AirVenture 2009 - Warbirds
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I was a little disappointed with the Warbirds this year. They had
advertised that a German Me-109 and a Japanese Zero would fly but neither
showed up.
They did have his Hawker Hurricane, though, complete with
re-enactors. I did not see the Hurri did not fly however.
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A
Spitfire (didn't see
it fly
either). |
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This Mosquito is normally in the EAA
Museum. It was tied down out back because they were having a banquet
or something inside. It was neat seeing it outside on the
grass.
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| It sure looks ready
for flight to me. |
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I enjoyed seeing
this big Lancaster bomber out in the daylight, instead of inside a
dimly lit museum. In fact, I believe I have seen this Lancaster before --
a few years ago in the Canadian aviation museum up in Ottawa. It
didn't fly in the airshow but I cut them some slack because they have
to do a full-blown, expensive, teardown inspection after every
50 hours of flight. So they have to use their
flight hours judiciously. Just flying to and from Oshkosh used a substantial portion
of their annual allocation. |
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This P-38 also
belongs to the EAA Museum and was tied down out back. It looked
great out in the daylight. |
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Also out in back of the EAA Museum was
this big Grumman
Duck.
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Three P-40 Warhawks
were on-hand, but none of them flew during the airshow Warbirds in
review. |
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| There were ten
or so P-51 Mustangs on hand and they were always flying around.
One of the nice things about camping on the North 40 is that I was
always looking up and seeing a flight of two Mustangs roaring by. |
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| Unbelievable polish
job on this one. |
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An early model
Mustang in Bud Anderson's "Old Crow" paint scheme. The plane
was immaculate. |
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I'm not sure why this Hellcat wasn't
parked with the Mustangs and P-40s. However, I am happy to report
that the Hellcat was the only World War II aircraft other than the
Mustangs I saw fly in the airshow Warbirds in review.
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There were two Navy
T-2 Buckeye trainers on hand. Now that the Navy no longer uses them,
they are starting to appear at airshows. As long-time readers of my
web log know -- and are
probably sick of hearing
-- I had five T-2 flights in my logbook, as part of my
Naval Flight Officer training down in
Pensacola. |
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This was the first privately owned
A-4 Skyhawk I've seen.
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I was disappointed not to see Navy fighter representation in AeroShell
square -- the Air Force had an F-15 and F-16 -- but this E-2D
Hawkeye showed up with it's unusual eight bladed props. This carrier
aircraft is the first plane to launch and provides radar coverage for the
battlegroup out for hundreds of miles. |
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| You can probably
guess why I took a multiple pictures of this Mustang. Yes, it's has
a paint job very similar to my RV. In fact, I liked the look of this
plane so much, I may put insignia and invasion stripes on my RV one of
these days. |
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RVs really do look very similar to
Mustangs.
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Every day they would have a special speaker over in
the Warbirds area. On this day, it was Gunther Rall, the WWII German
fighter ace with 275 victories, third highest in history. After the
war, he joined the West German Luftwaffe and eventually commanded it.
I went to see him speak at the Smithsonian Air & Space
museum years ago. Rall is second from the right. They were
supposed to have a Me-109 behind him but it couldn't make it to
Oshkosh for maintenance reasons, hence the P-38.
The man on the right is the writer who helped Rall with his
autobiography. I stood in the line to buy it but then found out it
was $100 or something so I exited the line. The man second from left
was the EAA host.
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The man in the black shirt on the left
is Wolf Czaia, the test pilot for the Me-262 project. Later, I went
to a forum where he was the primary; he gave an interesting
talk. They are building five Me-262s. The third is either
done or almost done
and is for sale. If no one
buys it in the next year, Czaia may fly it to AirVenture 2010. I hope no
one guys it; I'd love it see one in the air! Czaia also has
a book out: Project 262 - the Test Pilot's Journal. I leaved through
it in the EAA bookstore. A beautiful book. But alas, also $100
range.
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