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Warbird Restorations

N

nightshade

Charter Member
does anyone know of any Axis aircraft restorations like a "Tony", "Betty" bomber, Stuka, or do-17? Or were they all blown to bits?

P.S. does anyone have any up-to-date info on the "swamp ghost" B-17?
 
Not sure on any Stukas or Do-17s (plenty of exciting WWII German restorations throughout Europe however, particularly: http://ju88.net/), but there are a couple of Tony's being restored in Australia to flying condition, and a couple of Betty bombers were recently shipped to Australia I believe, after having been recovered from an island in the Pacific where they had been since WWII.

Right now there is a certain amount of mystery pertaining to Swamp Ghost. Several months back there was mention that the aircraft was finally cleared to be shipped out of the PNG, but ever since then there has been a rather secretive aura about it. All of the most up-to-date information is posted here:

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=cd67914e3647e7226148c71903a3f2f1
 
There is (was?) a Stuka hanging in the main hall of the Museum of Science and Industry (the old Arts hall of the Columbian Exposition), Chicago.

My restoration books suggest that the Japanese planes are hard to restore to flying condition as many of the forgings etc are of a very strong and light Aluminum Alloy that is prone to crystalization with age. Ya can still get new parts for a R-2800, a Nakagima or Kawasaki?

I imagine there is a bit of everything at Silver Hill, the Airforce Muesum at Dayton also has a good collection. try their websites.

T.
 
The Harada collection based in Japan has some of the finest Japanese warbird restorations, in flying condition. Unfortunately the government prevents them from flying their Zero's, even though they are the finest examples. A massive collection of excellent photos of the collection can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/yamanobe.twoface. They will soon have three complete, fully original Zero's!

Here are a couple of views of one of the Tony's under rebuild in Australia, for Jerry Yegan, taken in 2005...it is much further along now:
http://community.webshots.com/photo/fullsize/1447994465078023363gwWnde
http://community.webshots.com/photo/fullsize/1447995826078023363qlaKNS

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/ki-61/640/index.html
 
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