For the latest installment of his Kermie Cam series, Fantasy of Flight’s Kermit Weeks has filmed a “full VIP walk around” of his Short Sunderland flying boat.
This particular example was acquired by Weeks in 1993 from Edward Hulton. After five months of work in England he flew the machine across the Atlantic, directly to the Oshkosh Fly-In in Wisconsin with stops in Ireland, Iceland, and Canada. It remained at Oshkosh until 1994, when Fantasy of Flight’s seaplane ramp was completed. Two years later, the machine flew to Sarasota and participated in the Olympic torch relay to Atlanta.
The newly released video serves as part 1 of a two part series and includes “a bit of history, some cool stories and plenty of useful or useless information, depending on your point of view.”
Click below to check it out.
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Fantasy of Flight (FoF) owner Kermit Weeks has released a new two-part series detailing the ongoing work on his Douglas A-26.
The aircraft (S/N 41-39401) reportedly saw wartime service with the 9th Air Force and served with the Van Nuys Air National Guard before beginning civilian use as N3457G / “Whistler’s Mother.” Later acquired by Weeks, the A-26 was damaged during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and trucked to Chino, California in 1997, where it is now being restored by Carl Scholl and Tony Ritzman of Aero Trader.
The new videos, seen below, were filmed in January, three months after his last Kermie Cam series on the machine. Since then, the team has (among other things) returned the landing gear, wing flaps and flight controls to fully functioning condition and reworked wiring in the cockpit.
The machine will apparently be painted in olive drab and, like FoF’s B-25 and B-17, will feature nose art depicting Weeks’ wife, Teresa.
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Shortly after completing a video series detailing his trip to Vintage V-12s, Fantasy of Flight owner Kermit Weeks is back with a new installment of “Kermie Cam” that sees him in Australia checking up on his CAC Boomerang project.
The aircraft (S/N A46-174) was originally built by Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation and delivered to the RAAF in January 1944, serving with 4 Squadron. In May of that year, the machine suffered a ground loop at Cape Gloucester Airfield in Papua New Guinea (pictured above) and was deemed too far gone to repair, resulting in its remains being abandoned at Nadzab.
In the 1970s, Charles Darby visited the site and discovered remnants of roughly 30 aircraft, including the center section of A46-174, which was salvaged. In the 1980s Kermit Weeks acquired the machine and placed it on display prior to beginning restoration. In 2015, the aircraft arrived at Matt Denning’s shop at Caboolture Airport, Queensland, where work is now underway.
Kermit’s visit to the site will be presented in four parts, all of which will appear here as they become available. Click below to check out the series as well as an additional photo of the aircraft following its accident.
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