I thought you aviation people might like this.

[asterperious]

The most produced aircraft ever

No, the most produced American aircraft - there is a wider world out there, the honour goes to the WW !! Il-2 series 'Sturmovik', brushing up on 38,000 which is nearlt twice that of the B-24.

And pedantically - the first few slides are from Davis-Monthan in Tucson in the 1946-7 time period. There were never B-29's at Kingman. Or B-32's or the B-19.

It is a nice slide show of someones album, similar views turn up quite a bit on aviation forums. Thanks for posting.

Kepp in mind, this was the peace dividend, people were eager to put the war behind them, these were worn out and obsolete in the dawn of the jet age - the B-47 was headed into service, More versatile and comfortable lightly used B-29's were plentiful for reserve and special duties, but more importantly the Aviation industry needed to sell new airplanes or face bankruptcy.

[Gunny Hartmann]

Particularly striking when you see the old war veterans marked with huge mission flight hash marks on their noses-to survive the flak,the fighters, the weather....just to end up being stripped down and smelted. A shame that no one thought to at least save the sheets with the nose art and names on them-they would have made for an amazing museum exhibit. What I found intriguing, though, was that so many of them were almost covered in graffiti! You have to wonder, who were these names? Men who flew in it? Men who repaired it and kept it flying? Or.....unknowns? An excellent video clip in any case. I wonder just how many total B-24's and Others were parked there waiting for their final mission?

Keeping all that nose art would have been a fantastic idea, i'll bet somebody did think of it at the time but were over ruled by some high ranking pen pusher!.. Thanks for all the interest folks!..

[ruddersrangers44]

Nice find paul,just smashes the heartstrings to smithereens,such a loss of such historical important aircraft............

[asterperious]

Hi Gunny,

By this time all those airframes were in private hands via war asset sales, I'm sure it did occur to a few people and some did make it here and there, the CAF at midland has a gallery with some. Remember there wasn't much in the way of museums that specialized in aviation, and kingman even more than now is way out back of nowhere. some of even the smaller ones are pretty big. Stashing one in a house would be trick and aluminum was valuable.

Now - these days it is a doable but difficult process to save some nose art. We started getting some B-52 nose art when the D models were being cut up. The NMUSAF caught wind of it and then mandated AMARG to save them to go to Dayton - I think there are close to 100 panels there now.

Currently there are a number of KC-135's and B-1's with nose art but structurally they are a bit harder to get at, plus the SPO needs to permit their removal and that can only happen when the airframe is completely cast off, but then different conditions start to apply. I have bunch of pictures of current 'boneyard' nose art I can post if anyone is interested.

[Gunny Hartmann]

Hi Gunny,

By this time all those airframes were in private hands via war asset sales, I'm sure it did occur to a few people and some did make it here and there, the CAF at midland has a gallery with some. Remember there wasn't much in the way of museums that specialized in aviation, and kingman even more than now is way out back of nowhere. some of even the smaller ones are pretty big. Stashing one in a house would be trick and aluminum was valuable.

Now - these days it is a doable but difficult process to save some nose art. We started getting some B-52 nose art when the D models were being cut up. The NMUSAF caught wind of it and then mandated AMARG to save them to go to Dayton - I think there are close to 100 panels there now.

Currently there are a number of KC-135's and B-1's with nose art but structurally they are a bit harder to get at, plus the SPO needs to permit their removal and that can only happen when the airframe is completely cast off, but then different conditions start to apply. I have bunch of pictures of current 'boneyard' nose art I can post if anyone is interested.

I'd like to see 'em!....

[asterperious]

OK= here goes, I snapped these with my phone over the past few months while doing other things.

[Gunny Hartmann]

Cool photos and good to see the Hells Angels name has continued!....

[Woolgar]

Sad to see B17 '5 Grand' in the video

She got the name "Five Grand" at the factory due to her being the 5,000th B-17 to roll off Boeing's Seattle factory floor. She went to England and had to make a belly landing due to hydraulic failure before even flying a mission. She was repaired and assigned to the 96th Bomb Group, flying 78 combat missions with all of the Boeing employees signatures still on her. After the war she returned to the U.S. and was scrapped at Kingman,AZ.

Here are some pics of her rolling of the Boeing production line . She was covered in the workers signatures

Nick

[harryamb2]

we can't save them all worst luck.

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we can't save them all worst luck.

[Spitace41]

As well done as it is, I don't think modern nose art holds a candle to the stylish and iconic ww2 vintage noseart IMO. Although I must say, I like that Wolf Pack one, looks like my Scottie/ Cairn terrier cross when hes p****d off.