Airplanes at College Park Restaurant

[SaxMan]

Woodsy: Just to clarify - the F7U was at Wheaton and the FJ Fury was at Cabin John, although both were scrapped in situ. This is the first I heard that the remains were buried under the playground. Do you recall who you spoke to / heard from that gave you that information? I also volunteer documenting plane crash sites on M-NCPPC lands, even excavated one site which earned it a Historic Archaeological Site designation. I might be able to convince the powers that be to do some excavating the next time the playground equipment needs to be replaced.

This is the first I heard about the F9F at Meadowbrook...Did you succeed in obtaining it? If you didn't, is it still there?

[Woodsy Airfield]

SaxMan - Its been many years since I was at these sites - Things get fuzzy after awhile... The names/locations of folks I talked to has vanished from memory... The gent in charge at Wheaton in regards to F9F-8P would probably be in his 80's or 90's now...I obtained the Cougar and had it in outside storage in Northern Ohio until 2010 when it was obtained by Steve Penning of Windsor California. He then made a deal with the Estrella Aviation Museum of Paso Robles California where it is now under restoration for a static display...For more info on the Cougar, go to Aerial Visuals and look up info on BuNo 144388...

I know this...The 1970's were an exciting time to search for static aircraft. My wife would cringe whenever we were on vacation because of the small detours I'd take to check out known sites...

[Cutlass]

Woodsy: Just to clarify - the F7U was at Wheaton and the FJ Fury was at Cabin John, although both were scrapped in situ. This is the first I heard that the remains were buried under the playground. Do you recall who you spoke to / heard from that gave you that information? I also volunteer documenting plane crash sites on M-NCPPC lands, even excavated one site which earned it a Historic Archaeological Site designation. I might be able to convince the powers that be to do some excavating the next time the playground equipment needs to be replaced.

This is the first I heard about the F9F at Meadowbrook...Did you succeed in obtaining it? If you didn't, is it still there?

Please do keep me in mind should you happen to be able to gather approval to excavate this F7U site. I approached the park authorities in 1983 with this same desire and was rebuffed.

For the record, Walter's F7U-3 was obtained from NAS South Weymouth.

Al

F7U-3 BuNo 129622
F7U-3 BuNo 129554

alcasby@projectcutlass.com

[SaxMan]

The park folks are very, very reticent about letting outside groups do any metal detecting, let alone excavations on park property. I managed to be able to excavate at a site in Clarksburg where a Capital Airlines DC-3 went down simply because they already had demolition crews on site, so it wasn't a big deal to point the backhoe excavator at a spot that I wanted dug out. I've had a much tougher time getting permission to excavate a B-57 site in Beallsville.

Basically the M-NCPPC has one licensed archaeologist to supervise all the projects on the 35,000 acres of land they supervise, and any work done needs to be under her supervision. So, I put my name and the sites in the queue and hope that I make it to the top of the list one day.

Last time I was at Wheaton, I think they were in the process of replacing the equipment, so an opportunity may exist.

[cptsmith]

The Cutlass from the park may have ended up at Avon Park Bombing Range. I saw one out there in the early 90's that looked like it had been on display somewhere. There was concrete in the cockpit and a small steel ladder on the side. The verts were missing and it had a practice bomb sticking out of the aft section (great hit with a dumb bomb). I'm sure it is gone by now, they clean up every few years. There were about a dozen F-100s and twice as many T-birds (lots of different tail badges, an all yellow one even had a N number and department of water management on the side). One day I may look for the pics, not the best quality but at least a last look before the scrap man.

[SaxMan]

Seems like it would be an awful lot of trouble to move an aircraft hulk from Maryland to Florida just to be expended as a target when there were probably easier ways to get target planes to a bombing range.

I'm still checking with my contacts within the M-NCPPC to see if they have any recollections or know any of the "old timers" who would know.

[cptsmith]

It might be a long haul but the Huns and T-birds came from somewhere other than FL and they weren't flown in. It's the federal government, logic does not apply.

[JohnB]

There were about a dozen F-100s and twice as many T-birds (lots of different tail badges, an all yellow one even had a N number and department of water management on the side). One day I may look for the pics, not the best quality but at least a last look before the scrap man.

T-birds and Huns...sound like it might be French or Danish aircraft returning to US control after being withdrawn from use. But that would have been in the 70s-early 80s.

[cptsmith]

The Huns were Air Guard in SEA camo and the T-Birds various base hacks. This was in the early 90's, I don't know when they were put on the range. They have a fenced in yard next to the runway where they keep their targets in waiting. Trucks, M-577's a few F-4's and Cobras last time I looked (about a year ago).

[Chris Brame]

There were about a dozen F-100s and twice as many T-birds (lots of different tail badges, an all yellow one even had a N number and department of water management on the side). One day I may look for the pics, not the best quality but at least a last look before the scrap man.

The Huns were Air Guard in SEA camo and the T-Birds various base hacks. This was in the early 90's, I don't know when they were put on the range.

I might have a tie-in with that. In the March, 1975 Air Classics, USAF Lt. William J. Simone posted a long list of display aircraft notated during March 1974. One section listed nine USAF T-33s at Pensacola on a restricted part of the base: 52-9817, 53-5254, 53-5922, 53-6085, 55-4353, 56-1741, 56-3660, 58-501, and 58-660. MMT's listings say all of them were transferred to the Navy circa 1972 with no further info; could these have been targets as well?

The yellow T-33 with the N-number was 56-1730:

*Bailed to NASA as 950 and N950NA.
*Bailed to the US Geological Survey, Water Resources Division, registered as N1449.
*6/1971: Put into storage at the AMARC bone yard.
*5/1975: Sent to be a target on the Avon Park Range, FL.

[cptsmith]

The T-Birds where from a bunch of different bases, I tried to get pics of all the badges on the tails. If I can locate them, the serial numbers should be in the frame. I think the Huns may have been from MO or DC ANG units.

[Buzz]

Russian space shuttle in Moscow’s Gorky Park.

http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2010/09 ... shuttle-2/

http://www.idealistrevolution.org/the-r ... -shuttles/