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Wooden wonder flies again.

Oh boy oh boy! Hope it comes within driving distance of MY house someday. Last saw one a long time ago when the previous -last one flying- made it to Boston, that must have been the late 70's?
 
Some photos recently posted by Avspecs, flying around Ardmore - pilot Kieth Skilling at the helm. As much as I would like it if the aircraft were to remain in New Zealand for a while, just for this air show season at least, all of the talk is that the aircraft should be in the U.S. by February - I'd imagine Jerry Yagen and his guys would love to have it assembled and flying in-time for their big WWII air show at the Military Aviation Museum in May. Yagen has stated that the aircraft will continue to be flown from Ardmore until the end of the month, in which various in-flight tests will continue to be carried out - including stalls, single-engine flying, etc. Once in the U.S., it will continue to be flown by either Kieth Skilling or Dave Phillips, until they themselves help train-in a couple of pilots in the U.S. to fly it (Jerry said that he, eventually, would like to have that opportunity of flying it as well).

If you are not familiar with the Military Aviation Museum, here is a pretty accurate list of the aircraft (airworthy and under restoration) that the Museum has (as well as other details about the airfield and its unique structures - including a replica WWI hangar, an original WWII-era Luftwaffe hangar, and an original WWII-era RAF control tower (in the initial planning stages of being assembled): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_Factory#The_Fighter_Factory Eventually, this Museum will have two airworthy Bf-109G's, a Bf-109E, a 2+ Fw 190's, a G.55 Centauro, P-39, original Japanese Tony, and more (besides the already impressive collection of completed aircraft). To me, this Museum is like the east-coast version of the Planes of Fame museum, for the number and variety of aircraft (several of them very rare), but with much the same character and charm as Fantasy of Flight (Jerry Yagen and Kermit Weeks have partnered on several projects - including the Tony restorations and Kingfisher restorations advancing along in Australia at Precision Aerospace).

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Thanks for posting those pics John.
On the day of the first public display, I was lucky enough to be standing on the yellow dot, directly in the take-off flightpath.
If sound can be properly remembered, that is one I will certainly remember!
Great that there are more of these on the way.

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