Everyone,
I saw this update on the local news tonight .Saturday the Planes of
Fame Hellcat was westbound from the Tennessee Aviation Museum in
Sevierville,Tn. when the pilot attempted an emergency landing . The pilot
clipped a power line and crashed in the woods next to the interstate.
The pilot was killed. The aircraft appeared to be severely damaged
from what little could be seen in the news footage. [:(]
Fuzzy
The loss of the plane, while sad, is nothing comapred to the loss of the pilot. My heart goes out to his family.
God’s Speed…
our thoughts and prayers to the pilots family and friends.
I doubt it was Chino’s. According to the Planes of Fame website, that air museum is having a month long naval aviation thing and I would expect the Hellcat would be “home” for that. I would thing it would be more likely that it was one of the Hellcats based in Texas. I know the CAF has one, and there is also one in Galvaston.
I’m not sure where all the Hellcats are. I’ve been looking at the warbirds resource group website, which tracks all remaining warbirds, but they don’t have things broken down by flyable vs. static display, so I’m sorting through a lot of non-flyable Hellcats. I did find this one:
http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/registry/f6fregistry/f6f-41930.html
It is based at Chino, but isn’t part of the Planes of Fame collection. It might be this F6F.
In any case, it’s a sad loss, both for the family of the pilot and for all of us.
Bill
Answering myself now…
Just poked around on the POF website some more and found a forum. It appears that one of the museum’s two Hellcats (the -5) was based in TN. Someone wrote in and said he had talked to the pilot just before he took off on his final flight.
Sad, very sad.
Bill
Sorry to read about the loss of the pilot .
CFR
A tragic loss of both pilot & aircraft. Very sad news.
Regards, Rick
Man that’s bad news. Don’t know for sure, but I think this is the unfortunate plane I saw at the Akron show this summer.
Jerry
Terrible loss of a pilot and plane.
Very sorry to hear of the loss of the pilot , my heart goes out to his family.
Darren.
A truely tragic loss, both the plane and pilot. The pilot and his family are in our prayers.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Very very sad news. Thoughts to his family
God’s speed
Lenny
That pic is the one that went down. My good friend owns the warbird museum in sevierville and for two days I thought it was him that went down. The plane was registered to a museum out in Cali and the pilot was flying it to Arkansas. Witnesses say he awas loosing fuel and they closed the interstate for him to land on but he never made it. It was weird because I was just at the museum last week and looked at the plane. It was scary not knowing if it was my friend or not.
Planes of Fame is a big museum in S Cal. When I was a kid, if givne a choice, I’d rather go to Chino than Disneyland. There are several aircraft restoration places at the same airport.
I have some pictures my father took of my friends and I infront of that Hellcat. Looking at the Planes of Fame website last night, it appears they had two flyable Hellcats. I guess they moved the -5 back east for the summer air show season.
It hurts to hear that another fine old warbird has crashed. It’s far worse when someone died. Very sad.
According to the Planes of Fame message board, the pilot was Art Vance.
Bill
God Speed Art, we will miss you!
Here’s a bit:
I hate to hear about the death of the pilot and our prayers go out to the family. I have been to the museum in Tenn. and I saw P-38 fly. This museum has a nice collection ww2 and cold war jets including some migs also. Took some great pictures also. Brad R.
Rest in peace Art. At least his family can rest easy in the knowledge he died doing what he loved.
A tragic loss of a gifted pilot. My sincere condolences to the Vance family.