Warbirds and Airshows - Flying Heritage Museum

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Warbird and Aviation Museums of the Pacific Northwest
Flying Heritage Museum - Paine Field, Everett, WA
May 28, 2012

This is not a comprehensive photo page of all of the aircraft in the museum, but just a few that I found interesting and rare.

This is the only example left in the world of the rare FW-190D-13. The docent told me this is an $8 million warbird which is not flown due to its rarity.

I did not even know there was a manned version of the V-1. In theory the pilot would be able to bail out after aiming it at its target. Due to developmental issues the 70 or so pilots that volunteered to fly this who might have had some chance of survival flying it were all sent to the Eastern Front where they had no chance of survival. They probably all volunteered because they figured anything was better than the Eastern Front!!

Both of these V-1s were buried the cave they were built in during WWII, the entrances to the cave destroyed by the Soviets in 1948. In the late 20th century a new entrance was found and these two original V-1s were purchased by the museum in 2001. Most "V-1s" found in museums today are actually US built JB-2s, so these two examples are extremely rare.

This I believe is the only flyable ILyushin IL-2 in the world and should have flown for the first time in the US on Father’s Day weekend of 2012. Unfortunately there is so much around it the aircraft gets lost in the clutter.

The FAA was underwhelmed by the lack of documentation on the engine and prop, which had to be replaced with American items.

Tail gunners suffered four times more casualties than the pilots. Note that there is armor plate behind the gunner protecting the pilot while the rear gunner had nothing. Actually the rear gunner was sort of like soft armor for the pilot, slowing down any projectiles before they strike the armor plate. The IL-2 also had a metal plate under the pilot to protect him from ground fire. However, as the gunner’s position was an afterthought the metal plate did not extend back and protect him.

According to the docent that I spent at least an hour with, this is supposed to be the most well restored B-25 in existence which could very well be true. However, I am not sure about the package guns. The docent told me that they were angled down from the line of flight in order for the aircraft to fly level and be able to strafe down a path. However, I am really wondering about this and its accuracy and authenticity on a B-25, unless it was one off field modification that the B-25 that is depicted by this restoration used. I have never seen any photos of any B-25 having its package guns that were anything but parallel to the line of flight. This sort of assumes the enemy has laid out the targets in a straight line for this aircraft to strafe. This may also have rendered the gun sight somewhat useless.

The PO-2 was not only used by the Russian female "Night Witches" pilots to bomb and harass German troops at night but was employed against UN forces in the Korean War as well. The "Night Witches" signature bombing tactic was to fly close to the ground, turn of the engine and then glide in before dropping the bombs.

This PO-2 was built in 1944 and recovered from Belarus. The 23 on the tail signifies the number of "Night Witches" that won the Hero of the Soviet Union during the war.

This front fuselage of a Lancaster came from a museum in Great Britain.

Here we are looking forward from the radio operator's area, past the flight engineer's instruments on the right and up into the flight deck. The orange or yellow painted circle on the back of the pilot's seat is a poison gas indicator which will change color if the aircraft has flown through gas. Because the crew would have oxygen masks on they would have not realized it was being used against them. There is also a similar circle on the front of the pilot's seat. This is similar to the upper arm gas indicators worn by the invading forces on D-Day.

The Flight Engineer's station. His brown fold down seat can be seen up by the instrument panel.

The transmitter is on the top and the receiver on bottom in the radio compartment.

This P-40C was built in 1941 and sent to the Soviet Union where it defended Murmansk until September 27, 1942, when the oil cooler took hits and the aircraft made an emergency landing in a field. It was "found" in the early 1990s and ended up at this museum in 1999 after being rebuilt in Chino. It would have been so much more appropriate to have painted this in its original wartime colors.