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Spiros Pendedekas
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Hellenic Air Force Museum – A quick visit – Part4: Misc gems and a surprise!

June 12, 2020 · in Photo Collections · · 16 · 2K
This article is part of a series:
  1. Hellenic Air Force Museum – A quick visit
  2. Hellenic Air Force Museum – A quick visit -Part 2
  3. Hellenic Air Force Museum – A quick visit – Part 3
  4. Hellenic Air Force Museum – A quick visit – Part4: Misc gems and a surprise!
  5. Historic Planes of the Hellenic Air Force

Hi everyone!

Here are some more pics of museum items under restoration you might find interesting.

Among them are some shots of the recovered , a T-33 almost restored to static status in SEA camo,

a Northrop BQM-74 Chukar target drone under restoration and, to my surprise, a recovered Arado 196!

Those recovered Luft birds have been corrosion treated and await restoration as exhibition relics.

Hope you like the pics and hope I didn't make you feel bored with my "quick visits"!

Happy modelling!

Reader reactions:
15  Awesome

10 additional images. Click to enlarge.


16 responses

  1. When I see those remains of the Stuka, I really hope to see one flying again.
    Current restoration of a potential airworthy Stuka can be seen here,
    https://worldwarwings.com/heres-a-look-at-whats-about-to-become-the-worlds-only-airworthy-stuka/

  2. Great stuff there Spiros. I likealot. . .

  3. Fantastic!

    The Mediterranean Sea has tons of wrecks. A bit like the English Chanel . Or more even ! Fishermen were bringing in parts of aircraft with regularity in Oostende Belgium when I was a kid. Nets shredded was not fun for coastal fishermen!

    I read that the use of Magnesium components in German ( Martime ) aircraft helps preserve the wrecks as it seems to protect aluminium and iron for vanishing so fast Once WW2 started this strategic metal became unavailable.

    I enjoy your information very much. Can wait to get to Greece !

    Bernard

    • Yes, the Mediterranean hosts many and very intersting wrecks, Bernard @bernardbedeur! Amazing what lies down there.
      I believe what you read about German metals has a lot of truth in it. Indeed, the condition of the wrecks seems surprisingly better than expected.
      Glad you like the posts, my friend!

  4. Spiros, @fiveten
    Oh my goodness ! This is a Luftwaffe treasure trove you have here ! Thank you so much for sharing these wonderful pictures with us. They are simply amazing. My Dad was a deep sea fisherman for about 5-6 years, and he worked on fishing boats in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida. Sometimes they would venture as far north as North Carolina. He also worked on Shrimp boats. Sometimes when he worked the shrimp boats, they would snag their nets on the various wrecks that lie offshore. There were a lot of ships sunk by U-boats on the eastern coast of the US. But also we had a lot of planes go down offshore as well. These planes were primarily lost on training missions, as there were a lot of Naval and Army aviators who trained from the numerous training bases we have here in Florida and Georgia. In fact there was a large training base here where I live now. This little town had a nice airport that was used for training by the US Navy. Here they trained F4F Wildcat, SBD Dauntless, and Ventura crews. There are about 10 airports within a 50 miles radius that also trained air crews. Florida and Georgia were primarily used because of the great weather. The same was done out west in Arizona, Texas and California for the same reasons. Over on the other side of our State is Tampa.
    They trained B-26 crews there, and they had a saying that went like this for the Tampa region where the Army trained its; B-26 crews... It went like this: "One a day, in Tampa Bay". This was referring to how many planes were lost due to training accidents and how the crews struggled learning how to fly a high performance bomber.

    I love all of these pictures. They are simply marvelous. Thank you very much for sharing these treasures with us. Hopefuly these planes you have shown us will get restored to at least a static display status, but having them airworthy would be even better... but I know this costs a lot of money though.

    • Thanks so much for the story Louis @lgardner!

      I feel most proud that my pics create interest that recalls stories coming back to us.

      It is one of the many joys of modelling.

      Thanks for liking my pics.

      It will take a while for those planes to be properly restored and exhibited.

      Airworthy? It is one of the miracles that rarely happen in my country.

      Implanting the virus of aviation culture through modelling, but also through other similar activities could help a lot for some future hopes.

      Internet helps the most at this. Sites like imodeler help the most at this.

      All the best, my friend!

  5. These are great photos of an interesting museum! Thanks for sharing, Spiros @fiveten

  6. More nice photos!
    The BMW 132 caught me off guard - Looking at the engine/cockpit combo I got excited thinking 'Is that a Ar 196?' and started googling.
    I didn't even read your entry saying it actually is the Arado - surpirse indeed.
    Thanks Spiros.
    I gotta learn to calm down.

    • Thanks George @georgeswork!

      I didn't know about the Arado, had only taken a blind pic of the Stuka the day before, through a tiny opening between the locked hangar doors.

      So, I had a Stuka pic.

      The next day I went in the hangar and started taken pics of what I thought was the Stuka cockpit, lying beside the Stuka.

      Per my beloved Clint Eastwood: I kind of lost track myself through all this excitement, when I suddenly realized I was filming an Arado!

      Speechless is the least I can say I remained for quite some time, only for my excitement to become double immediately afterwards.

      So, please, don't calm down and stay that enthusiastic forever, my friend!

  7. Always like your photos, nice Norton. the Med. has a few navy F-4's , One that my Division Officer went down with back in 1976. It was never recovered.

  8. Hi Spiros, Impressive. I still have to find the first of your posts being boring 🙂

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