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Need your ideas
Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 11:53 am
by DryMartini
Homework exercise for you. Pulling from a previous thread,
your goal is:
A static (or even flyable) early series B-17 (C or D model)
Assume You Have:
1) A shop to do the work
2) All blueprints of said early B-17
Your needs:
1) Acquire several wrecks, some which may reside on US Government
land and be protected by acts of congress.
2) Lots of $$$$
How would you go about getting the airframes via legal means?
How would you get the needed $$$?
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 5:29 pm
by DIK SHEPHERD
Model: B-17D [preferred] and flyable [a must]
Reason: Easier to use later model B-17 wings with cowl flaps.
Wrecks: None available that are worthwhile (in this country).
Money: Biggest problem. No single person wants to give the
amount of money needed for a project like this, that
they won't own.
Non-profits are hard to control because there is
always a need for someone to run it, and they usually
expect to get paid (handsomely) for their time.
Thought (idea): If a later model wreck (like the Dyer Lake bird)
could be acquired, perhaps a non-profit group
could be established with the chance (slim) of
getting Boeing to do the rebuild as a "D".
No one knows, if no one tries.
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 10:39 pm
by DIK SHEPHERD
As I recall, back during the later part of '71, when I was in Canada as part of a group that retrieved three Martin B-26s out of the wilds of Northern B.C., we had some off time, time we spent waiting for someone else to do something.
During one of these periods we talked to some helicopter pilots about possible wreck sites, and one of them mentioned that he had seen, what he said was, a B-17 wreck out in the middle of nowhere. He wouldn't say exactly where it was, but he said that it was pretty much intact and surrounded by trees, so that he could only hover above it. He also mentioned that he saw bones near the wreck and assumed that they were those of the crew.
Now this may sound far fetched, but remember, we had just recovered three very early Martin B-26s, from out in the middle of nowhere, at the time. And there is a whole lot of nowhere up in Canada.