Will Back in Asia - Looking for info on aircraft in Asia

[Will]

Hi,

Well I am back in Asia doing the sport shoes, I am spending most of my time split between Taiwan / China & Vietnam, I just came back from Vietnam and to be honest there is little left on show around Saigon, couple of F-5's / )-1's / one Skyraider (god of love this plane) a good number of Hughey's (three still parked in the shelters at the airport along with some stripped Hinds) does anyone have any intel on other aircraft around the country, wreaks, I remember the Oz boys many years ago had been trying to sell Skyraiders that had been left on one of the bases up north but this died are they still there?

Taiwan offers more if you know where to look, CKS airport still has it's collection of aircraft, F-5 - T-28 - F-100 to get the taste buds going, but they are looking shabby, heck they looked shabby four years ago.

Near my wife's family home about an hour south of Taichung I found two abandoned aircraft in an old park, a F-86F (not recorded in the list of survivors) and one that knocked me off my feet a Vickers Viscount which is again not listed as being still around.

The F-86F was the one I was most interested in, sitting on a perch, over grown with vines, has not been touched in 15+ years, I could not get high enough to check the serial plate (my wife and her brothers by now had grabbed hold of me to prevent me from breaking my neck).

Now my thinking is that the F-86F's that Taiwan used were from Ex-USAF stocks, correct? which I thought to be ex Korean war used models, I am sure I read this somewhere, can anyone back this up?

Well next time I am down that way I will get some piccies of them, there are a number of aircraft displayed around the country mostly in towns etc, but does anyone have any information relating to combat losses over Formosa? I remember accounts of air battles off the southern coast during the last months of the war, but is there a list?

Will

[mrhenniger]

I am making notes regarding museums/sites in Asia for the Locator, but those sections don't exist yet. When is your deadline?

Mike

[m50a1ontos]

Look up a Major Mike Chien...I think that was his last active rank. He was one of if not THE first Sidwinder shooter and bagged a Mig or two. He is also an ace in P-47's I think. be interesting if his F-86 was stuck on a pole over there somewhere. It would be a very historic aircraft being the first one to carry and fire a Sidewinder in combat.

[george]

On the subject of China, one lake reportedly has over 300 aircraft from the war in it. I would think this is the largest concentration of unrecovered aircraft anywhere. It also contains Flying Tiger #68. It is called Lake Dianchi, and is near Kunming.

[Will]

Hi Lads, thanks for the input, I had actually just finished reading about the F-86 AIM-9 conversions done on the sly, pretty cool, sure took the PLAAF by surprise.

On the lake, I read have read many articles about this lake and the P-40 in it, I thought this had been recovered, I have not seen mention of any other aircraft located in it, also that it is very shallow and with a heavy build up of silt, also, the fluids leaking from this many aircraft would cause a heck of a lot of contamination.

I also remember seeing a web site with pictures of Tango Sqd's 0-1's that are stored, 20+ from the picture, I also checked a few web sites and there are still many more 0-1's around Thailand on show, why have these not been brought back to the U.S? there must be a market for cheap warbirds.

Oh well, I will start taking pictures as I travel around and will try to post on the web site.

Thank again.

Will

[mrhenniger]

Oh well, I will start taking pictures as I travel around and will try to post on the web site.

When do you leave?

If you have a GPS unit write down the coordinates of anything interesting you come across. That kind of info is like gold for the Locator...
http://www.aerialvisuals.ca/Locator.html

Mike