Cool series of P-51 videos...

[fanaudical]

Found these accidentally this evening. Very cool - lots going on in that cockpit...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z1Z-WEZZGM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1F_UJaaP1A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOXxUApaaWo

Enjoy!

[cashflyer]

Kermit Weeks is legendary.

Kermit Weeks | Fantasy of Flight

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Weeks

[Seahawk]

Does the Legend use a checklist or does he just keep f'ing with the same switches over and over?

[fanaudical]

I'm not a pilot but admit that I did find it a bit odd how many times he did redundant checks of switch/lever settings. I guess that's certainly one way to ensure you don't forget something. I fully understand constant scanning of instruments.

[cashflyer]

[daepp]

Interesting dude fo sho! And at least he didn't blow it on hooker & blow...

From Forbes.com

"12/26/2005 @ 12:00AM
Blame Snoopy
Kermit Weeks amassed the biggest
private collection of vintage aircraft. Now he wants to use it
to liberate the human spirit.
I don’t have to do this,” says Kermit Weeks, with a sweep of his hand taking in the full scope of his $80 million empire: 150 vintage planes, a gift shop, a restaurant, three art deco hangars covering a combined 70,000 square feet, 8,000 feet of runway, 60 employees and more than 1,000 acres of choice central Florida land on which to expand. Part theme park, part museum, part experiment in pop psychology, Fantasy of Flight, open to the public since 1995, sits halfway between Orlando and Tampa. Weeks paid for it out of his own pocket.

Why do it? Not for the money. Boyish and jaunty, the ponytailed 52-year-old is lucky to be independently rich, since Fantasy of Flight has never earned a nickel. Gross revenues last year were $2 million, from 70,000 visitors spending $25 a ticket, plus revenue from parties and corporate events; Weeks won’t divulge operating costs. “The numbers,” he says, “aren’t good.” But he is on a mission. What you see today is but a hint of what’s to come. In the future Weeks hopes to expand his fantasy to include not just many more and different attractions but a city, to be called Orlampa. “And when I finish Orlampa,” he says, “that will be only the beginning of my dream to become the focal point on the planet for unleashing human potential.”

Such pure conviction plus an unbridled enthusiasm make Weeks sound at times like a flyboy who’s looped one too many loops. Narcissism? You bet. His autobiography lists, among the salient events of 1992, Hurricane Andrew and “began his ponytail.” Then there’s his spirituality, which he discusses with no more inhibition than he would the cruising speed of a Lockheed Vega. “In my late 20s I started having out-of-body experiences. Do you believe in ghosts? I do; I became one. I went out of my body and floated through walls.” He came to view aviation as the physical complement to an inner yearning: to be free, to surmount all obstacles.

Through clever simulation, visitors to Fantasy of Flight can already taste a bit of reality-based, out-of-body adventure. They can, for example, relive the sights, sounds, vibrations and even smells that the crew of a B-17 would have felt on a World War II bombing raid over Germany. Such experiences, thinks Weeks, have the power to move people emotionally, nudging them in new directions by inspiration or provocation. A future exhibit on Lindbergh will re-create a moment during his solo crossing of the Atlantic when he believed he was visited by “spirit entities” that urged him to go on. The incident, says Weeks, forces a participant to wonder: Am I alone on my own journey? Do I, too, have a destiny?

Weeks’ fascination with flight began in 1967, when at age 13 he heard a song on the radio: “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron,” by the Royal Guardsmen. The song, he says, triggered something within. By 17 he had learned to fly and was building his first airplane from a $40 set of plans he paid for by mowing lawns. At 20 he took up aerobatics, twice becoming U.S. National Aerobatic Champion and placing second best in world competition.

In his mid-20s fate rained money on him–the result of a business deal forged years earlier by his grandfather, Lewis Weeks. As recounted in a June 1974 FORBES story, Lewis, after years of finding oil for Standard Oil of New Jersey as its chief geologist, retired in 1958 and set up shop as a consultant. When Australia’s Broken Hill Proprietary (now BHP Billiton) asked him where to drill, he pointed it to the Bass Strait, 30 miles southeast of Melbourne. As to a fee, Lewis said he didn’t want one–he was doing nicely on his pension. Instead he asked for a 2.5% royalty (which he intended to share with his descendants). For how long? “Forever,” Weeks told BHP. The deal was inked, oil was found, and by the mid-1970s Lewis was seeing $3.5 million a year in royalties. Predicted FORBES, “Weeks and his heirs may end up with as much as a quarter of a billion dollars.” Lacking more precise data, we would offer this as an estimate today of the Weeks family net worth. (Besides Kermit there are six other heirs.)

During the years before extraction of the oil started, Kermit and his parents got nothing. His father, also a geologist, had trouble finding work. “My folks went through some difficult financial times,” Kermit remembers. For a while his dad sold Fuller brushes door-to-door. Not until Kermit was a high school senior in Miami, contemplating a career as a crop duster, did his first royalty check arrive–$1,200. Five years later he was receiving in excess of $100,000 a year. The payments continue to this day, though he won’t divulge their size other than to say they’ve become less significant than his income from investments.

