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New addition to Ft. Worth Museum.


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I just wanted to share with you all the new addition to the Veterans Memorial Air Park / OV-10 Association Museum in Ft. Worth. This RF-8 is a true combat veteran. It started life with Navy Photo-Reconnaissance Squadron VFP-63. It, along with others, flew dangerous missions over Laos and Southeast Asia before the Vietnam War began. In fact, an RF-8, like this one, was the first casualty of that conflict. Later, this airplane was transferred to the Marine Air Reserve Training Detachment at NAS Dallas. Most recently, it was part of a display in Mobile, Alabama but was damaged by hurricane Katrina and returned to the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola. The airplane was slated to be a target on a bombing range in Florida until we said we wanted it, and now here it is. The wings and the rest of the aircraft will arrive next week, and work should start soon after. I will post more photos as work on it begins.

Dave Fassett

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Edited by Bulldog 09
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RF-8G_146898_20090107i.jpg

RF-8G_146898_20090107j.jpg

RF-8G_146898_20090107k.jpg

Hey Bill,

Man you should have told me you were going to take my picture, I would have fixed my hair :D . Thanks for adding these shots as alway they are excellent.

Very cool. I went up there with my 4 yr old last weekend and walked around outside. Snuck my nose in the hanger. Saw the A-7 as well. I'll have to swing by and see the Crusader as well. Thanks for the pics.

Hello George,

Give me a shout this weekend and I'll meet you there and show you around. I'll send you a PM with my info.

Dave Fassett

Edited by Bulldog 09
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Don't forget the RF-8's arguably most important missions: the low-level recon flights over Cuba during the missile crisis. The movie Thirteen Days is a dramatization of a memoir, not a documentary, but there is some cool airplane ********* therein.

One of those crashed across the street from my father's office in San Diego in the early 80s. The plane lost power climbing out of Miramar, and the pilot managed to line it up on a postage-stamp parking lot in the middle of an industrial park and punch out about a second before impact. To this day I have standing orders to buy a drink for then-LCDR David Strong if I ever happen to run into him.

Nice pics. Definitely the top of my 1/48 wish list.

Edited by ADCGrey
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Cool! an RF-8, please do it justice. Actually does not look to bad.

Must add this to my list of places I now need to go in the US

Julien

Julien the fuselage is the bright spot of the whole project.

The UHTs are both damaged and the right one is nearly

destroyed. Right outboard wing is split along the spar

from the hurricane and then the salt water bath did

none of the jet any good. The vertical and rudder

are damaged, but not too bad.

All in all for a discounted kit it was worth picking up. ;)

I do have to put my 1:1 scale F-105 back together first, before

I can get serious on this. On a forum somewhere either here

or warbirds I will start a thread about the project.

bill

Here she is while still in service

RF-8G-146898-BILL-SPIDLE.jpg

Here she is in 2002 at USS Alabama Memorial

RF-8G-146898-3.jpg

Here she is prior to Hurricane Katrina

RF-8G146898restoredBS.jpg

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