Chino

I was talking to a business partner in Tampa, Florida yesterday, as a matter of fact, and I told him I'm sitting in my lazy boy.

I'm at my house in Newport Beach that I live in Newport and I live in Chino, California as well.

So, you know, my mom lives with me in Chino.

I can't sell my house and leave my mom.

You know what I mean? I also live in Newport and I'm kicking it.

Rob, what do you have for us?

The first of our final reports looks at November 9-3 Romeo, uh, the fatal crash of a classic 1939 Lockheed 12A during takeoff from its base at Chino, California, on June the 15th of 2024.

The accident claimed the lives of the two pilots aboard.

The Chino weather at the time was clear with eight miles visibility and light winds from the west.

The Lockheed was part of the Yanks Air Museum collection, also based at Chino, and was preparing to practice formation flight with two other local aircraft for a Father's Day celebration.

The NTSB labeled the probable cause of the accident as the aircraft exceeding the Lockheed's critical angle of attack, as well as the failure of the pilots to properly configure the aircraft for takeoff.

Specifically, the pilots failed to retract the wing flaps that were still fully deployed.

I did some research about this aircraft and found one source that said the Lockheed is not capable of a successful takeoff with the wing flaps fully deployed, even if the two big Pratt & Whitney radials were set at full power, which as we'll see, they were not that day.

In 1968 while serving time for armed robbery.

That's not a bad one, is it? And he'd been in San Quentin, Folsom, Chino, Soledad.

He did a little tour of California's finest.

I see that.

There, a psychiatrist diagnosed him as markedly schizoid, meaning he showed schizophrenic symptoms but didn't experience hallucinations or delusions.

After three years of treatment, he was released to a minimum security facility in Chino, California.

But he wasn't there long.

In August of 1955, 26-year-old Joe Corbett Jr. escaped.

Today, there are roughly a dozen airworthy P-47s left in the world.

If you want to see one fly, the Planes of Fame Air Museum out in Chino, California has a beautiful example that makes regular appearances at their air shows.

The National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson has one of the finest static examples in existence.

There are P-47s in Europe, in South America, and scattered across the American museum circuit.

Anyone who has stood on that ramp and watched it taxi out, heard the 801 come up to power, the cowl flaps cracked, that unmistakable hard mechanical note building, you understand what the word restoration actually means when the stakes are this high.

The Plains of Fame Museum in Chino, California is another institution where the impossible becomes normal.

Chino has always been that kind of place.

If you want to see something flying that has no business flying anymore, you go to Chino.

They have been involved with some of the most consequential warbird preservation work in the country for decades, and the FW-190 they have worked with is no exception.

And then there are the private restorers, individual owners, small partnerships, people who take on an FW-190.