Airplane hangars often house strange and forgotten automobile finds. Many airplane owners are also car people, and the vast space afforded by a hangar is hard to resist when working on project cars. Fans of all things mechanical should check out the April 2020 auction of property belonging to the late Dr. Walter V. Powell. Most notably his Western PA Warbird Military Museum collection includes complete, replica, and partial airplanes and related equipment and memorabilia. Online bidding begins on April 4th, and the event culminates with online and on-site auction on April 18th. Check out all the pictures and details at bullocksbidnbuy.hibid.com. This ¾ scale replica WWI German Fokker D-8 Ultralight project certain catches the eye, and the new owner can relish in endless word-play with this fascinating Fokker. Thanks to reader Frank Y. for this awesome find.
What bonus-room is complete without the nose section of a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom? These amazing aircraft can “go vertical” at record pace and operate nearly 100,000 feet above the earth. Without its engines, this one probably won’t be pulling any Gs soon unless someone drops it off a fork lift.
Another playground-sized piece, this F-86 Sabre Jet forward fuselage promises loads of fun for children of all ages. Inspect for hibernating bears before purchase.
Make your dinner parties something to remember with this replica front fuselage section for a Beech C-45 bomber. Who can resist making machine-gun and bomb whistling sounds once they climb inside this entertaining and practical showpiece?
How many times have you wished your passenger was riding in an ejection seat? Wait no longer, friends, because this ejection seat from a F-105 Thunder Chief Jet goes to the highest bidder.
Nothing says “mechno-geek” like sprinkling your home or office with antiquated airplane gauges. It’s hard to put a price on many of these amazing aeronautical artifacts, but that’s exactly what will happen at the auction in April. What’s your favorite lot?
A car without a motor is usually called a ‘roller’. I guess a scale WWI German Fokker D-8 without an engine literally would be a ‘glider’?
Nope, it would be a roller too as it would never get high enough or fast enough to be a glider (short of rolling off a cliff or down a long steep hill side?).
F4 service ceiling was more like 60,000 feet.
Looks like all the leftover stuff that someone couldn’t bear to scrap. Once when driving around in Fl., Mims, I think, which is not far from the Space Center, we came upon a big lot with all this stainless stuff and tanks, clearly discards from the aerospace industry, probably cost us millions, just laying in a pile. Heck, those gauges alone probably cost us taxpayers thousands,,,each.
Hopefully, the folks who made those gauges, and the other stuff were American…
I picked up bin-loads of aircraft gauges and other surplus aviation stuff in the late 90’s early 2000s when the congress voted to shut down100s of military bases. In the Bay Area alone we lost The Presidio, Alameda NAS, Oakland Army base, Mather AFB and many more. Obviously the managers were under the gun to clear out decades of accumulated stuff. We were bidding on mixed lots by the ton. Stuff was going for pennies on the dollar. It was mind boggling what we were able to get and in quantity. A lot of tax dollars were literally and directly converted into scrap metals to be shredded, smelted and recycled. I saved a few choice items but if you saw what was destroyed you would become nauseous. We were just one very small outfit among many more and larger operations doing the same thing. I still have a Mach gauge, an altimeter and a couple other instruments. They all have labels detailing service and rebuilding information and test dates. They weren’t disposing of junk. This stuff works but is obsolete. There was some real old stuff too. I have a special wrench used to adjust the machine guns on the North American P-51. Makes an interesting conversation piece. Where had that been hiding all those years?
A Mach gauge? Someone should install it in a Cessna 150 (or similar) just for laughs!
Cool stuff! Hmm… I wonder if those airplane seats would work for racecar seats? Light weight, I imagine, but not sure about sturdiness.
The C-45 was not a Bomber. C = Cargo, B = Bomber.
They were modified with that nose to TRAIN Bombardiers using the Norden Bomb sight at bombardier training bases like Albuquerque, NM, Childress, TX, Deming NM, Carlsbad, NM, Midland, TX, Victorville, CA.
See- http://www.twinbeech.com/norden_bombsight.htm
Those modified C-45s were designated AT-11 s.
See – http://www.twinbeech.com/at-11page1.htm
“Here’s the World War 1 Flying Ace high over France in his Sopwith Camel, searching for the infamous Red Baron”.