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Re: Walt Soplata Aircraft List

Posted by Steve T on Fri Sep 19, 2003 08:10:53 PM

In reply top Walt Soplata Aircraft List posted by Mike Henniger on Fri Sep 19, 2003 07:58:20 AM

Hi Mike et al--

Ah, my favourite Warbird graveyard crops up again! :-)

Thanx to yourself and Scott for making available this quite comprehensive list of Walt's collection. Having already been involved to a degree in compiling it I haven't that much to add...

The CF-100 parts are from one of three very incomplete "Clunk" hulks held at a scrapyard in Barrie ON, which I heard about in early 1983. Walt got there about the same time as the metals man and salvaged what he could of 18775 (ex Electronic Warfare Unit)--basically the cockpit section and the thoroughly chewed-up centre fuselage.

I have the B-52 serial somewhere..."30394" on the fin at Dayton soon before she was scrapped sticks in my mind, which would make the AF s/n 53-394, but I'll have to check my pix. This nose is, from late-80s pix I've seen of Walt's farm, in much better shape than the B-36 front end.

There are some "duplicate" airframes Walt has or is supposed to have had; I did not see the T-33, the F-84E, the second F-86L, the RF-84F, the AD-6, etc...But I don't doubt these were in fact represented there even if no longer recognizeable. Walt has a lot of accident wreckage. I did, though, see what was distinctly an AD-5 midsection--which is never mentioned in any printed lists (other than my own!). If the -5 and -6 Sandys were built concurrently--and I've seen very close BuNos for both versions--that might explain it...any ideas?

The overall blotchy white Sabre is the E, 51-1123; the L 53-715 I didn't see (but, then, it could've been overall blotchy white too...!)

The Harvard is a case in point re wreckage. It was what was left after an airshow accident many years ago; when we told Walt we were Canadians he showed us his two Canadian machines, the ex-tech school Expeditor and the Harvard. I doubt I'd have recognized the latter, it was so badly smashed. On what was left of the wing panels was the remains of a red-and-white 50s-style sunburst paintjob. I'd be interested to know which Harvard this was and what the (all-too-sad) story was behind its becoming "Walt material"...

The bit about the P-47's "fin fillet" is my fault; I honestly remembered the tall fillet where there was none! But I do not know what variant the bird was; no idea of s/n.

"Lucky Gallon" was N69900 (there's a "9" missing in the entry). The report of parts of this in Walt's basement come from an interview with Bob Odegaard in one of the Challenge mags last year; Walt took Bob downstairs and showed him what remained of this, possibly the first Corsair ever in civil ownership, Cook Cleland's '46 Thompson entry. Her race number was 92. She was damaged in a storm at Cleland's field and Walt got what was left of her, reportedly for $300, in the fifties. I didn't get into Walt's basement but saw TONS of stuff in the upper floors of his house when he showed us round in '82. It'd be a bonanza for restorers...but pretty frustrating finding the "needle" in the "haystack" no doubt!

The "code" on F2G N5577N isn't "4", of course, it's "74", her race number in '47 (when Cook Cleland won the Thompson with her) and in '48 (with Dick Becker, whose name was still on the side when the Crawford acquired her in 1999). I remember spying that huge checkered cowling halfway back down the lineup in Walt's yard like it happened yesterday. Was quite a thrill; I had no idea at that time that Walt still had the F2G and the type has been among my favourites ever since.

S.

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