David,
Middlesboro is only 45 minutes away over back roads, you have the Midget, and
you -havn't- been there yet??? Make it a Healey club drive. :-)
I went to see this several years ago. They had one of the Allison engines on
a display stand. Was real interesting seeing that -big- (one or two?)-barrel
carburetor way down at one end of that big V-12.
Talked to the guy in charge of the rescue and restoration. He said there was
so much weight of ice, plus the fact that the different layers of the ice
-moved- at different speeds and crush and ground the planes apart. He called
what they brough back basically a full-scale set of templates and were
basically building the P-38 from scratch. Only the heavy-iron/steel hard parts
were reuseable. (engines, landing gear, guns, etc.)
There was also a B-17 along on that flight doing the navigation for the group
of P-38s (five I think). It was still there too, but in even worse shape than
the P-38s due to it's greater size.
When I was at Middlesboro you could go in, walk all around, take pictures and
talk to whoever was there. They also had wooden stairs in tow corners of the
hanger so you could go up and look down on the plane. They sold a matted
sketch of the plane with an about 1-1/2" piece of the original skin for
souvenirs. Other stuff too, but that's what I remember buying. ;-)
per RBHouston...
>>There's nothing quite like the sound of those four big radials drumming in
>your chest and one of these bad boys comes over low.
Sure there is! The sound of those four big radials drumming in your chest as
you sit in the pilot's seat of one of these bad boys! :-) Guess how I know..
;-) :-) :-)
I was also in the bombardier's seat as we made a low pass down the runway.
:-) (Yes I have pics. :-) )
Ed in NC
--
"I purr, therefore I am."
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