.
I couldnt just drive by Lewiston, so we stopped in to see if there was any progress.
There is a good sized hangar in the works on the other side of the airport.
There were people working at the construction site when we were there.
The shell of the hangar is complete. Nice place, bigger than anything else on the airport.

The two airplanes had been moved since the last time I stopped by, and there were a few less parts on one of them.

Heres a really big pic.

_________________
"Hindsight is usually 20% off!"

Any idea what the story is behind these two planes? This is the first I've seen of them.

_________________
Rob Mears
'Surviving Corsairs' Historian
robcmears@yahoo.com
http://www.robmears.com

AHHH...those bring back memories. I worked for Eastern Airlines in '54-'55.
The "Connie" has a cargo pit just behind the front wheel well. To make a long story short, (there's a first for me, huh?) Some of the a/c had a fairly long "turnaround" time. (A few hours.) Seems that one night, a member of our crew went to sleep in that front pit. When the a/c was being "buttoned-up" for departure, whoever closed the front pit door didn't look inside. Our "napper" woke up as the engines were being started and commenced to pound on the top of the cargo pit. No one heard him due to the sound of the engines being started. The a/c taxied out almost to the run-up area before anyone heard the pounding. Needless to say, there was a slight delay in the departure.
I don't remember the guy's name. I do, however, remember his nickname:
"WEDGE". Why Wedge? 'Cause it's the simplest tool known to man.

Mudge the minstral

_________________
Land of the free because of the brave

Rob,

They were bought out of retirement, along with a third one now at Fantasy of Flight in Florida, in the mid-1980's by Maurice Roundy, whose house you can see behind the Starliners in the picture in the first post. They are parked in his yard next to the Auburn-Lewiston Airport in Maine. Over the years Maurice worked on bringing them back to flyable condition, but money was always a problem.

The one in Florida was restored to ferry condition in the late 1980's at Ft Lauderdale, so it could be brought to Maine, but only got as far as Sanford. It sat at Sanford until it was brought to ferry condition again in 2001 and flown to Kermit Weeks museum at Polk City, FL. Its been there ever since.

There was an abortive attempt to buy them by a Florida businessman, but that fell through. Finally, earlier this year, Lufthansa bought all three from Maurice, and has plans to restore one to flight there in Lewiston, hence the large hangar that was mentioned in the first post.

There are only four L-1649A Starliners left intact. The three owned by Lufthansa and a fourth at a museum in South Africa.

Check Ralph Pettersen's website "Connie Survivors" at

http://www.conniesurvivors.com/1-connie_news.htm

He posts frequent updates on these aircraft.

Also there are several threads on Propliners.com about them.

I visited them in August of 2006, prior to their being acquired by Lufthansa. They are really neat aircraft.

Walt