What and Where am I looking at?

[mike furline]

This is a screen grab of an old clip that was used in a show on the Smithsonian Channel about missing aircraft in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

The cars in the video seem to indicate the mid to late 50's. (One car not shown.) Next to the bldg is an A-26, next to it is what looks like a Civilian painted T-28, Beech 18 and a few PV-2's in the back ground. What is the silver/white, single engine, low wing with two or three windows in the fuselage? The plane looks familiar, but I can't identify. Any idea where this might be? Surprised to see a Civilian T-28 in the late 50's possibly early 60's.

Edit: Perhaps a Lockheed Orion?

[Hooligan2]

Looks like an Orion to me.

Don't you wish airfields still looked like this?

(My first trip to America was in 1984 and just about every Florida airfield we visited had interesting old aircraft dotted about... several years later most of them had been cleared up...)

[sandiego89]

Not enough for me to tell where, but Chico could be a possibility, being dry, flat, near the Sierra Nevada's for the reported documentary, and having some of those types as early air tankers. Few other places as possibilities like Fresno, Merced etc. if indeed taken at an airport near the Sierra Nevada's in CA. Chino is always a possibility for those types, and if the camera is facing away from the mountains.

[DB2]

I would think that is Paul Mantz's lot at Orange County.

The Orion N12222 can also be seen here:

https://www.aerovintage.com/paul-mantz-photo-gallery-1/

I believe the USAF start selling T-28As surplus in the late 50s, after the T-34 and T-37 arrived. The Aero Vintage link shows the Orion in a new American Airways paint scheme in June 1961, so my guess is the photo/screen grab is probably from 1959/1960 given there is a T-28 in a civilian scheme, but the Orion doesn't have the AA scheme yet.

[Jerry O'Neill]

I would guess its Orange County Airport, now John Wayne Airport. The Orion was owned by Tallmantz at one point and the T-28 and PV-2's in the background all appear in the 1960 film "Cash McCall". They can be seen in the background as Natalie Wood and James garner drive along the airport to his corporate A-26 Invader.
Jerry

[JohnB]

I agree about Orange County. Mantz had the only Orion...now in Switzerland.

[Cubs2jets]

Here she is looking a little smarter...

C2j