Posted on 04/23/2007 9:43:11 AM PDT by BenLurkin
PALMDALE - The next addition to the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 didn't have far to travel.
The city purchased the T-33 jet trainer for $30,000 from co-owners Frank Motter and Lyle Straider.
The aircraft was visible on Motter's property at 90th Street West and Avenue D-4, where it was decorated with lights and a Santa in the cockpit during the holidays.
The location made the purchase simple, with very little required in transportation costs and logistics, said Tim Hughes, assistant Public Works director for Palmdale.
The aircraft was disassembled into three parts, to more easily handle the trek "from around the corner, almost," he said.
Airpark volunteers reassembled it the same afternoon last week. The front fuselage attached to the tail section by three large bolts; four more hold on the one-piece wing section.
Lockheed Aircraft Corp. produced some 5,700 T-33s, one of the early jet fighter trainers, at their facility at Site 7 at Air Force Plant 42.
A two-seat version of the company's P-80, it was designed in 1947 in answer to an increasing number of accidents in that early jet fighter.
It was the Air Force's only jet trainer from 1948 to 1957, and continued to see service until the 1980s.
Other countries, including Canada and Japan, produced their own versions of the T-33, and many other allied nations flew Lockheed-built versions.
Long-time airpark volunteer Dick Madison is quite familiar with the T-33, having worked on the production line first in Burbank, then in Van Nuys and, finally, in Palmdale.
Behind Madison in the airpark office hung a black-and-white photograph, an aerial view of the Plant 42 flight line lined with T-33s during the production line's heydey.
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
"GETTING IT TOGETHER - Volunteers, from left, Garfield Thomas, John Morgan and Les Kuete, work on putting together the new T-33 jet trainer for display at the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale." KELLY LACEFIELD/Valley Press
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