Speaking of Flight Replicas

WarHorse47

WarHorse47

SOH-CM-2024
I was just flying their Me-262 the other day and found this very interesting news.

I only wish I could go to Eastern Washington for its first flight after restoration.. :listening_headphone
 
We Seattle-area folks have been anxiously awaiting this one! I think most of us assumed it was going to join the flying collection, but looks like it's going to be be like the Oscar, Me-163, and FW-190D-9 and be a static display only.

I'd love to see it in the air, but given the rarity and the fact it's using the Jumo engines, I understand not flying it. The N9M crash drives home that point.
 
I’m mildly surprised they’re going to try even one test flight with it, since the service life of a Jumo 004 was about 25 hours. Period. Chances are the engines are fried by then, burnt to a crisp!
 
Reminds me of another extremely rare plane, the 1/3 scale Lockheed flying wing prototype, that recently crashed and tragically took the life of its pilot. This one had many flights on it since restoration, but is no more.
 
The Jumo 004 engines on the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum's Me-262 are completely new-build, to the original design, but with all modern, high-strength (proper) metals, not the weak stuff that was used originally that resulted in them not lasting more the 25 hours. Millions of dollars and more than a decade of work has gone into them. They are predicted to be able to last for several hundred flight hours. All of the critical components throughout the "hot section", such as the compressor blades, are made of modern metals.

There are currently three Me-262's flying in the world (owned by the Collings Foundation (US), Military Aviation Museum (US), and the Messerschmitt Foundation (Germany)), but all three are new-build reproductions and powered by Learjet engines. The Flying Heritage Me-262 is the real deal, and the vast majority of the structure and skins are original.

The mentioning of the aircraft likely being "grounded" when it is moved to the museum might have more to do with the current state of Paine Field, rather than the aircraft itself - we shall see. Supposedly due to the current status of operations at Paine Field (with so much big jets/modern stuff operating in and out of there), the museum's flying activities on the whole are vastly reduced this year - only three FHCAM flying events are scheduled for this year (and the very active Historic Flight Foundation, which also operates a collection of warbirds at Paine Field, has no public flying scheduled at all this year). I can understand though, if they have decided that it will be a one flight only aircraft, and let it remain parked afterward (like their original Fw-190D-13, the only D-13 on the planet, and their original Japanese Oscar - two of the aircraft they don't operate). The FHCAM Stuka is expected to be completed and flown by late 2020 - if that too is a one and done deal, I would be completely shocked (in that case, the aircraft is almost completely newly built).

I'm impressed with the paintwork on the aircraft, though I've read that the dark green square seen beneath the '2' on the left side should also likely be seen in a similar position on the right side, since it is thought that it covered over an original single-digit number that had been applied previous to the number '25'.
 
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Actually, Historic Flight Foundation has a fly day this Saturday. And three others scheduled this summer. John is leaving in the DC-3 Saturday to join the Normandy flyover this summer.

And yeah, FHCAM only has three fly days this year, a far cry from past years, but the annoying addition of commercial flights to Paine Field is only part of it. They're also in a major fundraising mode due to Paul Allen's death, and apparently don't have access to the budget that they had to fly before his passing. (Was at the Warbirds and Wine event there a couple of weeks ago and was talking to some of the folks who help run it.)
 
Sorry Denny, concerning the HFF I was just going by what I had thought someone had told me a while back - I should have known to check for myself. Thank you for the correction! Speaking of HFF, it was great to see John recently earn his rating back in the DC-3 again, following the accident/loss of his lower leg last year. And thank you too for the further information about the FHCAM.
 
Your point stands, though -- it's going to be harder to do fly days, etc. from Paine when having to accommodate all the Alaska Airlines 737 traffic. :(

I'm still hoping there may be plans to fly the Me-262 occasionally. Seems odd to spend all that money rebuilding engines from modern materials only to fly them once and go "yep, they work."
 
DennyA said:
And yeah, FHCAM only has three fly days this year, a far cry from past years, but the annoying addition of commercial flights to Paine Field is only part of it. They're also in a major fundraising mode due to Paul Allen's death, and apparently don't have access to the budget that they had to fly before his passing. (Was at the Warbirds and Wine event there a couple of weeks ago and was talking to some of the folks who help run it.)
Click to expand...
I just watched an interesting video posted by FHCAM produced by Kermit Weeks in a recent visit to the museum. As part of his tour the change in the funding and events was discussed. Here's the link to the "Kermie Cam", Part 1.
 
WarHorse47 said:
I just watched an interesting video posted by FHCAM produced by Kermit Weeks in a recent visit to the museum. As part of his tour the change in the funding and events was discussed. Here's the link to the "Kermie Cam", Part 1.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link there, must try and get down to that museum soon.
 
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