This is the place where the majority of the warbird (aircraft that have survived military service) discussions will take place. Specialized forums may be added in the new future
Post a reply

Another raceplane from Texas...

Thu May 26, 2016 10:35 am

Well, he didn't actually get to race, but the crew seemed to have a good time tooling around the pylons during qualifying.

Not often we got to see a Racer with full armament! If you can't go faster than the opposition, there are other ways to deal with lapping traffic.

This airplane should be familiar to WIXers from down there in Texas...

Image

Re: Another raceplane from Texas...

Thu May 26, 2016 1:24 pm

Living in San Antonio now under a different name

Re: Another raceplane from Texas...

Thu May 26, 2016 1:45 pm

Circa 1970, John Lear flew a A-26/B-26/A-26 in the Reno race. It would have been fun to see a few B-25s there as well.

There are enough B-25s around, they could have had their own stock class, just like T-6s. :)

Re: Another raceplane from Texas...

Thu May 26, 2016 2:14 pm

There have been, I think, three B-25s at least that have run the pylons during qualifications at Reno -- Silver Lady, Pacific Princess (in blue) and Wiley Sanders' airplane. There have actually been at least 3 A-26s (including Wally's K model) actually raced at Reno and Mojave. There was even a Grumman Tracker (actually COD version I think) that ran the pylons (as a joke I think) at a race in Denver back in the 1990s. Jerry had it listed as Race 20 and it was great fun to watch.

So there is some precedent here...

Re: Another raceplane from Texas...

Thu May 26, 2016 2:44 pm

did Erickson sell Silver Lady?

Re: Another raceplane from Texas...

Thu May 26, 2016 2:53 pm

Stoney wrote:did Erickson sell Silver Lady?

Yes. It was sold to Rod Lewis several years ago and is now "Russian to get ya".
Erickson bought Heavenly Body after selling Silver Lady.

Re: Another raceplane from Texas...

Thu May 26, 2016 4:24 pm

Warbirdnerd wrote:
Stoney wrote:did Erickson sell Silver Lady?

Yes. It was sold to Rod Lewis several years ago and is now "Russian to get ya".
Erickson bought Heavenly Body after selling Silver Lady.



Anyone know why Erickson sold the P-47 and B-25, then turned around and bought other examples?

Re: Another raceplane from Texas...

Thu May 26, 2016 7:37 pm

Back in late 1983 Bill Arnot was nice enough to take me for a spectacular ride in the nose of Silver Lady, with Howard in very tight formation in his FM-2. I had an 80-210 zoom on my camera at the time. Backed off to 80mm I still could not get the entire Wildcat in the frame, and it's a small airplane!

Re: Another raceplane from Texas...

Fri May 27, 2016 12:18 am

Reno 84' I took Phil Makanna up in my SNJ to shot Silver Lady and Silver Baby, it had a gunners hood and rotating back seat. I'm sure he got some great pix of them over Pyramid lake.
Post a reply