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We're including these pages as an update point for B-25 news. We'll post information garnered from any variety of sources, and notate that source at the end of the item. If anyone has anything they'd like to add, please let us know.

January 2010

• Happy New 2010 to All as we start down a new decade, sort of. For those paying close attention, and I suspect that means nobody, I have taken to updating the B-17 and B-25 News pages on alternate months. So here we go...

• Don't want to be too Youtubular, but there is a 'right nice' video posted on the arrival of B-25D 43-3318 (N88972), aka Grumpy, way back in September 2009, courtesy of the Historic Flight Foundation.

  

  It depicts, among other things, copilot-for-the-flight Merrill Wein giving a thirty second explanation of his history with that particular B-25. Check this You Tube video out right here but be sure to come back. Thanks to Gary Fisk and a few others for pointing me to the video.

• Gary Fitton sent in four photos of some early civil B-25s that are quite interesting. Three of the photos were taken at the Mercer County Airport at Trenton, New Jersey, in the early-mid 1960s and depict two ex-Dominican Air Force (FAD) B-25s in derelict condition. Gary relates that he used to climb around the two B-25s when his dad took him to the airport. The first pair show B-25J 43-36075 (N3969C) with the last remnants of its FAD markings and serial FAD 2503 faintly visible.

  

  

  This B-25J was later scrapped, probably in the late 1960s. Gary reports that the tail section was there for years afterwards.

  This is a view of the other B-25, this being B-25H 43-4999 (N3970C), which was reportedly FAD 2502 in Dominican service, also at the Mercer County Airport.

  

  This airplane was later given to the Bradley Air Museum at Hartford, Connecticut, where it was displayed in this paint scheme:

  

  It was badly damaged in the 1978 tornado that hit the museum, was restored by Tom Reilly at Kissimmee, Flordia, in exchange for the B-17G, 44-85734 that now flies as Liberty Belle. The B-25H remains on display at the renamed New England Air Museum.

• Okay, well as long as we are on the subject, a bit about the Dominican Air Force B-25s. There is not much information about these airplanes but reportedly five B-25s consisting of one B-25C, one B-25G, two B-25Hs, and one B-25J, were purchased from U.S. owners and exported to the Dominican Republic, probably illegally, with one possibly as early as 1947 (B-25J) and the other four as late as 1950 time. They received FAD serials from 2501 to 2505. A few things about what is out there on these airplanes.

  Some sources show one of the B-25Hs as 44-4106 (N5548N) now flying as Barbie. This is very unlikely as this particular airplane has well documented history on the U.S. civil registry during the time it was supposedly in the Dominican Republic. Very doubtful, well let's just say wrong.

  Known for sure: three B-25s were obtained from the Dominican Republic on July 8, 1952, by one Charles M. Matthews of Miami, Florida. These were B-25C 41-13251, B-25J 43-36075, and B-25H 43-4999. These three airplanes received civil registrations of, respectively, N3968C, N3969C, and N3970C. Two of these B-25s are the ones that ended up and Mercer County Airport (see above). The third, the B-25C, was eventually obtained by a Howard Hughes company and is today parked at a museum complex at William J. Fox Field at Lancaster, California.

  Just to show what this airplane currently looks like, here is a shot provided by Ron Strong in 2008.

  

  So, what of the other two B-25s, one of which is not 43-4106? Some sources show the second one as B-25G 42-65158, the source of that identity not known and this particular airplane never appeared on the U.S. civil register. No more data is known on this B-25G so research is warranted here as to its recorded AAF fate from the aircraft record card.

  There are several things to suggest that the two other B-25s exported to the Dominican Republic were actually B-25C 42-64505 and B-25C 42-64502, both ex-Navy PBJ-1Cs that, in 1948, were owned by one A.V. Graff, who is probably Alvin V. Graff. The pair held civil registrations of N77261 and N77268 respectively. He sold the two B-25s to the Texas Engineering and Manufacturing Company (TEMCO), which reported the pair might be exported at a later date. A.V. Graff was also involved in the registration trail of B-25C 41-13251 before it was exported. Alvin V. Graff later became an established Dallas car dealer who had more incidental dealings with TEMCO. More research would be nice here, but records are obscure. The fate of the last two FAD B-25s disappear in the late 1950s, though one source shows the last one in service until 1967 when it was traded to a Florida company for some work on some P-51 Mustangs for the Dominican Air Force. Dan Hagedorn's Central American and Caribbean Air Forces, published in 1993, is an incredible resource for this kind of research, though I suspect his data on these five B-25s has been superceded a bit. But, he has the most complete files on this subject area, and I'd love to take a look at a couple of those files to try and piece a few oddities together.

  Anyways, there are also reports of four or five B-25s (and one B-24!) being exported to a Dominican rebel band organizing in Cuba in the 1948-1949 period, but no identities have been ascribed to these B-25s. There are not enough accounted for civil B-25s in the 1945-1950 period to handle this rumor, so it is possible that it is unfounded or that these, as well as other, aircraft were spirited out of the country without registrations. In most cases, purchasers of surplus aircraft from the RFC or WAA were granted one-time ferry flights from the government storage yard to the new owner's home base without a CAA registration number assigned. How many of these flights turned into one-way illegal exports? More than a few, one would suppose and now, six decades later, there are no record of these aircraft available to reconstruct their paths.

