Moses Lake B-23/UC-67 has flown

[airnutz]

So which bird was with the Sanders brothers?

Ex-Bogue 39-0033, but since they are in Ione, Calif....the same city where it resided with Mr. Bogue...I'm wondering if they didn't just handle the flight prep for her when she finally sold. Eventually being ferried up to Bellevue.

[SaxMan]

I got the list off Wikipedia, so I can't make any claims for its accuracy. Still, though, the number of survivors from such a short production run is remarkable.

I believe the ex-CAF bird is the one up in Geneseo now, IIRC.

[airnutz]

What happened to the one in CAF?

That's the one that went to HAG at Geneseo, NY.

[airnutz]

Still, though, the number of survivors from such a short production run is remarkable.

I guess being faster and sexier with an aggressive job description over a "regular" gooney bird has its merits,

[airnutz]

I got the list off Wikipedia, so I can't make any claims for its accuracy.

Ahhh sooo, an error on your wiki notes. The one at Moses Lake in the flight video Rob gave us the headzup on is 39-0063, N777LW(white/w stripe) and is still registered to Carmacks in Alaska. No new news on 39-0033, N747M(NMF) ex-Bogue now with Pissed Away.

[warbird51]

N747M Ser. 39-33 was the B-23 that was undergoing restoration by Sanders Aeronautical. It's now down with Musala in AZ. I don't know if any further work has been done since the move.

[Michel Lemieux]

Still begs my original question on the list

What are the potential or near / airworthy ones left?

- Moose Lake: airworthy. Who owns it now and where is it going?
- Kermitt's: resto needed...has the means but it is priority based.
- There was one with the Sanders brothers. Ex-Bogue 39-0033 Flown recently but who has an update?
- Ex CAF with HAG (Static restro)
- Ex Howard Hughes AC...where is it now?

[JohnTerrell]

The one that used to be at Sanders, registered to "Pissed Away" (N747M/39-0033), is the one owned by Jim Slattery, who also has the SBD and SB2C projects at Vulture's Row, F3A Corsair at Ezell's, and the P-38F at Westpac (as well as the two Tigercats that were restored at Westpac and Fighter Rebuilders in recent years). I'd assume, that like these other projects, it is very actively being worked on and will be flying in the near future. Slattery also owns several other warbirds and classics, including a PBY, Skyraider, TBM, and an F3F-2, which have been flown and displayed at airshows/events in southern California.

[Lon Moer]

<>
Wrecks

B-23

39-0052 - largely complete wreck at Loon Lake, Idaho.[12]

Its not really looking very complete

[Noha307]

Still, though, the number of survivors from such a short production run is remarkable.

I did a quick and simple analysis (see worksheet 3) of the ratio of the number of a given type of warbird produced to the number surviving not too long ago. One of my major motivations to do it was the strange circumstance of the B-23 you mentioned. The B-23 was indeed the odd one out with, ironically enough, approximately 23% of airframes surviving. The next closest was the A-26 at 4%.

(A few caveats, however: 1. the list was American aircraft only; 2. I made no attempt to count the number of T-6s - I used FAA registered airframes only; 3. the data I used mostly came from the given aircraft's respective Wikipedia articles; 4. this data includes static display survivors, not just airworthy ones.)

[SaxMan]

Neat worksheet. I'm a spreadsheet and statistics nerd myself. I can stare at that stuff for hours.

I did notice that the C-47 was omitted from the list. Maybe because it is too hard to separate from the civilian DC-3? Taking the entire DC-3/C-47 line into consideration, I'm guessing the number is up around 10 - 15%.

Also, I'm guessing these numbers are as of today? For example, we know that there were many more B-17s than the 40 or so extant airframes that survived the mass scrappings, but succumbed to crashes or being scrapped. I believe the total number of TBMs that made it to the civil register was closer 135, but many of them were expended during their lives as tankers and sprayers.

[SaxMan]

Just to throw a couple more pre-war designs into the mix:

Boeing 247 - 75 produced, 4 survivors
Boeing 307 - 10 produced, 1 survivor (with a second fuselage as a houseboat, and apparently the unrecovered wreck of a third one in Vietnam)

Douglas B-18 - 350 produced - 5 survivors
Douglas DC-2 - 198 produced - 8 survivors

So yes, there is definitely something special about the B-23 that caused so many of them to survive in proportion to their production numbers. The only other plane that comes close is the F2G Super Corsair. Prior to Race 74's unfortunate demise, 3 out of 10 airframes survived -- 30% of the production run. Race 57 and the MoF Super Corsair still account for 20% of the entire production.

[Noha307]

I did notice that the C-47 was omitted from the list. Maybe because it is too hard to separate from the civilian DC-3?

You nailed it! I had forgotten I had excluded the C-47, but you are correct - I didn't want to bother attempting to separate the military from the civilian. Even if I did, it still wouldn't seem quite right to exclude the civilian DC-3s from the total. Additionally, the situation is somewhat similar to the T-6 data. Do you want to go around counting every T-6? That's why I used the FAA registry. Bottom line, there wasn't a quick Wikipedia article or comparable webpage to reference for those numbers.

Also, I'm guessing these numbers are as of today? For example, we know that there were many more B-17s than the 40 or so extant airframes that survived the mass scrappings, but succumbed to crashes or being scrapped. I believe the total number of TBMs that made it to the civil register was closer 135, but many of them were expended during their lives as tankers and sprayers.

That's a good point. Again, you're more or less correct. As I said before, almost all of the numbers are based on lists from Wikipedia. So these numbers are "as of today" inasmuch as the Wikipedia articles are "as of today".

[airnutz]

N747M Ser. 39-33 was the B-23 that was undergoing restoration by Sanders Aeronautical. It's now down with Muszala in AZ. I don't know if any further work has been done since the move.

Thanks for the news, it always nice to hear from her former crew chief and "famous" person with B-23 stick(yoke?) time in her.
I thought we had seen photos of her up in Washington a few years back, but actually The Inspector had corrected that assumption and ID'd the location as Eagles Nest, Ione...he also pointed out that Bellevue was no longer an airport.
Hopefully between Mr. Slattery and recent activity of N777LW at Moses Lake a gander at a flying Dragon will be a sooner than later possibility.

The photos were -33 in the background of video while the White 1 262 was at Sanders having some bugs sorted before delivery, here at the beginning and end of the video....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12BHd7QZnRA

[Ryan Harris]

The possibility of a flying Dragon is now. The beginning of the thread talks about her flying just last week. Somewhere there was a video of the flight posted, but I can't remember where on Facebook it was.