The Town Bomber

Talked to dad about the wildcat. He said that it was at the Phillips Acadmey in Exeier NH. He has a pic of it with him and his brother standing on the wing. Apparently the airplane was taken away and buried. when my father was with the VT aeronautics board in the late 70's, a man brought the control stick from the wildcat to his boss. The man also told him that the airplane had 28hrs total time!!!

I have a shovel if anyone wants to do the research!!!

Ah yes. Winter in New Hampshire with a shovel. (!) You wouldn't have a backhoe, magnetometer and a GPS system too would you?

Thanks,

Rob / Kansan

[Chris Brame]

Thread from the dead time, or: Grab a shovel, Igor!

There is a rumor about one or two B-17 fuselages
used as boy scout clubhouses, which were then buried near
Rt. 20 in Rockford, Illinois. Anyone know anything
about them?

Rockford Air Scouts B-17.jpg (229.31 KiB) Viewed 3395 times

Rockford Air Scouts B-17 2.jpg (137.05 KiB) Viewed 3395 times

And while we're at it, how about another?

Freeport Air Scouts B-17.jpg (234.12 KiB) Viewed 3395 times

Two more, not confirmed whether the plans were successful:

Herald_and_News_Thu__Feb_27__1947_.jpg (139.75 KiB) Viewed 3395 times

The_Los_Angeles_Times_Sun__Mar_24__1946_.jpg (105.37 KiB) Viewed 3395 times

And finally, of course:

I mentioned this a year or so ago, but the Air Scouts group from the Boy Scouts of America received planes from the USAAF and the Navy after the war for educational/recruiting use. My dad said that a B-17 was flown to the Paducah, Kentucky airport (now known as Barkley Regional Airport); the crew removed the batteries and left it there as sort of an Air Scout clubhouse. It was gone by about 1950. I still haven't found out the serial.

It took over ten years, but with the help of the son-in-law of the Air Scouts troop leader, it was verified as 42-102875.

[Chris Brame]

The P-61 at the NMUSAF was donated by Boy Scouts from Springfield.

P-61C 43-8353. It was Urbana - and Earl Reinert bought it from them but by the time he was able to go pick it up, the Air Scouts had passed it along to the museum. At least he helped keep it out of the hands of the scrappers.

[wendovertom]

I hope this is not too much of a hi-jack. In the book "They were called Silverplate", A phase 3 Silverplate B-29 with SN 44-27295 ended its Air Force career with the 4713th Radar Evaluation squadron at Griffiths AFB in New York. After it was dropped from inventory records are unclear but it was supposedly transferred to a museum or school - but nothing indicating who/where.

I am sure it is long gone but boy howdy that would have been an incredible gift!

Tom P.

[bdk]

Polo, Il got a B-17 as well. After a few years it was sold and became a fire bomber. It was destroyed in 1979.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5457&hilit=b17

[quemerford]

I hope this is not too much of a hi-jack. In the book "They were called Silverplate", A phase 3 Silverplate B-29 with SN 44-27295 ended its Air Force career with the 4713th Radar Evaluation squadron at Griffiths AFB in New York. After it was dropped from inventory records are unclear but it was supposedly transferred to a museum or school - but nothing indicating who/where.

I am sure it is long gone but boy howdy that would have been an incredible gift!

Tom P.

'museum/school' can be a loose term: in many cases airframes in this category went to vocational schools as technical training airframes rather than to high schools etc.