do you know this invader

[speeddemon]

Re: do you know this invader

This one is from 1977. The program does not mention it, and it is not in the RARA database. May have been part of the warbird show and not a racer.

Dan Plunkett

Yup, that's Mike "Kaptain Kaos" Wright in Don Davis' Puss'n Boots from 1985.

[RandyGoss75]

Re: do you know this invader

New resident of Minter Field, A-26 C-FAGO

http://www.jetphotos.net/showphotos.php?regsearch=C-FAGO&view=true

[51fixer]

Re: do you know this invader

And a very sad Marketeer:

Not so sad anymore. In 1979 I had the pleasure of hauling a R-2800 QEC back to Kakanee IL on Floyd Wardlow's trailer made from BT-13 landing gear with car tires mounted on the original rims. We borrowed a 454 powered Chevelle from Mark Calderale and I was joined by John Maloney (16) and Juan Reddick (16) and I was the old man at 19. Juan's father, Al was back there for months getting it ready to ferry to Chino. Mark joined us after getting a hair raising ride in a T-33 into O'Hare with the last part being made after the generator and all power failed. After we dropped off the QEC we helped some on the A-26, went to Oshkosh and then picked up a F6F fuselage from Earl Rinhart in Mundelin IL. What a place, he had a Spit on display. He removed the side of the shipping crate and thats how you were able to view it. Parts of that F6F were used to build up Bob Pond's Hellcat. The A-26 made it back to Chino for Gene Ackers but then sat and turned into the sad photo you linked. When I worked for John Muszala he bought it. I spent alot of time working on that plane. The executive conversion was not an On-mark as I recall. It was done in OK and was quite rough. It was as if you took a dado blade and cut the structure in half with the dado blade but leave the skin. Take a round steel structure that was part boat anchor and part submarine, bolt what is left of the aircraft to the steel structure and you have an airplane that you can move maybe 16 feet instead of 2 8 foot areas. John sold the project and it was finished by Carl Scholl.http://www.warbirdregistry.org/a26re...6-4435710.html
Rich

[51fixer]

Re: do you know this invader

I woke up this morning and realized it was Mark Calderwood not Carderale. The mind is a terrible thing.
Rich

And a very sad Marketeer:

Not so sad anymore. In 1979 I had the pleasure of hauling a R-2800 QEC back to Kakanee IL on Floyd Wardlow's trailer made from BT-13 landing gear with car tires mounted on the original rims. We borrowed a 454 powered Chevelle from Mark Calderale and I was joined by John Maloney (16) and Juan Reddick (16) and I was the old man at 19. Juan's father, Al was back there for months getting it ready to ferry to Chino. Mark joined us after getting a hair raising ride in a T-33 into O'Hare with the last part being made after the generator and all power failed. After we dropped off the QEC we helped some on the A-26, went to Oshkosh and then picked up a F6F fuselage from Earl Rinhart in Mundelin IL. What a place, he had a Spit on display. He removed the side of the shipping crate and thats how you were able to view it. Parts of that F6F were used to build up Bob Pond's Hellcat. The A-26 made it back to Chino for Gene Ackers but then sat and turned into the sad photo you linked. When I worked for John Muszala he bought it. I spent alot of time working on that plane. The executive conversion was not an On-mark as I recall. It was done in OK and was quite rough. It was as if you took a dado blade and cut the structure in half with the dado blade but leave the skin. Take a round steel structure that was part boat anchor and part submarine, bolt what is left of the aircraft to the steel structure and you have an airplane that you can move maybe 16 feet instead of 2 8 foot areas. John sold the project and it was finished by Carl Scholl.http://www.warbirdregistry.org/a26re...6-4435710.html
Rich

[stuntflyr]

Re: do you know this invader

And a very sad Marketeer:

Not so sad anymore. In 1979 I had the pleasure of hauling a R-2800 QEC back to Kakanee IL on Floyd Wardlow's trailer made from BT-13 landing gear with car tires mounted on the original rims. We borrowed a 454 powered Chevelle from Mark Calderale and I was joined by John Maloney (16) and Juan Reddick (16) and I was the old man at 19. Juan's father, Al was back there for months getting it ready to ferry to Chino. Mark joined us after getting a hair raising ride in a T-33 into O'Hare with the last part being made after the generator and all power failed. After we dropped off the QEC we helped some on the A-26, went to Oshkosh and then picked up a F6F fuselage from Earl Rinhart in Mundelin IL. What a place, he had a Spit on display. He removed the side of the shipping crate and thats how you were able to view it. Parts of that F6F were used to build up Bob Pond's Hellcat. The A-26 made it back to Chino for Gene Ackers but then sat and turned into the sad photo you linked. When I worked for John Muszala he bought it. I spent alot of time working on that plane. The executive conversion was not an On-mark as I recall. It was done in OK and was quite rough. It was as if you took a dado blade and cut the structure in half with the dado blade but leave the skin. Take a round steel structure that was part boat anchor and part submarine, bolt what is left of the aircraft to the steel structure and you have an airplane that you can move maybe 16 feet instead of 2 8 foot areas. John sold the project and it was finished by Carl Scholl.http://www.warbirdregistry.org/a26re...6-4435710.html
Rich

Great story Rich.
I have family in Kankakee and when I was 16 went to the local field in my aunt's car.

Me and my cousin crawled all through that B-26, and I thought it was an On-Mark, but there were so many operators converting them. It had a couple of huge overstuffed captains chairs in the aft pointed forward, a three place couch on the left side pointed right, and a galley and head in the forward part of the cabin, the head being a Mono-matic in a closet type structure in the left forward corner. It was all black leather and the carpets were black, headliner was light and the windows were not tinted much, rectangular and small. (It looked for the most part as Howard Keck's airplane, that was also converted someplace other than On-Mark, but later went there for additional conversion. Same entry door in the floor too.)

The weird thing about On-Marks's and other conversions of the Invader is the fact one has to duck under the forward spar from the cabin to enter the cockpit. All of the Invaders I have been in or seen have this feature, however I have been told that the Smith Tempo does not have a spar running through the fuse at all, is if it has two ringspars. Any one know if this is true?

Ole Gene bought it (Kankakee bomber) and of course was set on restoring it to military configuration! Yeah, it just isn't possible after the mods that are done to them. Ring spar and all.

One thing I do remember was that the airplane was finished in as slick of a subtrate as I had ever noticed. The edges of the armor plates (they are structural, I guess) were built up with wood and it looked like fabric tape was glued over a bunch of the seams, then a ton (probably not that much literally, but a lot) of filler was used on the fuse around the nose and other mod-ed areas to streamline the transistions. In '75 when I saw it in Illinios it was still pretty solid and the bottom surfaces of the paint were still glossy. You could really see the stuff falling off by the time it sat at Chino for 15 years!

Chris...