What is THAT?

Here is a great link to test your aircraft recognition skills!

http://rareaircraf1.greyfalcon.us/UNITED%20STATES.htm

Happy Jack

The latest Mustang restoration out of Midwest Aero has been awarded the Grand Champion Warbird at Oshkosh. Congrats to Mike and his crew for another award winner! A photo diary containing a number of warbird pictures from Oshkosh is here.

Meacham Field World War Two

This picture recently came across my desk. Meacham Field in Fort Worth, Texas sure was a busy place during World War Two! Just a few Corsairs, Avengers and Wildcats!

Flying Legends

The Flying Legends show is this weekend and pictures are starting to appear on the forums. Check out some of the early arrivals here. The B-17 Liberty Belle has made the trip from the US. The P-47 project is making good progress... this P-47 was once flown as "Little Demon" in the US.

Visit the PLANE TALK forum for more.

Boeing over Seattle

Great shot from Ryan Pemberton of his Dad flying the Boeing 40 over Seattle!

Spartan 7W News

Spartan s/n 21, NC17633 is winging its way across the pond and will be based in England with its new owner. Hope the crossing goes well and look forward to seeing pictures on the European airshow circuit. 17633 was with Colgate Darden for many years at his base in South Carolina.

Spartan s/n 17, NC17667 has been purchased from the insurance company after its landing accident. The new owner will finance the rebuild and base it in the Northeast. 17667 (formally owned by the Blankenburg's) was an active Spartan and was shown at many shows in California and at Oshkosh.

Where do you park Mars?

From my friend Kelly...

I had a trip up into BC today with the Tailwind. At Tailwind speeds no place is out of the way so I thought I'd fly past Sproat Lake to see if the Mars firebombers were at home. One is evidently in California working and the other was actually out of the water for maintenance. That is some serious beaching gear for that size of a seaplane; remember that is not an amphib.

After reviewing this picture I had several thoughts that go like this:

1. If you paint lines on you pegboard for your hammer, shouldn't you put it there?
2. Maybe this explains why the #3 engine is missing.
3. They even have the extra prop on the wrong side of the airplane!!!
4. You think that is bad; look over by the hangar and you'll see that they have lost everything aft of the Captain and First Officer's command posts. Another poor flight engineer out of a job!

And lastly...
5. If this thing is supposed to be so darn big, explain to me why the fuel drums behind the airplane look so big!!!!

CWHM Photos

The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum pulled all their machines out this past week. Great shots on this forum post.

Forum post here.

Also check out the shots from Eric Dumigan.

There are on his web site - click here.

P38 Flies

The Red Bull P-38 has made it's first flight following a multi-year restoration. Photo by Steve Dickey.

More on Amelia Movie

As more time passes news of the new Amelia Earhart movie is hitting the press. I pulled this quick blurb from here.


Ewan McGregor flies with 'Amelia' Actor joins Fox Searchlight's Earhart biopic By TATIANA SIEGEL Ewan McGregor has signed on to co-star in the Amelia Earhart biopic "Amelia" for Fox Searchlight. Hilary Swank, Richard Gere and Virginia Madsen have already boarded the project, which Mira Nair is helming. Story centers on the legendary aviatrix (Swank) and chronicles her rise to fame, marriage to publisher George Putnam (Gere) and passionate affair with Gene Vidal (McGregor), father of author Gore Vidal. Ronald Bass penned the screenplay. The filmmakers have long been trying to land McGregor but were having trouble working out the scheduling. The actor is about to wrap "I Love You, Philip Morris" alongside Jim Carrey and will begin work on Ron Howard's "Da Vinci Code" follow-up "Angels and Demons" in early June. McGregor will sandwich the "Amelia" role in between.r The film, which is being produced by Ted Waitt, Lydia Dean Pilcher and Kevin Hyman, is shooting in Toronto. Don Carmody, Bass and Swank executive produce.

Early in production some emails came across my compute to locate a Lockheed to use in the film. Because one of my web sites tracks the history of the Lockheed 10 and 12 aircraft it has been exciting to see a fine example selected for the film. Joe Shepherds model 12 NC2072 will be one of the stars. Follow the link above to more shots of Joe's Lockheed in its movie roll on his web site.

Look forward to seeing the flying scenes in this movie!

Hellcat Air-to-air

Mike Shreeve has posted another round of great air-to-air shots. This time on the CAF Hellcat. I remember seeing this bird fly in the early 1980's in Texas. Good to see this machine in the air. It is now based in California.

More shots here.