greg@anacapa.ncel.navy.mil (Gregory K. Ramsey) (09/24/90)
From: greg@anacapa.ncel.navy.mil (Gregory K. Ramsey) Traveltown, the transportation museum at Griffith Park in Los Angeles is narrowing its subject area from general transportation to strictly railroad related exhibits. In line with this, the Recreation and Parks department has traded it's last two aircraft to the National Museum of the War Years located at Eagle Field near Merced. In trade Traveltown is getting a quantity of rail. The first aircraft is a Navy P2 Neptune built in 1949 by Lockheed. It has a tail number of 359 with China Lake painted below that. When I last saw it about 2 1/2 weeks ago they had disassembled the nose, propellers, engine cowling, outer part of the wings, tail and fuselage behind the main wing. It may be completely gone now. The second aircraft is a Navy F95-2 Panther built by Grumman. It has a tail number of 420. This aircraft is supposedly one of the only ones of it's type left that actually saw combat. Disassembly of it had not started yet but will be very simple since only the wings have to come off to transport it. The museum members that are doing the disassembly claim that they expect to make both aircraft fly. The engines are complete and still turn on the Neptune and they claim to have an engine for the Panther. Both aircraft had been extensively vandalized since their arrival at Traveltown in 1956. Since there was no one to care for them here, I am glad to see them go to another museum. Hopefully they will be cared for properly and it will gave us badly needed room to improve and expand our museum facilities. If anybody would like to get more information, drop me line and I try and fill in as many details as possible. Greg -- greg@anacapa.ncel.navy.mil Greg Ramsey _n_n_n____i_i ________ Naval Civil Engineering Lab (____________I I______I Code L54 805/ /ooOOOO OOOOoo oo oooo Port Hueneme, CA 93043 982-9720