WIX Archives
Re: Mr. Bean
Posted by Rob Mears on Thu Dec 18, 2003 09:00:42 PM
In reply top Re: I know he is dead but posted by T J Johansen on Thu Dec 18, 2003 03:34:54 PM
So the rumor goes anyway. Mr. Bean died on site where he was working on one of his Corsairs. I'm not sure if he was actually in the plane or working around it. Apparently his death went unnoticed for some time...and no one was around to feed the guard dogs.
He was working to sell off his remaining F4U's during the 1970's. Of the twenty-one Corsairs he had purchased during the 1960's he was left with twelve following his trade deal with the Honduran Air Force. The reaminder airframes were stored at Blythe, CA and Tolleson, AZ. He began slowly selling them off "as is, where is" around 1966. He still had roughly half of these remaining by the mid-1970's, the last of which had been relocated to Tuscon Airport by the time of his death.
I have yet to dig up the man's obituary to find out exactly when he passed away, which is one of many questions I have concerning Bob Bean. If time allowed I'd try to make it out west to locate and interview some of his surviving family. I'm sure he had to have some cohorts helping out during those days as well. I can just imagine cracking open Bob Bean's personal photo collection to have a look-see! :)
He was definitely one of the hard core early warbird guys having dealt with P-38's, P-63', and F4U's en mass. There's more than a few substantial warbird stories still waiting to be written about that man and his activities from the 1950's through the 1970's.