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A related Soplata thread...Youngstown museum?

Posted by Steve T on Sun Sep 28, 2003 08:31:39 PM

In reply top Updated Soplata Aircraft List posted by Mike Henniger on Fri Sep 26, 2003 09:50:58 PM

Mike et al--

Thanks for the further updates and clarification. BTW I was looking through pix again yesterday and once again saw what I'd always taken for the rear fuselage of a USN T-34...I now think this is too big, and may in fact be the equally flat-bottomed and slab-sided aft end of a C-45, which would match the USN C-45J listed...It's in USN-style sea blue top/white below with black cheatlines, postwar star and bar and the word "FLY" in yellow (for recruiting purposes USN stuff often had "FLY NAVY" titling applied)...

The actual point of this post: my Dad dropped in at Walt's circa 1989; Walt was not there at the time but Dad spoke with (I believe) Walt's wife Peggy, and what he learned was quite interesting. My question is, did it ever come to anything...Walt was said to be, either alone or in cooperation with another enthusiast (I don't recall that aspect with any clarity), moving several of his aircraft to Youngstown, Ohio, to set up a small museum that was, if I recall right (and I believe I do about this) to be called the Youngstown Museum of Aircraft and Radio. Dad wrote down a list of the aircraft expected to move at the time. I remember distinctly that the F-82E and the O-52 were listed, along with two or three others (P-80 maybe?). What is, of course, interesting about the first two is that they are among the airframes no longer at Newbury. (Neither is the P-80 still at Walt's but I'm not sure it was on this list; and, unfortunately, the list is long since lost).

Question would be...did the Youngstown museum ever open (or really exist at all)? Anyone happen to have seen it, if it did, to confirm what aircraft (if any) ended up there? And if, as I've often wondered, the F-82, Owl et cetera did leave Newbury in connection with this venture, did they ever return, or was that their de facto exit from the collection? I'd be very interested to see some light shed on this rarely-noted bit of "history".

S.

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