WIX Archives
Re: "Rescue"
Posted by Steve Tournay on Fri Feb 22, 2002 09:36:14 PM
In reply top "Rescue" posted by Joe Scheil on Fri Feb 22, 2002 12:04:51 PM
Right you are: Walt was the rescuer of these birds when few others cared. To take the F2G as an example, it's doubtful indeed that the Crawford Museum would now be preparing to display the 1947 Thompson Trophy winner had not Walt paid a call on Cook Cleland's airfield circa 1953, to garner #74 before the metals men moved in. Had there been more Walts...there would now be more Warbirds!
I met Walt three times, twice at his home (1982, 1984) and once at Mt.Hope airport (March 1987) when he drove up from Ohio to purchase the gutted nose section of a Handley Page Victor jet tanker, which had been left at CWH by the RAF (the Victor had crashed on arrival for the '86 airshow there). He is, indeed, an utterly unique individual. More's the pity, actually, for those of us who like old airplanes.
(BTW the Victor nose is visible in one of the pix on the site "D" began this thread with; since those pix date to '87 the nose would've been a very recent arrival.)
Cheers
S.