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Re: So to the best of your knowlege...

Posted by Dan Jones on Sun Aug 17, 2003 09:39:46 AM

In reply top So to the best of your knowlege... posted by Rob Mears on Sun Aug 17, 2003 12:15:18 AM

: ...how did the party that recovered the plane manage to pr
: ocure it from Walt's collection? Did Mr. Soplata advertis
: e the plane for sale, or was the man who recovered the pla
: ne a silver-tounged devil? ;D
:
: Every time I've spoken to Walt he's been very precise abou
: t his intentions to pass the planes on to his kids after h
: is passing. I'm still very curious as to what caused him
: to sell off some of the collection during the 1990's.

Well, it'd be hard to imagine anyone not liking the guy that recovered it, and I guess he and Soplata just kinda hit it off. He got the "big tour" which included the house, the basement, and the sheds and somehow managed to talk him into selling the BT. It had something to do with Soplata already having a better example and not needing this one, so he let it go and Andy jumped on it. Anyway, it showed up here in Alberta in '89, got sold to some other friends of mine in '90 who used to have a B-25 fire bombing operation and were in the rebuilding and maintenence business as well, and I bought it in 2000 when they decided to thin out their stack of retirement projects. It took me awhile to get the whole story on where it came from but when I found out it was one of Soplata's airplanes I almost fell over. Now I just need the story on what happened between 1944 when the RFC sold it as scrap in Oklahoma and 1989 when it left Ohio. I have no real idea how long he had it although I'm guessing since 1944, and I had no luck getting him to tell me. So...anybody??

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