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Bill Salati
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« Reply #30 on: January 17, 2009, 03:19:14 PM » |
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Here's a photo of the Glacier Girl P-38 undergoing restoration in Middlesboro KY in 2001. My recollection is that it cost about 2 million dollars to get the plane out of the glacier, and another 6 million to restore it, which ran considerably beyond the original expectations. You can make a small fortune in the aviation business. Problem is, you have to start with a large fortune. Seems no one is makng money at the moment. I work at Piper Aircraft. We're better off than some but they've cut the plant back to 32 hour work weeks. A 20% pay cut is tough to swallow. |
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In Search Of "R" Serial Soligors
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Rick Oleson
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« Reply #31 on: January 17, 2009, 04:11:20 PM » |
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 Found the color film from October 2001: Glacier Girl and the F-86 that stood guard outside her hangar |
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People used to see me with my Contax and say "Oooh, is that a Leica?"
.... now they say "Oooh, is that a film camera?"
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Rick Oleson
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« Reply #32 on: January 17, 2009, 04:13:23 PM » |
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Very sorry to hear about that, Bill. It's a tough business to be in ... I guess that's the case with an increasing number of businesses lately.
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People used to see me with my Contax and say "Oooh, is that a Leica?"
.... now they say "Oooh, is that a film camera?"
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Tom Hildreth
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« Reply #33 on: January 17, 2009, 05:19:19 PM » |
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Very interesting shots, Rick, thanks. Looks like low in the first shot the restorers have a photographic display of the retrieval from the ice. A good incentive to carry on with the restoration. And perhaps generate some funding. The determination of the Warbird folks is something to behold. As it is, many parts for many of the warbirds have to be manufactured from scratch at this point, and I'm sure that was especially true of Glacier Girl.
In 1945 an RAF embassy flight went missing in South America. This was a four-engine WWII bomber that was converted to VIP configuration. About two years ago it began to slowly reappear from the lower end of the glacier it was entombed in. It had followed the normal course of glacial action, and had scraped along the bottom for 60 years, traveling under the ice for a mile or two. I don't think they plan on rebuilding that one!
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Ronald Bishop
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« Reply #34 on: January 18, 2009, 09:45:43 PM » |
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This one is a little off topic but sure is pretty. I surely wouldn't want to be dug into a sidehill and have this thing looking for me. I took this with a Yashica Lynx14E, B&W, scanned print in color mode by mistake.  |
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« Last Edit: January 18, 2009, 09:55:35 PM by Ronald Bishop »
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LarryD
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« Reply #35 on: January 18, 2009, 09:50:39 PM » |
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The B1-B I was one of the first to work with those beast in the 80s Beautiful and ugly beast. Worked when it wanted to cracked the skin and all because of budget cuts... the "A" only 1 made was Super sonic the B was sub sonic and the electronics were Atari 2600 in a Commodore world. Last I hear it was upgraded to a 386 processor.
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Film photography and the Soviet Union are not dead. Just downsized.
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Murphy
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« Reply #36 on: February 16, 2009, 02:01:06 AM » |
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I was piloting a Cessna to a local airport in the LA area (Chino) a couple of years ago and the tower gave me an advisory of departing traffic. I looked down and it was a silver Shooting Star P-80 climbing out into the late evening California sky - amazing, but true. I'll never forget it. I'm sure it was a restored airshow queen of some sort on it's way to who knows where. I'd only seen photos of them in books before or in the movies before that.
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Tom Hildreth
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« Reply #37 on: February 16, 2009, 06:16:23 AM » |
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They did things real fast back then. Now it seems we deployed a small number of P-80s to the Med Theater in 1945. Don't think they engaged in combat, but I'm hearing from different sources they did go there.
Back in the 1980s a New England base was preparing for conversion to the C-5 Galaxy. It took them longer to build the hangar for the Galaxy than it took to buid the whole bloody base back in 1940. And there were five large hangars built back in 1940-it was no bare bones base.
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Tom Hildreth
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« Reply #38 on: February 16, 2009, 06:46:26 AM » |
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Larry,
I'm amazed at the variety of aircraft you worked with. You musta had some kind of clearance, bud. Anyway, Jimmy Carter killed the supersonic B-1A, and Ronald Reagan brought it back years later in compromise form as the B-1B. Unequivically the most over-managed aircraft program in the world, it produced a small number of aesthetically-pleasing aircraft that the Air Force painted an almost unoticable charcoal finish.
