| My friend Bill Johnson sent me these
photos of the
F-86 that is at the Western Museum of Flight in Hawthorne, California.
Bill is a long time volunteer at the museum and I met him there in 1989
when I was a volunteer also. Bill was Vice President of Operations at
the
museum for a while, but stepped down. He says he still does most of the
work. He and another volunteer, Jim Johnson (no relation), went to
China
Lake Naval Weapons Center to pick out an F-86. This one was the nicest
looking one of the bunch so they took it. Back at the museum they
discovered
that it was a North American built F-86F-40-NA Sabre, USAF serial no.
55-3937,
that was loaned to the JASDF under the MDAP program. Its JASDF serial
no.
was 62-7497. It was the last F-86F in the Japanese Air Self Defense
Force
and was retired in 1982. The number 497 was found painted over on the
front
during work on the aircraft. Bill did the research to uncover the
aircraft's
history. It was to go to Okinawa as a gate guardian, but how it got to
China Lake, they have not discovered, yet. The cockpit was restored by
two volunteers-Louie Reid and Ed Burchett. Louie did the instrument
panel
and circuit breaker boards and all the switches in the cockpit plus the
control stick. Ed and Louie worked on the rest of the interior of the
cockpit
together. I think it looks great. |
