Warbird Information Exchange

The Hellcat seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance at the moment. I'm just curious as to the status of the various projects out there.

Ex-TFC aircraft at Ezell's for Rod Lewis - is this actively being worked on?
Ex-Bill Compton aircraft for Jack Croul
Ex-NMUSMC/Evergreen aircraft for Collings at Gary Norville's shop in New Smyrna Beach.
Ex-Yanks aircraft for Fagen (is this still at Chino?)

Did any more information surface about the rumoured project with the late Mike Coutches at Hayward?
Was the Moffett one ever traced?
Wasn't there a project a while back based on various drone wrecks recovered from the Channel Islands?
Any others out there?

MTIA

What happened to the Hellcat at Hooks (KDWH) in Tomball,Texas back around 2011?

AFAIK there was never one based there. Was it a rebuild project? A visiting airworthy example (could have been Lone Star's - now with Erickson - or Friedkin's)?

Collings and Fagen should both be airworthy this year. I’m not sure where Fagen’s is but I’m 99% sure it got trucked away from chino last spring. IIRC Fagen’s post said they wanted it flying for this years airshow season.

I don’t see too many photos of Croul’s and Rod’s, unedeucated guess would be 2-4 years on both. I imagine this season we will see some progress Rod’s now that the Mossie is completed. Croul’s will take a while considering the restoration will more than likely be up to Dottie Mae standards.

Pretty awesome we’re gonna double the airworthy fleet in a few years! Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly for all parties

Fagen's Hellcat was at Chino last year during the airshow and I am pretty sure it was stripped of its paint not long afterwards. Not sure if it was roaded out or not.

Mike- is there not that rumour of TFC having another one?

A friend of mine visited Fighter Rebuilders last summer and the Fagen Hellcat was there still as of late July - fully paint stripped, and the wings, control surfaces and many other parts removed and spread across shelves.

The Hellcat I saw was being painted at a paintshop on the east side of Hooks Airport.

This was the Lone Star airplane. It was only at Hooks to be repainted, and has since been moved on to Erickson.

The Collings Hellcat is assembled and painted now (she looks spectacular). I'd imagine final finishing will speed up drastically when the bombers leave for the full 2019 tour in a couple of weeks. There are two Hellcats potentially listed for the Warbirds in Review this year at Oshkosh. My guess is that these are the Collings and Fagen airframes.

I've seen a photo from December of the Lewis Hellcat at Ezell's. It looks like some work is being done to it, but there isn't much change in the outward appearance since the last photo posted on Ezell's facebook page.

Also, don't forget about the extra airframe being restored at Yank's. I don't have a status update on it though, and haven't seen anything for some time.

Definitely Collings, could be Fagen's, BUT may also be CAF SoCal or Erickson. CAF was supposed to send the Spitfire last year, just didn't happen. And Erickson is sending the Corsair to Thunder the week after, I could see both the Corsair and Hellcat going to OSH and then Thunder.

Thanks for all the info so far.

Does anyone else remember the drone recoveries, or did I just imagine that one?

The F6F drone recoveries are real. I used to have pics of some of the stuff. They were located Milwaukee, WI for a time.
I have no idea where they are now or how many viable projects they could have made of them...
Not sure the recovery operations were NHC approved which may explain why they have gone underground...

zebra mussel reef in the lake?

Pretty close, Nerd...it was Green Bay.

http://www.wwwoods.com/arrowhead/project3

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

Is there still a Hellcat out on the China Lake range - cockpit burnt out but otherwise intact?

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Hi, brand new here, but I wasn't able to find anything else regarding Hellcat projects. Has anyone heard of what happened to the Hellcat that was at Quonset Air Museum? I can't seem to find any info on it except they were restoring it there (not sure how far along they got though), and the museum closed at the end of 2016.