# Old Love Field Airshow pics



## Aggie08 (Jun 17, 2006)

Was carousing some of the old family albums and ran into these. Man! These date from about 1993 to 1995 or '96. Keep in mind I'm 20 now, so 13 years ago I was only seven... These airshows were AWESOME!


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## Aggie08 (Jun 17, 2006)

more...

it KILLS me that I don't even remember seeing "FiFi" the B-29. Man, I've been itchin to see that for the longest time.


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## syscom3 (Jun 17, 2006)

Great pics. Have any more?


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Jun 18, 2006)

chubby kid weren't ya?


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## Gnomey (Jun 18, 2006)

Good pics aggie!


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## lesofprimus (Jun 18, 2006)

> chubby kid weren't ya?


Hey, he's not chubby, he's big boned.... And he's still that big, so maybe its glandular... Dude would stomp ur long-haired hippy *** into the ground Lanc....


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## evangilder (Jun 18, 2006)

Cool stuff, Aggie!


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## Aggie08 (Jun 18, 2006)

I'm sure we have lots more, I just have to find them. 

Hey, he's not chubby, he's big boned.... And he's still that big, so maybe its glandular... Dude would stomp ur long-haired hippy *** into the ground Lanc....

Glandular? I don't know about that. Hippie a.ss kickin? That's a definite.


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## Glider (Jun 18, 2006)

Personally I wouldn't argue with any kid who looks that determined behind the HMG.
If he thinks he's big boned, then big boned it is. Honest!!


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## Aggie08 (Jun 19, 2006)

Haha


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## FLYBOYJ (Jun 20, 2006)

The Blue Angel TV-1 (T-33) is now owned by a friend of mine Kay Eckhart.


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## evangilder (Jun 20, 2006)

And the C-46 "Tinker Belle" is a CAF plane that spent about 2 years at Camarillo getting renovated. Tinker Belle has an interesting history. She was impounded by the DEA after a drug run. I have a picture of her in the impound lot taken years ago at home somewhere.


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## Aggie08 (Jun 20, 2006)

Wow, interesting. is the blue angel still flyable?

and when was tinker belle used for that awful purpose?


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## evangilder (Jun 21, 2006)

Tinker Belle, at the time registered in the civilian world as N608SE, was impounded sometime in 1978 for "customs irregularities". It is believed that it was running drugs, but I don't have all the details as to where it was coming from and going to. If you search on airliners.net for that registration, there are shots of it and another that were impounded at the same time.


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## evangilder (Jun 21, 2006)

One more thing I should note is that the other C-46 impounded with N608SE, which became Tinker Belle, was N53594, which became China Doll! So both CAF C-46s were once illicit drug runners! Here is the link to the shot of the 2 aircraft as criminals:
http://myaviation.net/?pid=00205028


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## FLYBOYJ (Jun 21, 2006)

Great info Eric - Drug runners gone straight!!


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## evangilder (Jun 21, 2006)

Sometimes the post-war history of these aircraft is as interesting as the wartime history!


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## Aggie08 (Jun 22, 2006)

Good stuff! Is that a common practice, to take commercial planes and paint them up as ex-military planes?


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## evangilder (Jun 22, 2006)

It really depends. In the case of the C-46s, they were delivered to the Army and surplussed when the war was over. Civilian operators came up with their own paint schemes and flew them that way. When they get restored back to a military configuration, they get painted again, and sometimes things are removed or put back that were changed by civilian operators. 

China Doll has a distinct Malathion hint on hot days as for a while it was used as a pesticide sprayer. I don't have the full history on Tinker Belle, but China Doll was delivered late in WWII and did not see service during the war. She was used as a regular Army transport post war and there are some oddities in it if you looks closely. For example, on the fuse panel, there is a fuse labelled "Missile power". The early missiles had to have power applied all the time for their gyros and guidance systems, so there was a fuse for that power when they transported those missiles. 

If memory serves correctly, China Doll was surplussed in the 1950s and picked up by a handful of civilian operators for cargo and pesticide spraying before being picked up by the DEA for running illegal narcotics. I believe that China Doll was picked up by the CAF SoCal wing in about 1983 and had a horrendous paint scheme with a "Humpty Dumpty" type nose art. The egg was wearing a coolie hat and had a caricature of a chinese face. It was called "ole 94". Incidentally, the new paint scheme nose art "China Doll" was painted by Tony Starcer. Tony Starcer was responsible for many nose art paintings during the war (hundreds!), including "Memphis Belle". 

When China Doll was repainted again a few years back, they were going to lose the China Doll artwork. Fortunately, Pat Seca, the wife of one of the CAF members down there did an exact replica of the artwork to preserve Tony's work. What's even more interesting about that is that Pat is not an artist and had only done some pencil sketching before that! Here is a shot of Pat's wonderful job.


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## Aggie08 (Jun 23, 2006)

Wow, good info evan! Interesting about the early missiles.


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## evangilder (Jun 23, 2006)

Thanks. I see that airplane alot, obviously, so I have been hearing stories about "The Doll" for many years. It's a colorful history! They are putting a lot of work into that airplane lately. It suffered an engine fire a few months back that fortunately didn't do too badly, but upon inspection, they found that the fire sensors in the other engine compartment weren't working at all! So the good news is that is something that will get sorted out.


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