12 Planes CAF Units' Fundraiser:

What was the fastest US bomber of WWII? To those who know about the Douglas A-26, this is an easy answer. The problem is that most people don’t recognize it for two reasons. It gets confused with the Martin B-26 and the fact that the airplane came late in the war after D-Day in Europe. It was used heavily in the Korean Conflict and later during the Vietnam War. This makes it the only combat aircraft ever to be used in three different wars spanning from 1944 to 1972. Our A-26 is painted in the colors used in the Korean War and, in particular, to honor the only A-26 pilot to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in Korea. To prove it has the speed of a WWII fighter, our airplane was asked to fly with a B-1B bomber at Dyess AFB, TX, to commemorate the B-1’s thirtieth anniversary of its entry into service with the US Air Force. It had no difficulty in going fast enough so that the B-1 could fly formation with it. It was an awesome sight with the fastest bomber of WWII and the current fastest bomber in the Air Force inventory. Our aircraft was delivered to the US Army Air Forces on Dec 7, 1944. After being “surplused” in 1952, it was converted into an executive transport. The Invader Squadron in Fort Worth, TX, was formed to pick up the restoration work on the airplane after the Waco unit returned it to CAF HQ. Since that time, a lot of systems and one engine have been overhauled. After a very successful 2016 Air Show season where we appeared at numerous events, we have put Night Mission in a maintenance status to complete some very necessary inspections, repairs and updates. On our last mission, we suffered a voltage regulator failure which will require some extensive work to repair avionics components damaged by this failure. Additionally, we have an opportunity to begin work on an engine buildup to be used as a replacement when our remaining engine either becomes high time or we suffer a component failure. We have a shop locally who is building up an engine for us from components on hand. As he is doing this in his spare time, he is saving us some money. There is absolutely nothing that is inexpensive in maintaining a 70+ year old aircraft, so this will eventually cost us more than $50,000 just for the engine buildup. Any money that we can raise in advance, will make the transition much easier. Please help us keep this valuable teaching tool in the air and on the road, so that we can continue to show the younger generation what their forefathers did to protect their freedoms.