GregP
Major
Next weekend is our annual airshow at Chino, California. We have been preparing for it since about January, but much more intently in the last month. Yesterday, in the midst of preparing for the airshow, we had an unusual event.
A Japanese magazine wanted to do an article on two of our aircraft, the flyanle Mistubishi Zero and the unrestored Mitsubishi J2M Raiden. I have been a volunteer at the Planes of Fame for more than 6 years now, and I have never seen the Raiden moved, but we took it out of the hangar and into the sun for a photo shoot with the Zero next to it. I must say, the two planes are impressive. The film crew recorded the move, put cameras on booms down into the fuselages and even removed the cowlings from the Zero to film the engine. It was pretty nest to see them both together.
Meanwhile, we are putting some finishing touches on our Yokosuka D4Y Judy and are making a couple of bobs to go into the internal bomb bay. Naturally, these are fiberglass replicas and we made the fins for the bombs yesterday and got them looking ready to install.
Concerning the airshow, our Curtiss P-47G (basically a P-47B made by Curtiss), which has been "away" fior two years flew back and will participate in the show this year. We ran up the freshly-overhauled left-hand Allison in the P-38J and both of our P-51's are getting some work. "Wee Willy" is sporting a freshly-overhauled Marlin and the cowling will probably go on today. "Spam Can" has a new paint scheme and was being polished. The part not painted is now polished Aluminum.
The famous "Horsemem" act will consist of Ed Shipley and Dan Freidken in the two P-51's, and Steve Hinton will fly in the middle in our P-38. This is basically a one-time act as none of the regular Horsemen are signed off in our P-38. Should be a good sow! Practice looks great.
My own project is the Bell YP-59A Airacomet and we buttoned it up for the airshow yesterday. We completed the sliding canopy some time back and are now completing the front windscreen area and, though not finished, it will look pretty goof for the display in the airshow. The only areas where it doesn't look complete now are on the wings. We have the ailerons removed and have drilled off the wing skins just in front of the ailerons to get to the gap seal mounts and aileron mounts. We attached the skin pieces with clecos but the ailerons are not mounted. Other than that, it looks pretty complete, though unpainted.
So basically we'll have a pretty good list of our own aircraft flying:
1) Two North American P-51D's
2) Lockheed P-38J-5
3) North American B-25
4) Curtiss P-47G
5) Douglas Dauntless
6) Vought F4U-1 Corsair
7) Grumman TBM Avenger
8] Curtiss P-40N
9) North American P-5A
10) Yakovlev Yak-3
11) Mitsubishi A6M5 Model 52 Zero
12) North American F-86F
13) Mikoyan-Gurevivh MiG-15bis
14) Canadair CT-133 (Canadian T-33)
15) Northrop N9MB Flying Wing
16) We might fly the Seversky AT-12 Guardsman ... depends on the staff
17) We'll also fly the replica Focke-Wulf Fw 190F owned by Rudy Frasca
18] Other planes are flying in and we should have 40+ WWII aircraft flying in addition to Sean Tucker, Rob Harrison, and a Heritage flight including a private F-4 Phantom!
The list of static diplay birds will include our newly almost finished Yokusuka D4Y Judy and ehe Bell YP-59 along with other interesting birds from around Chino and the area.
You are all certainly invited if you are in the area and several Forum members will be there including WheelsUpCavu, who is now a volunteer at the Museum along with the rest of us airplane nuts. C'mon to Chino and join us next weekend!
Just FYI.
A Japanese magazine wanted to do an article on two of our aircraft, the flyanle Mistubishi Zero and the unrestored Mitsubishi J2M Raiden. I have been a volunteer at the Planes of Fame for more than 6 years now, and I have never seen the Raiden moved, but we took it out of the hangar and into the sun for a photo shoot with the Zero next to it. I must say, the two planes are impressive. The film crew recorded the move, put cameras on booms down into the fuselages and even removed the cowlings from the Zero to film the engine. It was pretty nest to see them both together.
Meanwhile, we are putting some finishing touches on our Yokosuka D4Y Judy and are making a couple of bobs to go into the internal bomb bay. Naturally, these are fiberglass replicas and we made the fins for the bombs yesterday and got them looking ready to install.
Concerning the airshow, our Curtiss P-47G (basically a P-47B made by Curtiss), which has been "away" fior two years flew back and will participate in the show this year. We ran up the freshly-overhauled left-hand Allison in the P-38J and both of our P-51's are getting some work. "Wee Willy" is sporting a freshly-overhauled Marlin and the cowling will probably go on today. "Spam Can" has a new paint scheme and was being polished. The part not painted is now polished Aluminum.
The famous "Horsemem" act will consist of Ed Shipley and Dan Freidken in the two P-51's, and Steve Hinton will fly in the middle in our P-38. This is basically a one-time act as none of the regular Horsemen are signed off in our P-38. Should be a good sow! Practice looks great.
My own project is the Bell YP-59A Airacomet and we buttoned it up for the airshow yesterday. We completed the sliding canopy some time back and are now completing the front windscreen area and, though not finished, it will look pretty goof for the display in the airshow. The only areas where it doesn't look complete now are on the wings. We have the ailerons removed and have drilled off the wing skins just in front of the ailerons to get to the gap seal mounts and aileron mounts. We attached the skin pieces with clecos but the ailerons are not mounted. Other than that, it looks pretty complete, though unpainted.
So basically we'll have a pretty good list of our own aircraft flying:
1) Two North American P-51D's
2) Lockheed P-38J-5
3) North American B-25
4) Curtiss P-47G
5) Douglas Dauntless
6) Vought F4U-1 Corsair
7) Grumman TBM Avenger
8] Curtiss P-40N
9) North American P-5A
10) Yakovlev Yak-3
11) Mitsubishi A6M5 Model 52 Zero
12) North American F-86F
13) Mikoyan-Gurevivh MiG-15bis
14) Canadair CT-133 (Canadian T-33)
15) Northrop N9MB Flying Wing
16) We might fly the Seversky AT-12 Guardsman ... depends on the staff
17) We'll also fly the replica Focke-Wulf Fw 190F owned by Rudy Frasca
18] Other planes are flying in and we should have 40+ WWII aircraft flying in addition to Sean Tucker, Rob Harrison, and a Heritage flight including a private F-4 Phantom!
The list of static diplay birds will include our newly almost finished Yokusuka D4Y Judy and ehe Bell YP-59 along with other interesting birds from around Chino and the area.
You are all certainly invited if you are in the area and several Forum members will be there including WheelsUpCavu, who is now a volunteer at the Museum along with the rest of us airplane nuts. C'mon to Chino and join us next weekend!
Just FYI.
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