Warbird Information Exchange

None of the WHF aircraft are show winners. Our owner is more interested in very well maintained aircraft that he can fly as much as he would like. They are not locked up away from the public. We’re very open to showing these airplanes along with the facility.

It was not my intention to state that this particular restoration would fall in to that category. Apologies if I've offended anyone.
I was commenting more generally to the points raised by T.J. in the post above mine.
I've fallen victim to the shortcomings of the keyboard.
There are a lot of restorations that seem to follow that path.
I'm looking forward to some photos of this Corsair flying again.

Andy

Hi Andy,
No offense taken. None of our airplanes are a concourse restorations as we value the maintenance more as we fully intend to fly them. We are tired of the complaints of returning the Corsair to stock versus keeping it as a mediocre race airplane. Leaving it in the so called race condition would definitely have kept it as a hangar queen. It was unsafe to operate in the condition it was in when the WHF acquired the airplane.
On the bright side, it’s first engine run should be this week some time.

OK, that's good. Thanks.
Engine runs make for an exciting milestone and usually for great press!
I was curious about one of the race photos posted.
What is that 4 blade prop off of?

I quite appreciate the well maintained and regularly exercised approach to vintage aircraft.
The Tiger Moth I fly falls in to that category. We fly it a lot and share it with any who are interested.
Lots of fun!
In fact, a fellow Wixer P.M'd me with questions and I promptly invited him up to have a go.
He headed up and basically got mugged by some Customs goons at the border. Many of them behave more like prison guards.
Rather than risk permanent crap on his record he turned around and went home.

Andy

Hi Andy,
The 4 blade prop was off of a Skyraider. That was a big bonus for us as we have a Skyraider and the blades are almost unobtainium.
David

Well. you've gotta love happy endings!
Looking forward to good news regarding engine runs David.
Thanks for the info.

Andy

yay!


https://www.facebook.com/WarbirdHeritag ... 752322475/

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

Yay! indeed!
Congratulations to the team on this fabulous milestone.
It's so great to hear them come to life after all that hard work.
(Thanks for posting Dan)

Cheers

Andy

Excellent!!

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P-51, The Cadillac of the Sky!

So I guess I ought to apologize for having the audacity to say something negative, and not just give accolades for your chosen path then? "Tired of the complaints". How easily do you guys get offended? So far on this thread the only ones to be negative are Lon and me, so you seem to have the majority on your side. Unless there are other people outside WIX who bombard you with negative vibes. Which, if true would mean that there are actually some out there who have an appreciation for even "a mediocre race airplane". Or does it mean that you expect everybody to just fall in line and shower you with recognition? Talking of unsafe condition, as I mentioned previously I seem to remember that some of those mods were done post- Mitchems's ownership so it could have been put in the 1970-71-72 guise. That comes down to the will, and as you yourself said earlier, value!

T J

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Make my day, punk!

No accolades needed. We’ve had the airplane in restoration to stock for seven years now with the intent very early on conveyed to return it to stock configuration. It’s not the number of people who’ve expressed their views to keep it a racer. Just a few over the seven year process who feel it’s just another Blue Corsair now.

How dare we have a differing opinion on a discussion board!

Back when I was working on Warbirds it was about owning and flying and racing them for fun.
Now it about investment returns and living out revisionist history.

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remember the Oogahonk!
old school enthusiast of Civiltary Warbirds and Air Racers

This aircraft is painted in colors that it wore in its' own past.
That is actual, not revisionist history.
The current owner / restorer chose to wind the clock back to that period in history.
It is fine that your opinion or choices may differ.
After people have invested huge amounts of time, efforts and resources in to a project like this, it can't be surprising that they have little interest listening to those who would bemoan the results.
It is also not surprising that this type of complaint leads to restorers not sharing their efforts with those of us who are interested.

Andy

Great looking Corsair! I like the livery.

FWIW, I rather like the idea of restoring vintage aircraft to represent the way they appeared in their own past. Take the Collings TP-51D "Toulouse Nuts". The general public probably don't care much about the West Virginia ANG, and they'd probably rather see that ship wearing the livery of some famous P-51 ace. But that airplane is documented to have served with WVANG, and I think it's pretty cool that CF chose to restore it to represent that piece of its history. Don't misunderstand. I have nothing against honoring famous aces or combat units. No problem with that whatsoever. But restoring an airplane to represent itself is just a bit more interesting for me.

And for the record, difference of opinion is a good thing, as is the freedom to express those opinions! That is, as long as the differing opinions don't degrade into insults, name-calling, and personal attacks. That kind of useless crap ruins it for everyone.

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

After nearly 7 years of waiting on the parts from Dennison Enterprises and numerous promises of getting them done, we moved this part of the project to another shop.