P-80 Replica?

[cott]

How many F-80s are out there? Are any in private hands? I know ours at EAA is still property of the Air Force. I'd like to restore the cockpit and let folks sit in it during Airventure.

Lots of ideas. No $$$

Still trying though

[mustangdriver]

I found another shot of the Hill AFB one on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bubbinski/ ... otostream/

[JBoyle]

Hard to be sure from that angle, but it looks to be the correct fuselage length for a F-80.

I can't see anyone who's a professional warbird/historic plane rebuilder NOT shorting it. Just covering the back seat would look very silly and not be much of a testimony to their firm. And it wouldn't be that hard especially to static standards.
The Hill writeup seems to say it was shortened before the NMUSAF got hold of it...so I think we can assume it wasn't a rushed "cut and paste" job.

And I'd like to think that the NMUSAF wouldn't buy/trade for an airplane that looked as bas as a single seat T-33 would.