Glacier Girl Goes to England

[FLYBOYJ]

Yahoo!

[trackend]

OH yes Joe, thats brilliant. I hope she makes a showing a Duxford's Flying Legends

[Heinz]

Wish she'd come to Australia........

that will never happen I know.

still gives me an excuse to go overseas

[Gnomey]

OH yes Joe, thats brilliant. I hope she makes a showing a Duxford's Flying Legends

I have heard that she will be there (get some pictures ). Good to see her coming over there though.

[Micdrow]

On her way home she is suppose to stop at the EAA again for the airshow. If it does it will be the first time Ive seen two P-38's in the same area at the same time. The other one scheudaled to appear is Ron Fagens newly restored P-38 Ruff Stuff. Would really take the cake the commertive airfoce P-38 would show up also. Three in one location, now that would be cool

[trackend]

Thats 2 more than Ive seen in the flesh MC.

[Micdrow]

Here you go trackend, couple of shots. Although I think My scanner is just about dead. Pictures look alot better then the scan

[Njaco]

June 22, 2007, 7:08 am
Plane Freed From a Glacier Sets Out for Britain Again
By Patrick J. Lyons

A week ago, the eyes of an anxious world were fixed on Tulsa, Okla., straining for a glimpse of a time-capsule car being unearthed after 50 years under the courthouse lawn — which, despite all the precautions that circa-1957 civic hucksterism thought to take in prepping the car, dashed many a fond hope when it emerged from its vault as only a Plymouth Belvedere-shaped lump of rust. Sniff.
Chin up, though. The Lede’s got another 50-year Lazarus story to watch today - a vehicle buried even deeper, with no hoopla, no cosmoline and no thought of retrieval at the time. Even so, this one promises a much happier ending.
Around 1:30 p.m. Eastern time today, a World War II-era P-38 Lightning fighter plane is set to take off from Teterboro Airport in northeastern New Jersey, bound for Duxford, England — where it is almost 65 years overdue.
UPDATE: The plane took off on schedule and by early evening had completed the first leg of the trip without trouble; more below.

The plane was one of six P-38s and two B-17 bombers on their way to help shore up the defenses of the British Isles in July 1942, seven months after Pearl Harbor, when bad weather blocked them first from reaching a refueling base in Iceland and then from making it back to their previous stop in western Greenland. The pilots wound up having to make emergency landings on Greenland’s ice cap, where they were spotted by air and rescued by dogsled teams three days later.
Greenland’s harsh climate soon buried the planes in snow and ice – almost 270 feet of it, eventually — so though the rough whereabouts of what came to be called the Lost Squadron were known, the planes were not precisely located until 1983. Nine years later - when they had been icebound for 50 years - an expedition succeeded in burrowing down to one of the P-38s.

Salvagers melted the ice away from the buried P-38 and disassembled it to bring it to the surface in 1992. Remarkably, though the weight of all that ice had squeezed and crushed some parts, for the most part the arctic deep-freeze had preserved the plane in remarkably good condition. Named Glacier Girl by the salvagers, the plane was carefully disassembled to get it to the surface, shipped home and painstakingly restored to flying shape over the next nine years; since 2002 it has been a regular visitor at air shows and aviation museums.
Still, Glacier Girl had some unfinished business, which it will try to attend to today: finishing that journey to Britain.
The plane said goodbye to its home base in Middlesboro, Ky., on Thursday, and circled the Statue of Liberty before setting down at Teterboro to prepare for the trans-Atlantic hop. If all goes as planned today, it will be escorted on its first 100 miles by another vintage fighter, a P-51 Mustang - and riding shotgun in that one will be a man described by the organizers as the last survivor of the original Lost Squadron crew: Brad McManus, the pilot of another of the P-38s, who is now 89.
UPDATE: Glacier Girl took off on schedule along with its companion P-51, Miss Velma, and flew northeastward across New England on the first leg of the transatlantic journey, making a planned refueling stop in Presque Isle, Me. late in the afternoon to complete the first leg of an eight-hop flight plan from Teterboro to Duxford.
An aviation web site, AirShowBuzz, is tracking the flight in real time, and relaying e-mail messages and questions to the pilots of the Glacier Girl while in flight - a far cry from the primitive radar and crackly radios that were all Mr. McManus and his felow pilots had to work with in 1942.

[evangilder]

I think the P-38s were the highlight of the Chino show this year.

[Micdrow]

Awesome pictureas as always evangilder. I hope I can see something simular this year. Doubt it though. I only know of the two that are coming and glaicer girl is not schedualed to come in till the end of the airshow.

[trackend]

Cant wait to see her cutting the mustard over here. I'm not going to say anything about your shots Eric as I have used up all my praise words from now on its star ratings. *****

[evangilder]

Thanks guys. It was great to see three together. But when they put the 2 in tight, WOW!

[pbfoot]

delete

[pbfoot]

Just like 42 shes stuck in the Goose because of weather not necessarily Goose but the destinations might be marginal and the next airport after goose in any direction is 428 Nautical miles if memory serves me
Glacier Girl, buried in ice for decades, retries transatlantic flight

[evangilder]

And now the old girl has engine troubles, I am afraid. Looks like she won't be getting to England this year.

"MISSION UPDATE:

We'll post a video update as soon as we can but here's the unfortunate situation. From Karen Hinton:

It's almost certain a cracked liner. That means new head and bank.
So, Ed in the P-51 and the Pilatus are heading back out right now for Narsarsuac, Greenland as the weather is still good. We will take the Sovereign jet to either Reykjavik or on to the UK. No word on if we are staying over one more night here in Goose or going on today yet.
Disappointment all around but the good news is everyone is safe and the planes are back safe. Repairs will be made to get Glacier Girl to Oshkosh, but it would not be prudent to fly a new engine over the Atlantic for the test flights."