Warbird Information Exchange

Not verified, I was at Nellis this weekend and heard his collection is being donated to the Palm Springs Air Museum with only the P-63 to remain airworthy.

JH

What about the P-38? Or is that one not considered part of the Pond collection?

Another B-17 grounded!!

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

More grounded warbirds, YIPPEE!

If the rumor is true ofcourse.

Bob did not own the P-38. He funded the restoration of Planes of Fame's P-38 and as a result he picked the paint scheme and got to display it in Minnesota during the summer months for a set amount of time. It is now Back at POF and known as Ski-Doo...

Seems I've always read that this airplane was co-owned by Bob and PoF, hence my question above. Guess I was mislead, thanks for the info.

Unless things have changed drastically in the last 8-10 weeks, there are no plans to donate the balance of the collection to the Museum, now or in the future. That is not to say the Museum will not eventually end up with the aircraft in question.

Please also keep in mind that if the Museum does end up with the balance of the collection, it does not mean they will be grounded. Note that the P-63 (and several others) has been owned by the Museum for quite some time now and flys frequently.

John

www.redtail.org

I thought that Bob Pond operated all of his warbirds under the name Planes of Fame East, which essentially morphed into the "Palm Springs Air Museum" after the collection was relocated away from Minneapolis.

The PSAM website lists thirty warbirds as part of their collection. Does anyone know which of these planes actually belong to the museum, and which of them are still personally owned by Bob Pond?

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Rob Mears
'Surviving Corsairs' Historian
robcmears@yahoo.com
http://www.robmears.com

Thanks John, hopefully that info I got is wrong.

John

Looks like most of the collection (19 aircraft) are currently registered to "POND WARBIRDS LLC" and 5 are registered to "PALM SPRINGS AIR MUSEUM."

Bob is getting up there in years, so he might certianly be inclined to donate them. Don't forget however that Planes of Fame is a museum too and they fly most of their collection. Bob was also a Navy pilot and an avid collector of flyable warbirds, and did really enjoy flying them, so he may wish to continue that tradition once he passes on. He has also been generous over the years in letting qualified pilots fly his planes.

P-38 is registered to "AIR MUSEUM INC."

Wasn't the "Pond" collection put up for sale a few years ago for $20mil?...we did a bomber stop at Palm Springs and the docents at the museum were on and on about raising the money to purchase the collection. Enjoy them when you see them fly cause you never know...

Jim Harley

All,

I just got off the phone with the Museums Chief Pilot…A good friend of mine even though he does take a little too much pleasure in picking at his friends up here in the northern states! He had heard about the rumor that was posted here and asked me to help him get the facts out.

Let’s start at the relative beginning to keep things clear. While Bob Pond is one of the Palm Springs Air Museum founders and has been a board member (possibly president at one time but I’m not sure), he is now retired from the board and acts strictly in an Emeritus role to the active board. It should be made clear that the Museum is not now, nor was it ever “owned” by Bob Pond. It was created as a bon-a-fide 501c-3 and has never been under the solitary ownership of any one individual or group of individuals. The Museum was born mainly from donations by local individuals, retiree’s and businesses. In short the Museum is a stand alone entity designed, built and operated to house vintage aircraft. To this day it continues to operate and grow under the auspices described above with no plans to change that.

There can be now question that the Museum was built under the pretext of “Build it and they will come”, with the thought of having Bob move his collection from Eden Prairie, Minnesota (Planes of Fame East [POFE]) to Palm Springs. “You build the barn and I’ll supply the animals!” This relationship has served both the Museum and Bob very well over the last 10 years. In his support of the Museum Bob has donated several of the aircraft in his collection to it, as Brandon noted in his post. That leaves in question the future of the aircraft still under his ownership. The Museum has entered into a long term agreement to purchase 14 of the aircraft from Bob. This is obviously a very expensive proposition and will take some time to accomplish. A significant amount of funding has already been raised to accomplishing this goal however the titles of the aircraft in question will not be transferred until the entire dollar amount that was agreed upon has been met. I’m certain there will be a he!! of a celebration when the titles are transferred and I for one will be in attendance since these are “My” aircraft (Proud POFE member since 1987)!

For all the dooms-dayers and nay-sayers, it is also well worth noting that PSAM intends to remain a flying Museum for as long as possible and has no intention of grounding anything! They have in fact recently flown several of the aircraft in the collection for their 10th anniversary celebration and participated in a handful of other events close to home. They continue to plan and exicute multiple flying events each month at the Museum to showcase individual aircraft and significant dates in history. It is true that they have at least temporarily limited their flying to local events only however that decision may change in the future.

John

If you read this Mr. Chief Pilot….Have a safe flight out of the Bayou state in the bug-eyed monster…Don’t take any wooden nickels along the way! Talk to you next week.

Thanks for sharing the information John, and exciting news as well. I certainly am glad that they intend to continue flying the aircraft as long as it is feasable. Just my .02 cents here, I don't think it's a bad idea to keep the travelling to a minimum and only fly shows close to home.