[ARC5] Preservation

[Robert Eleazer]

Several years ago a tornado hit an aircraft museum in Connecticut.  A B-17 that had been modified for engine testing by Pratt and Whitney was badly damaged, the waist section being destroyed.

A warbird restoration group from Florida came to help the museum repair the aircraft and in return they were given the remains of the B-17.   Finding a replacement waist section seemed impossible.  But then it turned out that a man had bought a B-17 waist section soon after WWII, when they were a dime a dozen.  He wrapped it in tarpaper and his children used it as a playhouse for years.  The children were grown, and he had no further use for it.  The Florida restoration group obtained the waist section and built a flying B-17 using it and the debris from Connecticut.  And just after it was finished their restoration facility was wiped out by Hurricane Charley - but the B-17 survived.

Also several years ago someone realized that Waco CG-4A gliders were all but nonexistent.  Their commercial value after WWII had been all but nil; the crates they came in had been used to build houses and the actual gliders cut up or simply discarded.  But they found one that had been hauled into the woods for use as a hunter's cabin and used it as the basis for a restoration. 

So it seems to be hard to identify who is really preserving history.  Was it the museum that parked a B-17 outside so it could be hit by a tornado or a man who bought a hunk of one to use as a playhouse?  Was it the guys who used the CG-4A as a cabin?

Or was it really the people who brought these treasures back from the dead?

Wayne
WB5WSV