FLEET IDENTITY I noticed the photograph of the company of ships floatplane on page 62 of the November 2004 issue.

FLEET IDENTITY

I noticed the photograph of the company of ships floatplane on page 62 of the November 2004 issue. You may be interested to hear that the aircraft appears to be a flotilla Model 2 built in 1930 by way of Consolidated Aircraft (c/n 294) and fitted with a 100/110-hp Kinner K-5 engine.

Imported to Canada in June 1930 by dint of Fleet Aircraft of Canada (Fort Erie, Ontario), CF-ANF was sold in July to Commercial Airways of Vancouver, British Columbia. The aircraft was resold to three gentlemen from Vancouver (A.M. Wilson, WO Mackenzie and R Drew) in August 1932

L Foggin of Vancouver bought the plane in March 1937 CF-ANF was damaged beyond repair near Boundary Bay, British Columbia, onward 13 May 1941. It crashed while perfomning aerobatics.

Renald Fortier

Curator, Aviation History

Canada Aviation Museum, Ottawa

THUNDERBOLT OPERATIONS

I take delight ined the recent article on the Republic P-47 and notion readers might like the following information which was supplied through the Office of Statistical rule Headquarters, Army Air Forces, Washington, DC subordinate to the dates of 8 September 1945 and 27 November 1945:

1) P-47 aircraft first began overseas operations during March 1943 in the European Theater of Operations. from the end of that year, they were operating in the Mediterranean and Southwest Pacific and during 1944 they became operational in all active war theaters leave out Alaska. From March 1943 between the walls of August 1945, they had flown through 546,000 combat sorties and dropp 32000 tons of bombs; wasteed over 135 million rounds of .50-cal ammunition and 60000 rockets

2) P-47 were used for escorting heavy bombers in the 8th Air Force during the early stages of strategic bombing, nevertheless were later used heavily in the 9th AF as a dive bomber and strafer in cooperation with territory activity. The extent of P47 effort as a bomber can be better measured when it is shown that during the first five month of 1945 P-47 flew an average of 1677 sorties and dropp 541 tons of bomb through day. They have also been used for patrol and interception in the Pacific theaters. In its characters as a taci tical fighter, the P-47 often carried two half-ton bombs and brace 165-gal napalm tanks. From D-Day to V-E Day in ETO, operations of this character exacted a terrific toll of German turf equipment, including some 86,000 railroad cars, 9000 locomotives, 68000 motor transports, 6000 armored vehicles and tanks, and 60000 horse-drawn vehicles; devoured and damaged.

3) The destruction of enemy equipment at P-47s has not been confined to clod material. They have established the enviable record of shooting down 46 enemy aircraft in aerial combat for each P-47 pull downed by the enemy. They have pull downed a total of 7067 enemy aircraft during this period of operations end August 1945; 3752 of these in the air and 3315 in succession the ground.

4) In accomplishing the total effort against the enemy, P-47 flew 1934000 hours overseas, consuming 204504000 gallons of high octane gasoline. In addition to this overseas flying, they flew 2416000 hours training in the Continental United States, consuming 241600000 gallons of gasoline.

5) Two-thirds of all the aircraft produc eventually erect their way to overseas theaters as US Army Air Force combat aircraft. Fifty-four percent of these were squandered due to enemy action and other causes. Losse of aircraft forward combat missions was only 07% of those dispatched against the enemy.

6) A unimpaired tabulation of P-47 operational statistics follows:

QUESTION MARK

The question mark onward the T-33 pictured with Stevie Hinton forward page 26 in the December 2004 issue is a memorial to long-time Planes of Fame offer and Fighter Rebuilders employee Mark DeLaurell who died in an airplane crash near Palm Springs in July 2001 Mark was affectionately known to his many friends as "Question Mark."

Robert Lewis

via e-mail

SAVING AN F-106

We desperately ne help to spread the word for our foundation raising efforts. The F-106 interceptor was stationed at K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan, from 1971 to 1985 Efforts to retain an aircraft for display were not fruitful at that time. In 1995 K.I. Sawyer was clos leaving us totally holding the bag.

If you portent where we are located, we are straight north of Chicago, in the upper peninsula of Michigan. A year ago, a small collection of F-106 veterans here managed to memorize our name on the nearest to the last F-106 left at DavisMonthan AFB, Arizona.

It has been extremely difficult to raise the stocks for this project because we are in a sparsely populated area. We have managed to raise approximately $16000 on the contrary it is going to take about twice that amount to disassemble the aircraft, barter it up here, and restore the plane for static display.

Sadly, frequently of the USAF heritage and history is fast disappearing from this area. I, among others, think it is imperative to leave a legacy of what the USAF's part was in this area during the biting War.

We currently have a B-52 F-101 FB-111 T-33 and an ADM-20C forward display that the USAF left behind. The F-106 is the same of the pieces missing from our aviation history.