Miss Foxy Lady?

[supercub]

What happened to this airplane........seems like I heard he was doing a low level loop and lowered the gear at high speed to try and slow down and had a structural failure.....is this right? or what did happen? Thanks
Brian

[Outer6]

Re: Miss Foxy Lady?

I believe that Miss Foxy Lady became Sumthin Else flown by John Crocker after Ken Burnstein was killed in a crash in Mojave. After that I'm not sure.

[Outer6]

Re: Miss Foxy Lady?

I have several pics of Miss Foxy Lady in the white and gold paint. Does anyone have some photos when it was black and gold? The art on the fuselage was done by an artist named Vaughn Bode who used to draw a cartoon strip for the National Lampoon Magazine back in the late 60's, early 70's.

[Shawn Aro]

Re: Miss Foxy Lady?

here one 1974 black and white thought Shawn

[speeddemon]

Re: Miss Foxy Lady?

Burnstine was quite the character. There were a lot of stories about his shenannigans (both legal and not-so-legal), but there is no doubt he had a lot of money and liked to flaunt it.

I'm sure John Slack will remember the story of 'why' the plane was changed from black to white in the spring of 1975......(shaking my head in disbelief).

Everyone else is right, in that Foxy Lady became Sumthin' Else, and is now the TF-51 Crazy Horse2 at Stallion 51.

Burnstine was killed at Mojave '76 in his 'stock' Mustang Miss Suzy Q when he failed to pull out of a split-S on arrival on Wednesday. Just the background research on this accident is enough to fill a book as to whether it was suicide, sabotage, or just pilot error. Burnstine, at the time, was under something like 50 federal indictments for arms/drug running and tax evasion, and the week following Mojave '76 was scheduled to testify FOR the FBI as a witness as part of a plea-bargain in Dallas, TX.

He was in some SERIOUS legal troubles (as witnessed that he had already sold Foxy Lady to Gary Levitz at this point to help pay for his legal expenses). I've talked to a few people who swear that they heard Burnstine say "Oh God, no....no, no!" over the race frequency before he crashed. But nothing was ever proved.

As for the fusleage art...Vaughn Bode had a series of girls called Bode's Babes that he drew....and the 'white' version in '75 used one of them. I don't think Bode designed the 'black' version in '74.

[JCP]

Re: Miss Foxy Lady?

Bob Nightengale, my Dad (John Paul) and myself were just talking about this accident at lunch yesterday.

Jim Maloney was right behind Ken Burnstine that day in another mustang and this is what Jimmy told my Dad happened.

Jim said they were out rat racing around Mohave in the two mustangs and Ken went over the top (split S type maneuver) and started going straight down doing a vertical roll. Jimmy followed him down in his mustang and was doing a vertical roll right behind him, Ken then started a second vertical roll and Jim almost followed him into it when he realized how big those little bushes on the desert floor were and how low he was. Jim started pulling out and said that he saw Ken start to pull out as well and could see Ken's wings "flickering" in what was probably a high speed stall developing from him pulling hard. Ken hit the desert and Jim said that he barely pulled out of it himself. Jim figured that Ken lost track of the rising terrain below him and in the vast desert with little reference didn't realize how low he was until it was to late.

Jim Maloney told my Dad that with what he saw and experienced, he did not believe the sabatoge stories, instead he believed he had mis-judged his AGL.

[Race5]

Re: Miss Foxy Lady?

There are several cool detail shots of Miss Foxy Lady at this gentleman's Flickr site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80643375@N00/sets/72157594517602546/

Be sure to browse around his other pages as well. There are a few great shots of Begnuine and Anson Johnson's Race 45.

[Tosg]

Re: Miss Foxy Lady?

We arrived at Mojave about 2 hours after the accident. Bob Drew witnessed the crash and described it at the time almost exactly as what JCP has relayed.

My understanding was that #33 "Miss Suzy Q" had just emerged from the paint shop at Chino with a new paint scheme prior to the ill-fated flight. Can anyone verify this? I have never seen a photo with the new paint job if indeed this was the case.

[speeddemon]

Re: Miss Foxy Lady?

We arrived at Mojave about 2 hours after the accident. Bob Drew witnessed the crash and described it at the time almost exactly as what JCP has relayed.

My understanding was that #33 "Miss Suzy Q" had just emerged from the paint shop at Chino with a new paint scheme prior to the ill-fated flight. Can anyone verify this? I have never seen a photo with the new paint job if indeed this was the case.

That rumor is just plain old typical John Tegler BULL$*@T! Tegler wrote that in his Air Classics coverage of that race. It may have been 'fresh' paint, but it was still the same Suzy Q paint job.

[J.SMITH]

Re: Miss Foxy Lady?

If you haven't seen the book Chino Warbird Treasures Past and Present by Joe Cupido I highly recommend it. In the book you will find both paint scheme's for Miss Foxy Lady Plus a lot of other great pictures and the history of Chino and Reno birds that were out of Chino. I love the book.