Chris,
As usual, you are so quick to defend that dark cave full of dead airplanes called the Air Force Museum that you don't bother with the facts.
The plane wasn't sold to the Air Force Museum. It was traded in a multi-way deal for other airplanes by a person who had multiple P-38s at the time. It's nose gear collapsed on roll out in Tennesee, best I recall, and damaged the props and gear door. It was flying again in about two weeks. Far from a wreck as others have pointed out. I've seen worse damage from somebody moving the gear handle on a T-6 while it was sitting in a hanger.
Oh yea, that P-38 was heading to that exact pole, regardless of the landing gear problems. That had no bearing on it being put on static display.
mustangdriver wrote:
Once again,
1) Have YOU seen it?
2) Are you familiar with their upkeep program?
3)Have you talked to the men and women at that base about what that aircraft means to them.
By the way all of those KC-10's are outside. Are they rotting too?
Jack, I know what you mean, minor damage, just trying to prove a point.
Matt, I don't mean to start a battle over this, as most of what you say is true on just about every aircraft I have ever seen mounted on a pole. But there are exceptions. There was a Mig killer F-4 mounted on a pole at Wright Patt for years. Whne it came time to replace it with an F-15, the F-4 needed to be taken down. THe USAF had so well upkept the aircraft that they hooked up a power cart to it, and extended the landing gear on it's own power. Then with a crane took it down. This F-4 is now at the Museum of Aviation in Georgia. This P-38 is very well kept. Would I like to see it inside? Sure. One day it will happen. For now I am glad that it is being taken care of at such a great level.
I know you addressed these questions to Matt but I'll answer them anyhow. I know what the restoration program and upkeep is for the airplane. I've witnessed it. In 1997, a C-141 crew from NJ was killed in a collision coming to Ascenscion Island. Clinton was coming to the base for the memorial service. The P-38 was pulled down off it's perch, the gear lowered and it was towed to a hanger. The surface corrosion on the unpainted bare metal was pretty bad. The corrosion control guys at McGuire used orbital sanders to remove it. On several panels, much of the metal was sanded so well, that they had to be replaced! In the end, due to the shiny appearance that they were after, panels that couldn't be shined up were replaced with stainless steel as Richard mentioned earlier. Much of the structure in the nose had rotted away due to leaking water. Much of the wiring and tubing throughout the airframe was cut out so that they could get to corroded areas. The rocker covers on the engines were badly corroded due to leaking water. The floor of the cockpit had severe corrosion due to leaking water. Behind the instrument panel was corrosion due to accumlated snow and the leaking water that came with the spring. I'm not sure that this was first time the plane came down off its perch or not and I'm thinking that it has come down at least once since then. I remember a write up in the base paper talking about "other than all the corrosion, the plane was in pretty good shape "and something about one of the Airmen that was working on it "having thought that they could pull it off the stick and go fly it but finding out it wasn't as nice as he thought it would be".
Of course I don't have a real number to quote you but if you were to ask everybody that drove through the gate of the base on Monday morning about it, I'd be willing to bet a large quantity of cash that less than 1/4 of them could even tell you it was a P-38, much less anything about the person whose marking it's painted in. With the very few exceptions of those, like you and I, who like warbirds or somebody that had to answer a question about it during an "Airman of the Quarter" board, I'd wager that the airplane and why it's displayed there mean absolutely nothing to anybody on that base.
Yes those KC-10s and the C-17s are rotting away. They are metal. It happens. The difference is that they are on a maintenence schedule that is designed to combat the inevitable. The P-38 on the other hand is taken care of when it begins to look like it needs it. Just like every single other static display on every single military base. It's not on a schedule and never has been. It isn't tended to by dedicated people that do that very thing on a daily basis like the KC-10s and C-17s. It's done by whatever squadron is sponsoring it at the time and usually by somebody that needs a bullet for his or her annual evaluation and would rather be somewhere else.
As for the F-4 on a pole being able to drop the landing gear after all those years? Well that doesn't prove anything. In 1992 I spent a few days watching a B-57 being taken apart at Chanute AFB in Illinois so it could be moved to that other dark cave full of dead airplanes called the Air Zoo in Michigan. That airplane had recieved little no care other than layers of paint over each other and the occasional patch where somebody tore a hole in it with a lawn mower. When the wings were removed, a nitrogen bottle was hooked up and the gear retracted right away. That had nothing to do with the loving care that had been lavished on the old girl for the twenty or so years she was on display. It was luck that it worked and saved a lot of physical labor by the people that were shipping it.
No matter what you think about how great of shape the P-38 is in, no matter how well it appears to be maintained and no matter how pretty it looks sitting up there, shining like a diamond in a goat's butt, a few facts are undisputable.
That P-38 flew in there under it's own power. It was a perfectly flyable airplane that the Air Force put on a pole, outdoors in New Jersy. Other than the handful of times it's been off of that pole, it has NEVER been indoors since the Air Force has owned it. It could be replaced with a fiberglass replica and 99.9% of the people that will ever see won't know the difference. I'd say that even less would even care.
That P-38,the P-63, P-51, P-47, P-82 at Lackland and nearly every other WWII airplane on outdoor static display that are owned and so well taken care of by your beloved "National Museum of dead airplanes" all have one thing in common. The are all pigs in clean white shirts. Underneath the clean, pretty exterior, they are pigs.
None of this is in anyway to be taken as a criticism of the volunteers that have no choice but to restore and tend to static airplanes. They do what they can and in most cases do amazing things. My problem is with the owners. Both the Air Zoo and the Air Force museum are great places to visit and have outstanding collections of dead airplanes. I'm one of those people that don't think any airplane shouldn't be flown. Up to and including the Wright Flyer and every other dead airplane.
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