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When the present owners bought it, they cut the wings off with chain saws for transport! Bet that wouldn't happen today.
I did not know but the airframe Ki-84 in question was confirmed being preserved in no-damaged condition last year.Interesting story, Greg.
Are they going to restore what does not necessarily need restoration as being thought still airworthy except the engine?
1. Fuji's staff clearly says that Fuji's engineers separated the fuselage into two (front and rear) to make delivery easy from Utsunomiya (Fuji) to Kyoto (1st museum) circa 1980 and, later, Wakayama (2nd museum) to Chiran(3rd museum) finally but some amateur enthusiasts may have thought they had cut the fuselage. There was no damage on the airframe at all, of course.
2. An ANA (All Nippon Airway) engineer also testifies that he did not confirm any damage on the spar at all in Kyoto circa 1991 when they re-disassembled the airframe to deliver from Kyoto(1st museum) to Wakayama(2nd museum) but he found a serious crack on the engine case.
If you may need and someone at your side can read Japanese well, I'm able to show you exact data sources.
They state neither myth nor rumor but genuine testimonies as I mentioned above.
I was flying rides in Betty Jane that year out of French Valley. I was monitoring March AFB frequency and heard them call in 'heading south for French Valley'. I could see the contrails not long after and I started heading off to the East to give them room. I asked my customer if he wanted to loiter and watch...and that we did. It was incredible to watch them practice from the air. Unfortunately we were really busy with the tour that year and I couldn't break away to go to the show. We did do a pre-airshow formation (17,24,51) pass over Chino on our way to Burbank a couple days later...the tower was really happy to have us fly over.Here is our 2014 airshow featuring the Horsemen. They did two acts: one with P-51s and one with F-86s.
This isn't the whole show .... just the Horsemen ... Steve Hinton, Dan Friedken, and Ed Shipley in no particular order. I think Dan was flying lead (F-86), Steve was left wing, and Ed was right wing, based on aircraft markings. But ... they COULD have swapped seats ... who knows? Only the Horsemen!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3dSq-IXrx8
Thought it might be interesting ...