02/07/2024
The Yankee Lady hasn’t done much stateside lately, what do you think about this potential change?
YANKEE LADY HEADS SOUTH — WAY SOUTH
As viewers of this page well realize, the sale of the B-17G Yankee Lady has created a great deal of controversy. This controversy does not regard the new owner, who has the will and financial ability to care for this important piece of American aviation heritage, but from the fact that the museum sold the aircraft. Plans for the bomber are interesting. As soon as some mechanical work is undertaken at Willow Run, the B-17G will be flown to Chino Airport where Fighter Rebuilders will disassemble the Fort and prepare it for shipment.
The final destination is most interesting — Avspecs in New Zealand. We recently spoke with Avspec employees who were in the final stages of assembling the de Havilland Mosquito at Chino and one commented, “The Flying Fortress will certainly be a challenge. It appears our mandate will be to restore the aircraft to original WWII operating condition. That means everything will be made functional — all the turrets will work and all systems will be as they were during the war.”
A daunting prospect? Certainly. However, Yankee Lady is perhaps the finest of the flying survivors and it already has considerable WWII equipment installed so this is a big plus since these items have become increasingly difficult to source. At Avspecs, the bomber will be broken down even further as every inch is inspected and repaired as necessary. This is certainly a bit different from Avspecs creating their “wooden wonders” but we are talking about a group of workers that are committed to the task and who, we are certain, will do an excellent job. Challenge Publications maintains a very large B-17 archive and we have let Avspecs know that they are welcome to utilize what is needed for the restoration process.
When completed, the aircraft will return to the USA. There seems to be some discussion about flying the plane back to the States but shipping would make more sense given the value of this incredible artifact. We would like to get your opinions on all this. Our thoughts on the museum selling the plane are pretty much known and we think that institution will now be on a downhill slide. As usual, we look forward to your thoughts.