The Bone was saddled with, after all the years of R&D, an electronics system of four major components not all of which worked. In spite of the development of the 553 bus that did not succeed in getting the four systems talking to each other very well. On top of that I think the Bone was relegated to conventional munitions due Start talks. Then, after a relatively short career, USAF decided to put half the small fleet of B-1Bs on the shelf, after first giving some to the Air Guard.........
I take this as a sign that our ability to build effective military aircraft in the USA is coming to an end. We have given up building most of our own trainers and many helicopters. Much of the Coast Guard fleet has been foreign made for decades. With an aerospace industry that has been merged into a nonsensical business model, all we needed was a dose of curruption on the part of a young, unqualified Air Force government appointee whose resume was not scrutinized closely enough, and we rendered the replacement of the KC-135 tanker fleet, comprised of aircraft that are fifty years old, an overdue pending disaster.
Rediculously, the US doesn't have a current design suitable for the tanker job and also doesn't produce aircraft for the regional market, which has been growing by leaps and bounds for 20 years now. When we do produce a promising jet trainer for the Air Force, we put it in desert storage, wait ten years, and then buy a foreighn turboprop trainer, all this for a force that flies jets almost exclusively.
But then, I suppose you can Google or Wiki all this stuff and read their compilations. After all, some kid reading a model box can contribute, right?
Yeah, that's the kind of info you want to put your money on. Maybe the US military can sub-contract out their intelligence effort to Wiki.....man that's brilliant. Gotta tell the new administration about this money-saver!!!
Oh, sorry.......I was sitting on my rant button.
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jake
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« Reply #39 on: February 16, 2009, 09:13:20 AM » |
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Unequivically the most over-managed aircraft program in the world... Speaking of which, check out this mess. The problem begins when someone decides that diplomacy and politics should be involved in picking the best equipment. I mean, why select a company who has been building many different types of helicopters forever when there is a chronically bloated and mismanaged company with a foreign subsidiary who is building one helicopter completely ill-suited to the task at hand? Given those sorts of decisions, where is the motivation for Lockheed Martin to produce even a door handle that functions correctly? If they got the contract, there's obviously no competition. |
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« Last Edit: February 16, 2009, 09:19:16 AM by jake »
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LarryD
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« Reply #40 on: February 16, 2009, 10:54:31 AM » |
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The reason I worked with so many different Air Craft is the fact I did refueling and everything needed gas. I was lucky to be stationed all over the world and getting to work with a few foreign Air Forces too boot.
If it was flying between 1977-1997 I was around it. Loved the old Turkish F104 shooting star. A damn engine with s cockpit.
You are correct our Tanker fleet is going to hell over taxed and some of the tankers were built in the 60's and just refitted back in the 80s with new engines the KC-10 was made from the DC-10 and it is showing it's age already.
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Film photography and the Soviet Union are not dead. Just downsized.
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Tom Hildreth
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« Reply #41 on: February 17, 2009, 06:48:13 PM » |
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Jake,
Yeah, that's exactly what I meant when I alluded that we don't build a lot of our own military helos. What a disgrace! About 30 years ago the USCG replaced its tired fleet of amphibious rescue platforms (Grumman Albatross) for a French bizjet. I'm still not over that one.
Ten years ago the USN bought a British jet trainer that was an "off the shelf" purchase. Licence-built in the USA, it was not designed to fly off carriers. The Navy knew this and went for it anyway. Took them lots of $$ and nearly a decade to get it to work right.
Larry,
I worked in Maint Cont for a number of years. Sound familiar?.."Hey Fuels, get some of your guys out on the FOD walk, then you wanna get that truck over to spot Bravo one and gas that thing up?"
Yeah, the 104 was special. Ever see that internet article about the
F-104A-19? It was the lighter A with an F-104S engine, I believe. They had some at Homestead late in the jet's career. Guy claims to have filed a flight plan Eglin to Homestead across the gulf at FL800 at mach 2.8 and flew it as filed. And this was a long time ago. Might be bunk, but I sure like the story.
When I was a kid they had 104A right near where I lived. I remember seeing the stars and bars burned off the wings. Sonic booms daily back then.
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