Rod's WarBirds

WarBird Photos

Champlain Air Museum - April 2003

This air museum in Phoenix has been sold to Paul Allen's Museum of Flight in Seattle. It will close this June and will re-open in 2 years in Seattle. The Kawanishi N1-K George will be returned to the Smithsonian and will be exhibited in the new museum at Dulles Airport. Most of these aircraft do fly. It is too bad that this museum is closing. I do not think that the Museum of Flight will do justice to any of these aircraft. The lighting in this museum is the absolute worst I have ever seen for photograpy. There is no excuse for such bad lighting. The side windows on the WWII hanger cause immense exposure problems. That is why many of the photographs are quite dark. It is difficult to get correct exposures when you have very intense light right behind the subject to be photographed. But, still, some decent pictures were still obtained.

N1-K George - Page 1

This N1-K George is in VERY good condition, but it is intentionally NOT airworthy. That was the express wishes of the Smithsonian when the aircraft was restored. The Smithsonian does NOT want any museum aircraft to be flown and chance the loss of the aircraft.

      Right Side (43K)          Right Side (46K)            Right Side (47K)          Right Side (49K)          Right Side (55K)

     Left Side (51K)          Left Side (46K)            Left Nose (59K)           Left Nose (58K)          Left Nose (62K)

      Left Nose (64K)          Left Nose (64K)      Nose (38K)     Nose (36K)       Right Nose (54K)

          Right Nose (53K)        Right Front (33K)    Right Front (26K)      Right Front (42K)     Right Front (53K)

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