  Any further information out there?

• Still in the planning stages is the Doolittle Raid reunion scheduled to occur at the National Museum of the USAF at Dayton, Ohio, whereby it is the announced intent to gather 25 surviving B-25s at the Museum for the event on April 16-18, 2010. Not sure why they picked 25 airplanes as the goal, which would provide about three B-25s per surviving Tokyo Raiders (eight surviviors at this writing, of which few can probably attend the event). Probably 25 B-25s invited and hope to get eight. Unless some serious sponsor money is involved, its going to hard to persuade B-25 operators to fly their airplanes there. Radial engines need more than good intentions to keep them running. Here's the official announcement from the NMUSAF. Here's hoping for the best.

• Speaking of the NMUSAF and the Doolittle Raid, here's a photo of the NMUSAF display depicting the raid.

  

  This is a modified B-25D, 43-3374 by number, displayed on a setting of the USS Hornet. (B-25D passing as a B-25B = "Pay no attention to the lumps on the cowlings under the engine covers.") A very interesting thread posted on the Aero Vintage forum site right here on this airplane, courtesy of Gary Lewis. One interesting item is the effort made by the 1958 North American Aviation guys, who modified the B-25D to resemble a B-25B, to reproduce the "B" series exhaust collector ring (vs. the individual exhaust stacks of the "D" series. The snide comment I made above referred to the apparent decision by the late 1950s then-USAF Museum staff not to follow through with the detailed instructions and actually modify the engine cowlings. (The NAA guys didn't do the mod because the airplane was to be ferried to Wright-Pat.) The unmodified cowlings can be deduced in the above photo by the engine covers and in the below photo, dated as it is, of the display "B-25B" with the bumpy cowlings. Where would aviation be without nit-pickers with no money or anything else to offer but critiques?

  

  Both of the above photos are, by the way, courtesy of the NMUSAF, thank you very much.

• Ron Strong was nice enough to send in a bunch of photos of four B-25s he viewed back in October, so I updated my B-25 Locator page with some new photos. Here are the four airplanes, in no particular order:

  Here is TB-25J 43-28222 on display at Hurlburt Field in Florida. This B-25 was a Paul Mantz airplane, N5256V, one of the first B-25 air tankers from the late 1950s, that ended up in derelict condition in the late 1970s. It eventually went into the USAF Museum program and was first displayed at Beale AFB, California, before moving on to Hurlburt Field in 1995. Some of these USAF guys just can't seem to get the serial number thing figured out on their airplanes (should be applied as '328222.' Another nit to pick, and still no money.

  

  Next up is TB-25N 44-31004 on display at the U.S.S. Alabama Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama, This airplane last operated as N9463Z with Dothan Aviation and went to the park in 1974. It is externally restored and marked as B-25 with the 345th Air Apaches and, though you can't see it from this side, carries the name of Miss Alice II

  

  And then there is TB-25J 44-29035 on display as a PB-1J at the U.S. Naval Aviation Museum at Pensecola, Florida. This airplane came to the Navy in the early 1990s as a sideways Tallichet trade, last carrying the civil registration of N61821. It was slightly damage last year by a hurricane. Ron notes it is not parked in the display area at this time.

  

  And finally, there is TB-25N 44-30854 as displayed as B-25B 40-2344, Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle's airplane for the Tokyo raid, at the USAF Armament Museum at Eglin AFB, Florida. This B-25 never saw civil service but came to the museum right out of USAF stocks. A nice job was done with the external modifications, including the nacelle work to convert the B-25J short stacks to the B-25B collector ring (see also NMUSAF B-25 display above).

  Update note: Ryan Short pointed out that the exhaust set-up on this airplane is actually a B-25C and taking a close look, yep, it is. The "B" exhaust stack was lower on the nacelle and did not require a cowl flap cutout. Not sure what the deal is here, other than I am spending way too much time thinking about B-25 exhaust systems.

  Other detailed modifications to the tail area (adding some windows and deleting others) were carried out, though the whole aft-of-the-wing fuselage on the later B-25 series' were deeper and a slightly different shapes than the ealier "Baker Two Bits." (Always wanted to use that term.)

  

  Anyways, thanks much to Ron for passing the photos along.

• Finally, Craig Thorson passed along this photo he found on the website for Howe Enterprises showing, apparently, TB-25N 44-30734 (N9079Z).

  

  This B-25 was connected with the Howe's in one way or another from 1968 to 1983 in Florida. It had been modified as a tanker but appears to have been used as a sprayer. N9079Z now flies as Panchito. I emailed the company trying to get some more information but, alas, no response. Bummer.

Current B-25 News
2009 B-25 News
2008 B-25 News
2007 B-25 News
2006 B-25 News
2005 B-25 News
2004 B-25 News
1999-2003 B-25 News