Warbird Information Exchange

any info on the swoose out there? does anyone have the inside info on what the delay in restoring her is all about? is there a parts inventory for her? it would sure be nice to see a little action regarding this plane. tanx.

From what I've read, any restoration effort on the Swoose will wait until the new restoration facility is built at the Hazy center. I'm a big believer in "storing them on display". In other words, assemble the planes and put them on display in an unrestored state. As time and money becomes available, restore them. I would love to see the Swoose on display in the Hazy center in as is condition until it can be pulled from dispaly for restoration. Just my thoughts......

i agree with you 100%! why keep it hidden?? is there any public access to it in its present location??

The last time I saw "Swoose" was a rare open house at Silver Hill and that was really only wings in the back of one of the storage buildings.

A few years back someone had more recent pictures of fuselage parts (published in EAA Warbirds? - Can't recall exactly), but that was a while ago.

I hope I live long enough to see "the Swoose" back together again, even unrestored...along with their B26 "Flak Bait"!

Check these out:

http://www.aviation-history.com/garber/ ... index.html

I was back in Washington D.C. around 1985 and was able to take a tour of the Silver Hill facility. I don't think they allow that anymore, which is too bad.
I know that Shoo Shoo Baby was restored by a private firm, why doesn't the museum let someone restore some of the other planes? With the new facility they seem to have more than enough room to display restored aircraft and it would be nice to actually see history, in the flesh so to speak, instead of pictures.

My understanding was that Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby was restored by 512th Air Lift Wing at Dover AFB.

Shay
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Semper Fortis

I was able to take a tour of the Garber facility in LATE 2002, just before they closed it to the public. My one wish, is that I got to tour it with my dad, cousin, and brother. They would have FLIPPED OUT

Can't remember where I pulled this picture from... obviously shows it in NASM storage. Thought it was a view not on one of the previous posts.


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I was told by amamber of the team that did the Boeing Bee and 307 offered to restore the Swoose and were turned down.

There are some strange decisions made at the Smithsonian. To bad Paul Garber isn't still around........

Dont look for the Swoose to be restored for many many years. Very unfortunate!

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

Here's the story behind that article. In July of 1998, Paul Koskela, Sam Koskela and I got special permission through EAA Warbirds of America to go to Silver Hill for a pictorial article on the rare WWII Axis aircraft stored there. For three hours, we were guided through every storage building at Garber that had WWII aircraft in it. We took lots of pictures of the Axis aircraft...and everything else along the way. The result was a lengthy article that Paul wrote with lots of pictures which was published in late 1998 in EAA Warbirds magazine called "Inside America's Attic" or "A visit to America's Attic" or something like that. Here's a few of the Swoose pictures from that visit.

Dennis

Great pictures!
Wonder what happened to the pitot tube mast? In older pic's, it was intact. Now it looks broken off.......