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OUR GREAT WHITE NORTH EDITOR DELVES INTO HIS EXTENSIVE If it had not been for Earl Reinert and his Victory Air Museum in COLLECTION OF KODACHROMES. DOUG AND HIS FATHER HAVE Mundelein, , then today’s BEEN TAKING AIRCRAFT PHOTOS SINCE THE 1930s. world would be much poorer. Earl was a man of modest means yet he went above IF READERS WOULD LIKE TO SHARE THEIR and beyond when it came to PHOTOS OR HAVE FURTHER INFORMATION, trying to save history — PLEASE CONTACT DOUG AT doing this at a time when such a task was neither trendy nor [email protected] profitable. One of the planes he saved was B-25J USAAF 44- 30243. The aircraft was sold at a 1958 Davis-Monthan AFB auction and went to Maricopa Dust & Spray in where it was BY DOUG FISHER registered N9622C. In just a few months it started bouncing around with different owners and by 1966 it had gone through four owners and was with Jim Ausland as one of five Mitchells he would own along with a P-38, P-51, and other Warbirds. By 1967, it had been During 1976, Earl Reinert obtained Douglas A-26C Invader registered N17666 and was decidedly non-airworthy. In 1971, Earl obtained the plane from its Elkhart, Indiana, location and trucked it 44-35590. The aircraft had been purchased at a Davis- to his museum where it was reassembled. After Earl’s passing it began going through a Warbird who’s who of owners including Tom Monthan AFB auction in the late 1950s/early 1960s by E.L. Reilly, Jay Wisler, and Darryl Greenamyer. Today it is displayed in poor condition at the Pendleton Air Museum in Oregon. Quick and registered N3248G. Like numerous civil Invaders, nothing was done with the machine and it simply sat until Earl We have run photos of it in the past, but here is another view of Junior Burchinal’s unique “T”FG-1D Corsair at his airport in Paris, trucked it to his Victory Air Museum where it was given a Texas. Registered N3440G, the Vought-built Corsair was purchased from NAF Litchfield Park and its first owner appears to have been Korean War 3rd Bomb Group paint scheme and the name . At that point in 1960, Frank was operating his growing collection of aircraft from the dinky Flabob Airport in Rubidoux, Nightmare. After his passing, it was eventually obtained by , but the skilled aviator had no problem bringing the Corsair onto the short runway. Frank would combine forces with Paul and now resides in storage at . Mantz to form Movieland of the Air at the much larger Orange County Operators of Grumman Avengers being used in the spraying/fire-bombing role often utilized whatever paint was at hand to finish their Airport where the Corsair was kept “beasts of burden.” The owner of Aerial Applicators out of Salt Lake City, Utah, must have had a partiality to Halloween since he gave airworthy and used on occasional this Avenger a black and orange scheme that would not be out of place for that holiday. Grumman TBM-3E BuNo 53708 was sold surplus projects. In 1979, it was acquired by from NAF Litchfield Park and registered N4172A with the certificate of airworthiness — issued on 19 May 1958 — noting it was in the Junior Burchinal who got busy and “agricultural category.” It appears the first operator was Aerial Applicators and the plane was photographed at Salt Lake during installed a second seat and a crude set November 1974. It was noted derelict at that location by 1977 but with a new owner. However, in the 1980s it was parked at a small of dual controls — all enclosed with a grass field outside Miami wearing a new paint scheme but obviously derelict again. It was acquired by Tom Reilly and moved to his facility sheet of plexiglass. The plane was at Kissimmee, , and placed in storage. In 2005, it went to Harland Avezzie as a parts source for his TBM restoration project before flown to Van Nuys Airport and used in heading to Anoka Airport in Minnesota with Mike Rawson as a future flying restoration project. It was struck off the civil register in 2014 filming Baa Baa Blacksheep, returning and further information would be appreciated. Besides our subject aircraft, Aerial Applicators owned nine other Avengers (the majority afterwards to Paris where it was in the black/orange scheme): N7849C/BuNo 91617, N4167A/BuNo 5237, N7029C/BuNo 53914, N7848C/BuNo 91206, N7858C/BuNo destroyed in a suspicious hangar fire. 91171, N8397H/BuNo 69459, N8398H/BuNo 53607, N9692C/BuNo 53256, and one unidentified example that crashed in 1963. The company also operated a B-25, two DC-6s, a DC-7B, and a DC-7C. The Avenger, as well as other aircraft in the fleet, had (partially hidden by the wing in this view) of a witch with a bug spray can!

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