Gathering of Mustangs

[Boz330]

For you aviation types, check this out. This should be one hell of an event. A lot of history here.

http://www.gml2007.com/

Bob

[StanDahl]

From an old issue of Smithsonian magazine (12/95) I just happened to pick up and re-read the other day: Topic - Military surplus after WWII and what an incredible problem it was to get rid of it all:

"Army captain John Cunningham watched P-51 Mustangs being tumbled over a cliff on Okinawa, stacking up in a ravine like so many smashed toys. (Mustangs were cheap then; only $51,000 apiece new.) In time rumors arose that a general was coming to investigate, Cunningham recalls, and with every such report bulldozers arrived."

"In all, the WAA sold at least 31,000 planes approved for flight. Many more than that were grounded, either for safety or from just plain lack of usefulness. Combatplane fuel consumption alone was enough to scare off most buyers. A single engine Mustang got 3.5 mpg."

"Educational organizations of all types - even prison schools and Boy Scout troops - could buy grounded aircraft at fractions of pennies on the dollar. A B-29 Superfortress cost $509,465 to build in 1945; how about a used one for $350? Or a P-38 Lightning, its price then down to $150?"

They ended up buying tons of stuff back again to ramp up for the Korean War.

[StanDahl]

These aren't Mustangs, but P-40's.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/StanDahl/P-40s.jpg

[StanDahl]

Caption: "By late 1945, bombers like these Flying Fortresses and twin-ruddered Liberators were being sold off not one at a time but by airfield lots.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/StanDahl/B-24sandB-17s.jpg
Many of the B-29's (not shown) were kept around and returned to use in Korea.

[floodgate]

When I was a sophomore in High School - 1946-7 - we got an AT-6 and an Alisson V1710 engine for - I think - $100 each for our aviation class. We also got 4 hours of fliught time in the local bush pilot's surplus Taylorcraft, converted from a "spotter". My wife took the class a year later (same school) and later went on to get her ticket.

I was at China Lake in the '60's and '70's, and we had dozens of B-29's and B-50's, used for testing air-to-ground ordnance. Two or three collectors' groups bought and pieced together flyable examples in the mid-70's. Quite a sigh watching those old "dragons" lumbering up off the ground and heading over the Sierra Nevada skyline.