Hello All,
The I had the good fortune to visit the The Flying Heritage Collection; this is the private collection of Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft. By my count, there were 19 aircraft in this place, and while the number isn’t overwhelming, each one of these is a jewel. Being a Luftwaffe nut, my focus was on the Fw 190 D–13:
The Fw 190 A–5 (the only example powered by an original BMW 805 that flys!!):
And a flying Bf 190 E–3:
I was there before they opened, and they threw me out at the end of the day, so I had 7 hours and by my calculations the camera was acutally recording/processing for 4 of those hours; either way I took as many photos as humanly possible in the time. This place is just astounding.
If you’ve ever looked at the Jerry Crandall Books about the 190 D (Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Dora vol. One, Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Dora Vol. Two), you’ll se a lot about this D–13 in Volume Two. It’s so rare, and such a great restoration. It really puts the 190 D–9 at the USAF Museum to shame… But I guess that’s what an unlimited personal budget will do for a restoration!
I’m pretty proud to have gotten a good shot of the Robot gun camera, behind it’s glass shield:
And of course, who doesn’t love the massive spinner? I sure do!
They also have a MK 108 gun on display:
Look at the comparison between a .50 caliber round and a 30mm round:
They also have a B–25 in such great shape (actually, everything is in great shape!):
And a P–51, which was reunited with it’s pilot in WWII not too long ago:
There was no way I could take all of the photographs I wanted to, so I had to just concentrate on the priorities, and that was the Fw 190 D–13 first, A–5 second, 109 third and 163 lastly. I have a boatload of photos in the set on flickr; feel free to download any that you like. There are some good reference photos in there, especially for the soon to commence 190 Group Build. Here’s the link to the set:
Flying Heritage Collection
Best regards,
Mike