Armed with this windfall, he started buying planes in earnest: first a World War II AT-6 trainer for $28,000 in 1979, then a P-51 Mustang for $155,000 the same year. In 1981 he picked up a beat-up P-38 for $75,000; in 1983 both a DeHavilland Mosquito ($130,000) and a Grumman Duck ($110,000). He opened the Weeks Air Museum in Miami but immediately outgrew its 26,000-square-foot hangar when in 1985 he acquired, in a single gulp, 36 more aircraft, for $1.2 million. After Hurricane Andrew flattened the museum, Weeks bought Fantasy of Flight’s present site and moved his planes.

The collection’s jewels include the last four-engine passenger flying boat in airworthy condition–a 1944 Short Sunderland that weighs 57,000 pounds and has a 112-foot wingspan. “I don’t buy anything I don’t intend to fly,” says Weeks, who is certified to pilot every aircraft in the collection. Not only is his the largest private collection in the world, but also subsets of it are themselves extraordinary. Fantasy of Flight contains the largest number of privately owned vintage World War I planes, World War II fighters, bombers and British World War II planes. Weeks figures he has spent $15 million on aircraft, plus another $20 million for land and infrastructure.

Along the way he’s had to acquire business skills, even though he says, “I’ve got to tell you, I find business not particularly fascinating.” He reads how-to and self-help books; has attended seminars offered by the Disney Institute, which aims to hone skills in leadership, people management and creativity; and belongs to TEC (the Executive Committee), a support group for chief executives similar to the Young Presidents’ Organization. It helps that Weeks is well liked and widely respected in the aviation community and that he’s an accomplished horse trader. “A lot of things,” he explains, “can’t be acquired by cash.”

Example: Fellow collector Thomas Friedkin owned a Grumman F3F biplane Weeks wanted. But Friedkin didn’t need to sell. “He has more money than God,” says Weeks. Knowing Friedkin wanted a Grumman Duck, Kermit bought one and traded him that for the F3F.

What else does Kermit want? He’s reluctant to say, for fear of driving up the price, but admits to coveting a Martin Mars–a flying boat even bigger than the one he’s got. The last examples still in existence are in Canada, serving as water bombers for a timber consortium. They aren’t for sale. Perhaps someday.

He can’t tell you the final shape of Fantasy of Flight. “I know life has a plan,” he says. “I just can’t see it yet.” Meantime, he’s flying solo. “I will not compromise this product by taking in short-term investors who want to bottom line it,” he insists. “I will not compromise my dream.”

[flatbutt]

If I had tons o' money and skill that would be my ride!

[daepp]

It's not that far off from old Porsches, is it?

[flipper35]

Another good story, but not sure if it is true as some places list the pilot as Jimmy Stewart: P-51 - An American Ambassador Remembered

It was noon on a Sunday as I recall, the day a Mustang P-51 was to take to the air. They said it had flown in during the night from some US airport, the pilot had been tired.

I marveled at the size of the plane dwarfing the Pipers and Canucks tied down by her, it was much larger than in the movies. She glistened in the sun like a bulwark of security from days gone by.

The pilot arrived by cab paid the driver then stepped into the flight lounge. He was an older man, his wavy hair was grey and tossed . . . looked like it might have been combed...say, around the turn of the century. His bomber jacket was checked, creased, and worn, it smelled old and genuine. Old Glory was prominently sewn to its shoulders. He projected a quiet air of proficiency and pride devoid of arrogance. He filed a quick flight plan to Montreal (Expo-67, Air Show) then walked across the tarmac.

After taking several minutes to perform his walk-around check the pilot returned to the flight lounge to ask if anyone would be available to stand by with fire extinguishers while he "flashed the old bird up . . . just to be safe." Though only 12 at the time I was allowed to stand by with an extinguisher after brief instruction on its use -- "If you see a fire point then pull this lever!" I later became a firefighter, but that's another story.

[daepp]

Wow - that's a great story. You write much too?

Originally Posted by flipper35

Another good story, but not sure if it is true as some places list the pilot as Jimmy Stewart: P-51 - An American Ambassador Remembered

It was noon on a Sunday as I recall, the day a Mustang P-51 was to take to the air. They said it had flown in during the night from some US airport, the pilot had been tired.

I marveled at the size of the plane dwarfing the Pipers and Canucks tied down by her, it was much larger than in the movies. She glistened in the sun like a bulwark of security from days gone by.

The pilot arrived by cab paid the driver then stepped into the flight lounge. He was an older man, his wavy hair was grey and tossed . . . looked like it might have been combed...say, around the turn of the century. His bomber jacket was checked, creased, and worn, it smelled old and genuine. Old Glory was prominently sewn to its shoulders. He projected a quiet air of proficiency and pride devoid of arrogance. He filed a quick flight plan to Montreal (Expo-67, Air Show) then walked across the tarmac.

After taking several minutes to perform his walk-around check the pilot returned to the flight lounge to ask if anyone would be available to stand by with fire extinguishers while he "flashed the old bird up . . . just to be safe." Though only 12 at the time I was allowed to stand by with an extinguisher after brief instruction on its use -- "If you see a fire point then pull this lever!" I later became a firefighter, but that's another story.