About 50 miles from me is the town of McGregor MB, where the former Commonwealth Air Training Plan base had been turned into a disposal site. The runways were lined with planes and equipment until about 1950. There are stories of farmers who bought the planes for $10-$20 each, towed them home, used the gas in the tanks in their tractors, sold the engines for about the same price as they paid for the aircraft, then used the fuselage for chicken coops.
My father and his brothers dragged home a Harvard from the local airforce base back in the day. They took a wing off, removed the upper skin, and mounted an outboard motor on it. The "boat" made it out about 300 yards before sinking. They rescued the outboard motor, and the wing ramains in the bottom of the lake. The remainder of the fuselage became a source of target practice at the roundels.
Like so many things, if everyone had the foresight to have saved them, then they would still not be worth much today. The local CATP museum still recovers fuselages from old farmsites in the area.
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12-08-17, 03:59
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