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Some old Reno pics

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  • Originally posted by supercub View Post

    Anyone know what happened to this airplane? Is it still around?
    I believe the remaining Whittington brother still has it. It hasn't flown in years to my knowledge, but its my understanding that it could fly. Its the only other flyable H model in the world as far as I know.

    Will

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    • It did fly some about ten years ago before Bill Whittington passed away. I've seen photos of it at an Arizona air show. I've heard nothing since.

      Another question is what has happened to that P-51G propeller...



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      • Originally posted by wingman View Post
        It did fly some about ten years ago before Bill Whittington passed away. I've seen photos of it at an Arizona air show. I've heard nothing since.

        Another question is what has happened to that P-51G propeller...



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        So that propeller is actually off of the XP-51G Mustang. Last I know Don still had the prop in storage. The guy who is slowly restoring the XP-51G airframe (https://www.facebook.com/p/Project-X...0063102015456/) tried to buy it from him several years ago, and Don turned the offer down. When asked why, Don's comment was "I figure I'll outwait the guy and buy the project from him."

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        • Originally posted by Big_Jim View Post

          So that propeller is actually off of the XP-51G Mustang. Last I know Don still had the prop in storage. The guy who is slowly restoring the XP-51G airframe (https://www.facebook.com/p/Project-X...0063102015456/) tried to buy it from him several years ago, and Don turned the offer down. When asked why, Don's comment was "I figure I'll outwait the guy and buy the project from him."
          Correct! When my Dad still had his Bearcat I would negotiate parts for the race plane with Don. John Morgan asked me to approach Don regarding the propeller, so I did. Don told me that he would "wait until Morgan died and then buy the project".
          John Slack

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          • That airplane just looked good with the 5 blade. It went a lot faster, too, though it was not an apples to apples comparison.




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            • Notice the one piece windscreen. They did this on the D racer as well. John, didn't Don have a large supply of Bearcat props.



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              • Originally posted by MRE View Post
                Notice the one piece windscreen. They did this on the D racer as well. John, didn't Don have a large supply of Bearcat props.


                That was actually a Darrell Skurich thing. He did two different size wrap-around windscreens for Precious Metal. One for the H. One for the Aussie Mustang he rebuilt for Gary Levitz (which became "Jeannie Too"), one for "Georgia Mae", and one for the Whittington TF-51. Don't forget that part of the package deal with the wrap-around prop was the maroon red leather upholstery.

                I believe that for a long time, Brother Don had the largest inventory of spare Bearcat EVERYTHING in the world. If you wanted anything, you almost had to go through him.

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                • Originally posted by Big_Jim View Post

                  That was actually a Darrell Skurich thing. He did two different size wrap-around windscreens for Precious Metal. One for the H. One for the Aussie Mustang he rebuilt for Gary Levitz (which became "Jeannie Too"), one for "Georgia Mae", and one for the Whittington TF-51. Don't forget that part of the package deal with the wrap-around prop was the maroon red leather upholstery.
                  That low profile version was REALLY low profile. I think the -H version was simply the stock P51-H canopy, though. The Coutches airplane looks the same.

                  How did this airplane cool its oil? Was the cooling system stock?


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                  • Originally posted by MRE View Post
                    Notice the one piece windscreen. They did this on the D racer as well. John, didn't Don have a large supply of Bearcat props.


                    Some random thoughts. Yes The "Brothers Whittington" had a huge amount of Bearcat parts, also Mustang parts and tooling. They originally bought out the spare parts from Fornoff, Chub Smith's estate, and some other miscellaneous parts collections. Quite simply when you have an income source that you have to transform into real money buying a huge amount of rare and valuable parts isn't reportable. Don would usually make a comment to my Dad that every time he won an air race, Bearcats went up in value. Roll forward to when I got a phone call from Dave Cornell. Dave was inspecting the Bearcat parts inventory that Rod Lewis was now purchasing. Dave told me that it was like the Bearcat version of King Tut's tomb. Cornell, Greg Shaw and I had over the years discussed what treasures must be in the collection. Dave told me that it was much more. So Bearcat propellers just grains of sand on the beach.

                    Now for a little bit of trivia, Greenameyer once upon a time modified his Bearcat with a shorter vertical fin. When he realized that was a mistake he borrowed for a race from Bill Fornoff a new vertical fin that got a big number Home painted on it. Bill didn't mind loaning you parts, however you were expected to purchase, build or find your own replacement part and return the borrowed part to Bill or Corky. While going through the Whittington parts Dave found the vertical fin with the large Home painted on it and since Dave was replacing the Rare Bear vertical fin that had been damaged when the canopy hit it as it left the plane in 1972, Dave decided to replace the original Rare Bear fin with the borrowed fin from Greenameyer's Racer. He sent me a picture of the Bear stripped of paint with the Greenameyer fin on it. Later it was painted with Rare Bear and that is the fin it has now.

                    Trivia time over
                    Last edited by BellCobraIV; 01-02-2025, 11:28 PM.
                    John Slack

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                    • Well, no matter how they got their money they spent some of it on some nice stuff. The Skurich / Levitz Mustang was a nice piece. I like the picture of Rare Bear with all of its mods painted all white with no markings. Would make a nice 32nd scale model. Just thinking out loud.

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