Warbird Information Exchange

Hey Chuckster! New Iberia is not my choice of locations to relocate the birds.... If that bad girl hits around Orange, to Lake Charles, Lafayatte and Baton Rouge are gonna get hit really bad.... they have the storm surge side of the blow..... the storm has approximately a 400 mile diameter at this time..... N'Awlins is already getting more rain..... they have the possiblity of flooding again....
Get the birds out to MAF and leave'em! At least for the time being.... Alan

There is one on display at Kelly AFB (saw it last month) and I remember seing one in the weeds at Edwards AFB years ago.

Hi Everyone,
Will try to make it out to the CAF hangar here in Midland and see if any planes have arrived to avoid Hurricane Rita. Would like to see the A-26 "Spirit of Waco" make it along with several of the Tora birds from the Houston area.

I'll post around noon if possible.

Stephen

Didn't get time to make it to CAF today here in Midland. Did notice yesterday that there are many Navy T-34's here, probably from Corpus Christi.

Stephen

I found out today that some of the planes were sent to Louisiana. Ouch! That may have been a real bad move since the storm is bearing down onto the LA border now.

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Live to fly, Fly to live.....

Not to fear. I talked to Ralph yesterday. He was stuck in the traffic mess going out of Galveston. I got together a group of Cavanaugh pilots and LSFM pilots in the Dallas area and we flew to New Iberia, La. in the Cavanaugh Flight Museum's C47. We picked up the B-17, B-25, SBD, and F4U-5 and flew them to Grayson County airport in Sherman, Tx. The C47 followed and picked us up and brought us back to Addison.

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Blue Skies,
Doug

www.cavanaughflightmuseum.com

Excellent I love to see a plan come together. Wish I had been in the area to see the overflight.

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

Good job Doug!

Stephen

WOOHOO!

Musical Airports, great job guys!

BE SAFE!

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"Hindsight is usually 20% off!"

Way to go Doug!

I haven't heard anything directly regarding LSFM's situation with Rita,
but having spent the evening a few miles inland and in touch with a
Galveston County cop friend, it looks like LSFM may have dodged any
major bullets.

Too bad LSFM can't find a way to base their "FLYING" collection, maybe
some of their component-ized restorations, maintenance operations,
and smaller more transportable statics at Scholes. But have their
heavier resto-stuff like the Privateer based at nearby Ellington. I may
be remembering wrong, but doesn't Elly have a 30 foot higher elevation
than Scholes? Of course part of the charm of a museum such as LSFM
is seeing the flying aircraft, but it is also pleasurable and fascinating to
watch a project like the PB4Y progress over the years. Sure is a risky
place to do it! It had my stomach in knots this week!

_________________
He bowls overhand...He is the most interesting man in the world.
"In Peace Japan Breeds War", Eckstein, Harper and Bros., 3rd ed. 1943(1927, 1928,1942)
"Leave it to ol' Slim. I got ideas...and they're all vile, baby." South Dakota Slim
"Ahh..."The Deuce", 28,000 pounds of motherly love." quote from some Mojave Grunt
DBF

Just watching live TV from Galveston Airport and Lone Star looks very intact at least the building does. No apparent roof damage and it is not surrounded by standing water. Time 1411 CDT. John Kerr

John,

Excellent news. And from what I have seen thus far this old girl Rita has simmered down abit. Hopefully the hangar facility for Lone Star will keep the stuff they couldn't get out in good shape. Now, correct me if I am wrong here. But after attending alot of airshows, which LSFM aircraft were there, and speaking with the folks who broght the planes in, they explained that 90% of their collection was in flyable condition. Now, the reason I say this is, and not knowing myself personally, but if the P-38 and A-20 ARE maintained as flyble but not flown, from a mechanics point of view, a quick once over, engine runs, and service check would do the trick for ferry permits wouldn't it ?

Or..pardun the pun...am I all wet here ?

God willing the folks down in the path of Rita are gonna get through it okay. The planes can be fixed down the road...but sheesh....people come first.

Paul

Some of the text below was written Thursday evening, before the storm came thru. I have my password reset now, am still evacuated to Katy and have nothing else to do but wait to go home.
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Pat, I still read the list, but my password is perpetually screwed up, so I rarely attempt to post. The only reason the
reporter was talking to me was because everyone else was either gone
(flying out aircraft) or too busy to deal with a reporter. He did talk to
Ralph Royce later. I was extremely busy myself, disassembling my own
Steen Skybolt to get it out and did not have time to give a museum tour.
I did tell him there were 3 B-58s remaining, off the top of my head. Big
F***ing Deal! I did not have a Warbird Resource Guide at my disposal. At least I did manage to correct him before he listed the B-58 as "the first
jet bomber", as he told another person shorted after he talked to me. I
really hesitated to talk to him at all, because I know from experience
that if you talk to a reporter, you WILL be misquoted.

I am seeing alot of criticism on the WIX suggesting what *could* be done.
The people making those comments have no clue what's going on. Consider these things:

1. I'm not sure when the museum first knew of Rita as a threat, but I
didn't know until Monday, or maybe Sunday night earliest, I don't
remember. Galveston was under a MANDATORY evacuation starting 6pm Wed. That's 3 days tops. It took a HUGE effort to accomplish was was done. The article says that 31 planes were left behind. That's totally wrong. I think what they did was count the planes in the hangar. However, what happened was that the museum allowed some local aircraft, including a couple of Evergreen's helicopters, to be stored in the museum hangars after the museum aircraft were removed. While still in danger, LSFM's hangar is as good as it gets on the island. I cannot give you the true number of LSFM aircraft left behind, since I did not count them, but it was nowhere near 31.

2. I can confirm cvairwerks observation that it is not a simple matter to
disassemble an airplane and trailer it out. I spent about 4 hours Tuesday
night and several more hours Wednesday getting our Skybolt disassembled and trailered out in two trips through evacuation traffic. It was not fun.

3. Much of the LSFM volunteer base and all of the employees live in the
evacuation zone. Lives are more important than any airplane, period.
They have their own homes and families to take of. I have been working my tail off since Tuesday and have just now, late Thursday afternoon gotten to our (relatively) safe haven in Katy. I live outside Alvin, about 30
miles off the coast. I was not able to prep my house as well as I would
have liked because we simply ran out of time.

4. It is a very bad idea to quickly attempt to wake up a pickled airplane and fly it under these circumstances. That is good way to get people killed and is not worth the risk. Get your priorities straight people.

They were very quick with mandatory evacuations after the Katrina
experience. I can't complain about that. Having volunteered at the
George R Brown Katrina shelter and talked with many survivors, we do NOT want to repeat any part of that.

I have not been involved with the list or the museum as much in the last
couple years. This is mainly because I have opened my eyes to the reality that we should worship God, not airplanes. There are alot of people in warbirds that are worshipping the warbirds. I was one of them. I still love airplanes and even changed careers (after being laid off) to become an airplane mechanic (Rick Sharpe is my boss at Rowan Drilling), but they're not the most important thing in life.

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"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." 2 Corinthians 13:14

Oh man here we go again....."airworthy" but not flying. Just like all of those "flying and airworthy" airplanes at Yanks in Chino.

John