PinecastleAAF wrote:
Quote:
Survivors
At least nine Kingfishers seem to be still around in museums all over the world [1]. There is one at the National Naval Aviation Museum at Pensacola, Florida (obtained in 1971 from the Uruguayan Navy)[2][3]
Two Kingfishers are to be found on battleships: One on the battleship Alabama in Mobile, Alabama [4] and one onboard the battleship North Carolina. With the assistance of an RCAF Piaseki helicopter, Lynn Garrison salvaged this Kingfisher from Calvert Island, off British Columbia during the winter of 1963. It crashed there on a ferry flight to Alaska during World War Two. Garrison then donated it to the North Carolina Battleship Commission. It was restored for display by volunteers at Vought Aeronautics in Grand Prairie, Texas. Another Kingfisher on display is to be seen at the National Air and Space Museum outside of Washington DC. [5]
At the Yanks Air Museum at Chino, California there is a Kingfisher waiting 'to be restored', and one at Palm Springs Air Museum north of Palm Springs International Airport has recently been brought back to a nice state[6] as needs to be done with one at Whale World, Albany, Western Australia[7]. In the Museo Nacional Aeronáutico y del Espacio de Chile, Santiago there is a restored Kingfisher[8], as is one at Museum of the Revolution (Museo de la Revolución), Havana, Cuba. The latter is equipped with a 'fixed gear'. It has since been relocated to the Museo del Aire in Havana [9]
I think the one you are thinking of is the North Carolina aircraft.
I was a curator at NEAM back in the 80's and early 90's, and I know Nichols was collecting Kingfisher parts and may have parts of several since he was trying for several years to get ours. I know the ex-NEAM example was recovered from Alaska back in the 1970's AFTER the North Carolina OS2U had been restored.
NEAM basically had a banged up, stripped out, fuselage and the cut-up main float. Some parts were used, or going to be used when NASM restored their OS2U, and then it was acquired by Nichols in the 1990's.
I have seen pics on the web of it since it was in California, so I know that fuselage is somewhere out there. If I get a chance, I'll try to dig out the BuNo. from my curator records, but it might be a while, since they're packed away in the basement.
Jerry