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Nice work in those replicas, and, they fly well. Very labor intensive, and, a real work of love, top level pride.
When I had my shop in Merced, I had a lot of Air Force customers. I also volunteered helping recondition/restore planes for/at the Castle Air Museum. In late 1985, and early 1986, a group of us went to China Lake, and worked to get one of the 3 B47's there air worthy, to fly it back to the museum. In mid-1986, a one star pilot, and a full bird colonel second seat flew that bird back to Castle, the last time a B47 ever flew. Not bad for a bird that was literally sitting in the desert sun and elements for over 20 plus years, un-pickled. On takeoff, the plane lost its altimiter and true air speed indicator, and the two T38 chase planes that were only supposed to help for take off, radioed that they would continue with the bomber all the way to Castle. We had gone back to Castle early that morning, to "catch" the plane when it landed, inserting the pins for the landing gear, so it didn't collapse when the hydraulics were shut down. They must be a total gas to fly.
Unless you have seen this, one has NO idea of what it feels like to see something like that come into view in the air, circle the field and reviewing personnel, and then land. INCREDIBLE. It was named "The SPIRIT OF ATWATER", where the museum, and the former Castle AFB are.
Close to that same time, we got hold of a nice SR-71. I am one of only two civilians that are known to have ever sat in that plane in the pilot's seat, just before the top secret avionics package was removed.
I remember the British came just before they invaded the Malvinas (Falkland Islands), and removed quite a bit of parts, engines, all sorts of stuff out of the Vulcan that I think is still at the museum, to have spare parts for their planes during the conflict.
Then, there used to be a pad with only a pedestal and sign, long before we actually had Stealth fighters and bombers, just the pedestal and sign...."STEALTH FIGHTER", no plane, empty space, secret!
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