Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

There are a couple over here still flying. One was brought over from either Spain or Portugal last year to be converted to a fire fighting unit and the other is owned by a mining company and is used for exploration (that's the one I flew in).

There are also a few lying around in pieces waiting for restoration when the finances permit.

He used to refer to them as 'kites'.

That reminds me..... haven't flown any of mine for a year or so. If someone tells me to 'go fly a kite', I can!!

And speaking of Guild, John..I'd give anything if I had my old Guild 12 string back. I traded if for a two year old Les Paul Jr., somewhere in the late '60s. Come to think of it I wish I had it back to. The Guild WAS a sweet sounding guitar.

Yeah... a guy I took lessons from (and they didn't work!!) in the 60s had a beautiful cherry red one. I wonder if they are still as good now that they are under the FIMC banner. I know they are still as expensive!!

Howard, you know, I haven't picked one up since I traded that one off. But it was great then...mind you, no where near as good as a 360/12 or like 12's by Ric, but the Guild I had was nice for an acoustic.

This was a semi-acoustic and I think the body style was the same as the current Guilds.

If I was going to get something like that...... there's a lovely new tobacco-burst ES-335 Dot Reissue at my local store as I speak - $4375.

Think I'd spend less and get an Ibanez artcore or something similar.

My first acoustic 12 was a Guild, back in '67. I miss it. It was beautiful and had a lovely sound that ranged from delicate to strident. Never boomy.

A good motto: "Never Boomy".

Be assured that I'll never boo you, Paul!!

Regarding the PBY's, well into the 60's there was graveyard for perhaps 20 of these at the southeast end of what's now John Wayne airport, the property of Tallmantz Aviation. I used to ride my bike from home to play in these since at that time there wasn't even a fence around the airport property. They were is terrible condition and some even had some pretty gruesome looking bullet holes. Tallmantz has at least one restored and set up as air-to-air movie platforms. When Tallmantz closed, these all disappeared overnight.

I still think this would be a great, if maintenance intensive, plane to own. There was one flying up and down the length of the Nile in Egypt and Zimbabwe, decked out with a luxurious, vintage style rattan interior, which stopped along the river and lakes along the way overnight. That's a trip I'd like to have taken . . . but I guess it's in New Zealand now.

Gorgeous. But they've put it back into WWII trim. Wonder if the interior's gutted?

Looking at the PBY's radials reminds me of a trip I took to Alaska sometime back, where I flew in a DeHavilland Beaver float plane up a glacier. The plane was a flying vibrator. I remember sitting up front next to the pilot, and watching the window frame screws rotating themselves loose as I watched...and wondered...

And, of course, you must've seen "The Aviator". Spectacular planes, especially the one in which he "teaches" Kate Hepburn how to fly. Talk about interiors.

I was in Brasil in 2002 when a huge Tupelov transport plane suffered a gear collapse on landing and blocked the runway at Recife airport for nearly three weeks while they scrambled all over S. America, trying to find a big enough crane to shift it. When I flew over, they were trying to jack it up with screw jacks and railroad ties.

That's exactly 33% of my airplane stories.

Everything is different shades of green from the air, we'd sit on our helmets so when Charlie would fire 9mm rounds from their AK's we wouldn't take a hit in our *** or legs. No one really wanted to be there, but most of us were 19 to 21 years old and didn't know what we were fighting for. Speaking of interiors, we had to buy a piece of 1/2 inch (12mm) steel plate to reinforce the floor of the HUEY to stop those 9mm rounds from either killing us our bringing the chopper down. One perk we had was PBR beer, there was no refer to keep it in so we drank it hot or if we could get some ice we'd cool it down that way. This is 1% of my stories of the air combat.

I like the PBY scene in the opening of South Pacific, but my favorite airplane is this:

Is that an Avro something, Mark?

Lockheed P-38 Lightening. Sometimes called the "Forktailed Devil" by the enemy.

Well....... I was close.... it flies!!