Friday, August 02, 2013

First A-26 Tanker in the U.S. - N5457V


The first A-26 to serve as a tanker in the U.S. (N5457V, serial # 44-3413), is now owned by Black Crow Aviation who is restoring it to U.S. military configuration. Black Crow has a publicly available Facebook page here, as I write this the last update was in March 2013  Black Crow has a page with her history here (note that she is or was up for sale). Prior to being owned by Black Crow she was owned by David Lane, a former Air Spray tanker pilot who flew her at air shows and the like until the costs got to be prohibitive. 

The napoleon130 A26 invader tanker site has a nice page with her history up to the time of David’s ownership along with some great photos of her at various times over her long life. The photos are great and I hope that you will take a few moments to look at these pictures. The Warbird's Registry also a page on her history, also up and including David Lane's ownership here. If I am not mistaken the individual aircraft history pages on both of these sites rely heavily on information from: 

Chapman, John and; Goodall, Geoff, Edited by Paul Coggan - Warbirds Directory, Warbirds Worldwide Ltd., Mansfield, England, 1989. Goodall, Geoff - Warbirds Directory-4th Edition, 2003

I tried and was unable to borrow a copy of the 1989 and/or the 2003 edition through my local library.


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