Warbird Information Exchange

Marvelous! Hope it works out.

Certainly a chase plane is in order.

I would think the Hurri would fulfill that role nicely.

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

I would love to see any aircraft Vintage Wings can send. Seeing the Hurricane at Selfridge last year was a real treat.

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Matt

Any chance you can bring the Hurricane along with the Spitfire, Dave?

Although she is pretty, she's not necessarily a grand champion restoration. Still has plenty of inaccuracies that the A (especially the XP) didn't have. Sure it's hard to notice if you don't know what to be looking for, but the judges do know. The Twin Mustang is going to be close to perfect, Lope's Hope IS perfect, and from what I've read Dottie Mae is pretty special too, especially with the whistle that only a few of the airworthy Thunderbolts have

At Oshkosh, you have categories of 'WWII Grand Champion', 'WWII Reserve Grand Champion', 'Post-WWII Grand Champion' and 'Post-WWII Reserve Grand Champion'. This allows for four different restorations to essentially win the same award, and a 'Golden Wrench' award is given to each of the four parties most responsible for each of those restorations. As we have seen in recent years, this is beneficial when you have so many high-quality restorations gathered/entered at the same time. As we have seen in recent years as well, absolute authenticity isn't a guarantee of attaining the top spot, such as due to the amount of scoring/points based solely on the determined level/factor of restoration difficulty/complexity. As was speculated about for years, and came as close as ever to being confirmed/proved in 2015, even if you were to take a time machine and somehow pull a Mustang straight out of WWII and park it on the field at Oshkosh for judging, you'd have a hard time getting the top spot due to the way the scoring is configured - while authenticity does play a big role in the judging/scoring, there are some aspects of the scoring that contradicts absolute authenticity as well, and even the most authentic warbird on the field might fall a point or two short because of another warbird gaining more in the difficulty factor (none of which is clear at all to the casual onlooker, simply looking at which aircraft got which award). Each year, other awards are always crafted as well to include best of types and outliers that reached a very high level (though I'm still befuddled by the 'Most Authentic' award that was created/handed out in 2015, to an aircraft which wasn't the most authentic of its type there).

If 'Dottie Mae' shows up, I don't know if anything else out there could top it for the 'WWII Grand Champion' spot, due to the fact that it is so authentically detailed throughout, down to the bolts and rivets (just like 'Sierra Sue II' and 'Lope's Hope 3rd'), and the difficulty factor/amount of points scored is higher with a Thunderbolt than a Mustang (although the aircraft has been operating with a Hamilton Standard prop, the recent Warbirds Digest article on 'Dottie Mae' mentions that a correct (accurate to what it had in WWII) operational Curtiss-Electric prop will be fitted to 'Dottie Mae', and there is also a plan to add back in all of the original combat repairs/patches over the exterior of the aircraft). If the XP-82 shows up, I think it should have the 'Post-WWII Grand Champion' spot in the bag.

In addition to those mentioned already in this thread, it would also be neat to see Dan Friedkin's Spitfire Mk.V EP122 there (now that it is being brought to the US from the UK), and/or Dan Friedkin's P-51D "Frenesi" (also now on its way back to the US), especially with it being the latest restoration to emerge from Midwest Aero (and which is really a clone, throughout, of "HJGB", the 2008 Oshkosh Grand Champ) - though I know it is not in the tradition of that collection/operation to bring warbirds to Oshkosh. It would also be neat to see Ron Lauder's Spitfire Mk.I P9374 there, now that it is based at/flown in New York (as authentic as any Spitfire restoration has achieved). Rod Lewis' Mosquito, at Avspecs in New Zealand, is supposed to be completed within the next few months... Also, I'm not sure how far out it is from completion, but I know Fagen Fighters/Warhawks Inc. has another P-40 restoration that has been advancing along for a while. How long until either Rod Lewis' or the Collings Foundation's Hellcats are completed/flying?

"Absolute authenticity" is not always desirable. You have to make some hard decisions during restoration. It will cost 2-3 million. Maybe more. You don't want to lose the aeroplane, and all the blood-sweat-tears.

Perhaps an extra fuel pump... an electric air pump for the brakes... fuel tanks where the guns once were... 24V instead of 12V... a transponder... these are some of the things that help keep the aircraft from crashing.

You all know what the Spitfire was designed for. But Canada is 4000 miles wide. Hmmmm....

The Hurricane IV is up for sale because we have a Mk XII well along and we don't need both (and the hangar is jammed). I doubt it will make it to OSH. In fact, sorry to say it (but not really ) the chase plane might very well be...



... which will not please anyone except the woman flying the thing. And in turn, me.

Dave

So I think we can assume it could be two of the following:

-P-51C Lopes Hope
-P-47 Dottie Mae
-XP-82 Twin Mustang
-Brewster Corsair
-TFL Bearcat
-Kermit Weeks' A-26
-A-26K Special Kay?
-Spitfire I P9374
-Spitfire V EP122
-P-51 Mustang Frenesi
-P-38 White 33?
-Collings Hellcat
-Rod Lewis' Mosquito FB.VI
-Slattery SBD Dauntless
-VWoC Spitfire IX
-XP-51A Mustang

Am I missing any?