by Chuck Cravens Beautiful paint job by Flying Colors Aviation reflected from a wet ramp. (Photo Credit: Adam Glowaski) Summary The famous Red Tail P-51C, one of the most important educational tools of the Commemorative Air Force, sustained damage during a wheels-up landing in Dallas on February 3rd, 2016. It is very satisfying for those of...Continue Reading
Texas Flying Legends Museum by Chuck Cravens Update… In our first installment of the Zero repair updates last month we told a little of the Last Samurai’s history and showed the repair getting underway. The shop has made this repair a high priority job, so visible progress is being made daily. The work on fuselage...Continue Reading
The flight control lock has been pressed together and painted. Fuselage “bird cage” frames and longerons are being made and mocked up on spare fuselage tube frame. Meanwhile the nicely repaired actual fuselage frame goes into the paint booth for its first coat of yellow zinc chromate.Continue Reading
Texas Flying Legends’ by Chuck Cravens Careful realignment is always part of reinstallation when using a fixture. Update In our last update, we showed the tail cone’s initial assembly, disassembly, and finally painting. The vertical stabilizer was at the same stage. This month those assemblies are beginning to take on their final, permanent form. The...Continue Reading
Texas Flying Legends By Chuck Cravens Aaron is working hard on soldering up the components for wiring harnesses. Update… The restoration pace has picked up a bit on Lope’s Hope 3rd. The wings are progressing nicely. Mark Tisler was over at Odegaard Wings to help with the process and sent some photos. Mark reports: “Gun...Continue Reading
Texas Flying Legends Museum by Chuck Cravens Update… The Texas Flying Legends Museum’s Zero originated with John Calverley. John acquired some Zero parts in January of 1990 from a fellow resident of Carman, Manitoba, Bob Diemert. John owns Blayd Corporation, an aerospace product and parts manufacturer. John made the decision to build an A6M-2 Zero....Continue Reading
Texas Flying Legends by Chuck Cravens This photo of the right wing gives us a good view of the gun bay. Update The December/January update will be brief because most of the progress on Lope’s Hope 3rd this month happened at Odegaard Wings. The fine folks there sent some images of the wings. In the...Continue Reading
Texas Flying Legends by Chuck Cravens The Christmas season was part of the time period covered by this update so, in honor of the season, I thought I would show a photo that wouldn’t ordinarily make it into an update: This is what an AirCorps-style Christmas tree looks like! The P-47 tail cone is festooned...Continue Reading
by Chuck Cravens The Red Tail lands after a successful test flight with a background of snow. Update We at AirCorps were honored to be trusted with the repair of this very important warbird. Erik Hokuf and Mark Tisler were quoted in the press release when the Red Tail flew and I think they summed...Continue Reading