WIX Archives
Re: Paul Mantz (sorry for the partial double post!)
Posted by Steve T on Mon Aug 04, 2003 09:49:14 PM
In reply top Re: Paul Mantz posted by Rob Mears on Mon Aug 04, 2003 07:55:21 PM
Sheesh...One-third of a Packet seems like a singularly bad idea as an "airshow bus" even by the less rigorous standards of decades ago...!
: I often wonder how differently the warbird movement might
: have flourished had Mantz & Tallman remained a viable forc
: e in aviation through the 1970s! Any man willing to write
: a personal check for a desert lot full of hundreds of war
: birds as far back as the 1950s gets all my respect! :)
Yep...there were too few visionary types. Of course most of what Mantz bought he scrapped after siphoning out the stray Avgas--both operations very inventively netting a worthwhile profit. But that was in the late 40s. To this day, two Mantz P-51Cs are intact and in superb condition (NASM's and Weeks'); and of course many more prized Warbirds of varying types survive courtesy of the Tallmantz partnership's acquisitions for film work many moons ago...we all owe those two gents a tip of the hat, along with the other visionaries who, for whatever reason, chose to hang on to what everyone else was throwing away.
S.