Tondelayo at Kissimmee

[RickH]

Chris, if you remember back then, you must remember that the plexi on the top turret was less than stellar ! Prior to her leaving Beaver Falls the group up there fashioned half of the turret glass out of sheet metal as a quick replacement. On a move flight of just a few miles to Hobby Airport, the other half let go and departed the aircraft. According to Carl Scholl the wrong plexi base ring was used to build up the turret. We were working on other things to get her reliable after all that sitting in Pennsylvania, turret glass was not a priority at that time. Then T.G. decided he wanted to install the student seats and the turret support tube was in the way. We pulled the turret with the idea that we would rebuild it, and a sheet metal cover for the hole was fabricated and installed.

[mustangdriver]

Thanks Rick, I thought I was losing it at first cause I remember being in that turret at one point. Yeah I remember the turret glass was not that great. It was covered for a while, but then the coverblew off. What a cool airplane. I have alot of time sitting in the left seat thinking about being on the deck of the Hornet. I remember being allowed to be part of the gear swings, engine start ups, and just a ton of other stuff. Randy Whalberg(sp) was awesome to let me help as I was just a 16 year old kid that was into airplanes, and volunteered at the air museum next door.

[RickH]

The crew from Houston that went to recover her from Beaver Falls was Tommy Garcia - former Houston Director, Russ Ericson ( Houston A-26 crew ), Randy Walberg ( local A & P ), and Ernesto Morales ( local A & P and T-28 guru ), I was stuck at home running my business but feeding parts to them, daily. We worked on her for years down here, curing many ills during that time. We finally sent her to Carl to do new wing attach angles and many other things were done at the same time. Shortly after that, she went to Midland to Avsource West for paint and control surface recovering.

Bob C. asked me to find a paint scheme from an aircraft that had a significant history. I looked at many J aircraft but finally settled on Tondelayo even though she was a D. Since the D was a transition type aircraft that pioneered many of the J features we felt that it was close enough that we could represent Tondelayo's remarkable story and recognize the 500th's achievements to the public. We also thought it was cool that we could use the horse's head of the 500th since it was only in use for a short time, they were eventually ordered to conform with the rest of the 345th and put the Indian head on their tails. The OD over Gray was also a nice change since we had been battling the light desert tan for so many years, the old paint was heavily oxidized and was a bear to try and keep respectable !

[mustangdriver]

Ha ha !! That is right. Rick I have a bunch of pics if you would be interested in seeing them of the work done there. I remember me and Ernesto sitting in the rear fuselage cleaning parts for the carbs during a heavy rain. That was a great crew. I also remember celebrating with them whenever parts would arrive. The Hoosier Honey paint was just OK, it is special to me because of my time with the aircraft. I like the scheme it is in now much better. Randy would sing my log book I was keeping of what I did on airplanes at the time. I will never forget the nice comment Randy wrote to me on the last day of work before they left. I still have it to this day. "All work by Chris on the B-25 has been completed to a standard far above what is required." To some that wouldn't mean a ton, but to a 16 year old airplane dork, that meant the world to me. Actually still does. Ha Ha

[mustangdriver]

I also remember Mr. C. sticking up for me. A few of the museum members at that time were not happy to have young people around. I was there with about 3 or 4 others around my age. These few would normally try and keep us doing things in the gift shop or anything else away from the planes. Keep in mind not all of them were that way, but a select few. Just enough to make it tough. And keep in mind that we weren't kids that were half interested in it, or anything. We were kids that wanted to be there, and were thrilled when we got to clean parts for the B-26, help cover the fabric surfaces on the B-17, and so on. Some just felt that kids had no place at this museum. Anyway, I loved the b-25, and when I met the guys that were going to get it read to go, I asked if they needed any help. They said that they could use me, so I started working with them. When one of the anti kids people saw that, he right away complained that I was not working on a museum aircraft and was not covered on the museum's insurance. Randy went in and spoke on my behalf stating that I was a help and was thankful for another body. Then the same anit-kid guy told me that I needed to stop working on the B-25 and handed me a shovel and said I needed to go and patch pot holes in the service road to the airport. Randy saw this while he was on the phone with MR. C. and mentioned the issue. Later Mr.C called the museum to set things straight, and Randy told a few people where to put their shovel. That was one of the coolest things someone ever did to stand up for me. From then on even after the B-25 left, everyone at the museum treated me a little bit more as an equal than a 2nd class citizen.