The early story was the aircraft were being moved. Here it is apparent that they are being destroyed. The orange crane on the left of the photo bears the spike which is driven through the engine and the wing spars to forever destroy the resource.
The two round holes are the insurance that the wing will never again support flight.
The orange square rod you see is the spike through the engine turbine. This is not accidental. It is a purely malicious act by an arrogant government which is destroying a heritage written in blood by some of the bravest warriors this nation has ever produced.
9 comments:
Ed,
I just don't get it. We got P-51s, P-38s, etc flying. What sort of scumbaggery is it when people want to wipe out one particular part of our country's aviation heritage? This is an unconscionable loss.
(the) Beak
I presume these are the last that were at Lackland, moved to Kelly, with engines that could have been used to return one to flight by the Collings Foundation.
We were on this some time ago...a year? You were actually at the same table with those responsible for this rape... I can't say I can't believe this has happened, only that it has. I never had the faith and trust others had on this issue. I feel some responsibility as I didn't move forward doing anything, just a few feeble attempts....it's truly a sad day.
Absolutely appaling! It isn't bad enough that half of the Thuds in Vietnam were lost, but the American government are destroying these. When are we ever going to learn that our heritage is precious. These aircraft should be preserved for future generations and as a tribute to the brave men who flew them.
This is immensely stupid. Can sanyone honestly claim that if the government had just said, in effect "We got these here airplanes we have to get rid of, you haul, you pay all expenses, they're yours" that literally hordes of individuals and institutions wlouldn't be lining up and take them? That wouldn't be entirely satisfactory either, giv en the historical nature of these craft, but almost anything would be better than the witless bureacratic vandalism shown here.
As far as I am aware, the jets at Lackland did not have their engines still in them. One of them is now at the Museum of Aviation at Robins and the others got placed at other locations.
It turns my stomach, truly. How awful.
Why? With demonstrated interest out there, and the history the Thud represents, why would they do this? I've tried to come up with answers; is it because it was designed for nuke delivery? Is it because of its speed on the deck (which I've heard, but can't substantiate, remains untopped today)? I don't know.
I just don't get it.
I just can't believe it. Makes no sense Why the vendeta against the F-105
Ray, you are mistaken. There were 10 airframes, originally. One went to a park somewhere up north as a public display item, one went to Robins,another went to Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas. One of these will be going to Wichita. For the rest, the future is at best, uncertain. The engines were in all of these aircraft, in fact these aircraft were the most complete, unmolested Thuds in existence. That is until the NMUSAF had the seats and some cockpit instruments were removed last year. The contract to do the work you see was let in July. The engines for these aircraft are all laying in the dirt, they've all been spiked. In the picture the forklift you see is actually being used to remove the last engine from the airframe. The first thing done last summer was to spike the engines. Apparently some individual was worried the aircraft might be flown out ! A study regarding the transfer of flyable vintage aircraft to civilian entities was commissioned last year.The study was conducted by the USAF, an entity on record knoen to be hostile to the idea. After speaking with TSA, Homeland Security, the FAA, DoD, and GSA, apparently the study was completed on July 11 and the findings were that it was unwise for the DoD to cahange the current policy of NO flyable transfers of jet aircraft. The study went further and recommended against ALL transfers of ANY aircraft,and included older aircraft ( WWII ) as well. Let's see, the USAF conducted the study, the USAF is hostile to the idea of transfer, the findings of the report come back recommending no transfers of any kind of operational aircraft. Is anyone surprised by this ? The sad part ? Congress went along with it !
This is truly sad. Words fail. Its akin to melting down HMS Victorious' cannons.
The USAF has driven a spike through all those beautiful airplanes.
Has any official explanation been given? Does this compeltely doom the Collings quest to fly one?
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