Didier Pironi's "B26" bomber.

On page 144 of the book "Pironi The Champion That Never Was" by David Sedgwick, it says that Didier Pironi and his half brother/cousin Jose Dolhem had "taken ownership of a Second World War B26 bomber."

They were intending to compete in the London to New York Transatlantic Air Race. This was in about 1981 but the idea was dropped after the management at Ferrari objected.

I thought it highly unlikely it was a B26 as they are so rare and, I think, there is only one that is airworthy (Kermit Weeks/Fantasy of Flight). My first thought was a simple type error and that the author meant B25 but then I guessed he had possibly meant to say A26 as many of these have been operated and raced more recently.

Apologies if this is a well known story but it is not one I have heard before. I have been trying to identify the aircraft and to find out what happened to it. I have been through lists of Invaders but cannot find one that is listed as ever being owned by Pironi/Dolhem.

Does anyone have any further information please?

Robert

 

Probably A26. On Mark Engineering did a number of conversions to an executive version, the maintenance and fuel costs must have been staggering. Perhaps Pironi was had one of the On Mark conversions?

 

I do not think cost would have been a problem for them! Not according to the book anyway.

The book goes on to say that, in order to make the aircraft lighter, they took out the armament so (if this is correct) it had not already been converted into a fire bomber or executive version.

 

Remember, the A-26 Invader was redesignated B-26 in 1948 when the USAF eliminated the "A for Attack" designation. Since all the B-26 Marauders were now out of service, they didn't mind the duplicated number. In the '60s, the "A" designation was brought back, so the Invaders serving in Vietnam were again redesignated A-26s. Quite a few Invaders made the civil roster, so the aircraft referenced was probably one of them.

 

It could have been either one. Remember that in 1981, those airplanes were a lot newer and there were a lot more of them then there are now. Apparently, according to wikipedia, there were corporate B-26 conversions as well, but the A-26s were more common.

There is a guy in Seattle who operates an OnMark A-26... really cool, in my opinion.

 

I am not sure how accurate or complete this website is:

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/a26registry/a26registry.html

I went through every single one of the aircraft listed last weekend, the A-26B, the A-26C and the B-26K. It took ages but there is nothing listed as being owned by Pironi/Dolhem.

A-26B (41-39596)/B-26K (64-17676) is a possibility as it was raced in 1979 and then there is a gap in it's history until it went on display at Wright Patterson AFB in 1981 (although the USAFM website says it was flown there in 1980).

If there is a Marcel Massini of the warbird world I am sure he would know exactly which one it was!

 

I have no info to help with this search but I have a great memory of seeing one of the first A-26's in 1943 . We were at football practice at Sarasota High School when we were buzzed by an airplane in a hard left turn right over the school. He couldn't have been over 500 feet and roaring. After we recovered and went back to practice, he came back but even lower and kept going. Nobody knew what kind of airplane it was but later on I found out that it was an A-26. It was another event in the on-going airshow during the war.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the music in this video, but wow, what a machine!

 

Probably had a GF at the school...

 

Could have been but I doubt it. I think that at the time it was in the testing stages maybe at Sebring or Ellison. My late brother-in-law flew them in the Korean thing and he loved it. Quite a step up from flying the Martin B-26 and NA B-25 in New Guinea.

 

I spoke to a pilot who instructed in these out of FL during the big one. I seem to recall they were widow makers as when an engine went they rolled on their backs and in.

 

The Martin B-26, was famous for that; in fact they modified them during production so they wouldn't be so hard to handle... longer wings, etc.
It was called a 'widow maker'...

Have not heard that about the Douglas A-26 (B-26); it's supposed to be a very nice flying plane, I think.
This thread is about the Douglas A-26 "B-26"... it was called both A-26 and B-26 and back to A-26 during it's life.

It's doubly confusing as the Martin and Douglas planes look so much alike, until you look closely.

 

"A plane a day into Tampa Bay" was the old Marauder song. Funnily enough, they had the best combat survival rate of any bomber in WW-II, so they were doing something right.

 

Well Martin did redesign the entire wing and lengthened it on the B-26 Marauder after the first series.,, a much better plane after that.
They stopped trying to fill Tampa Bay...

 

The engines and wing were tilted on the later models. I heard it was a good airplane after they fixed the problems. It took an experienced pilot to fly, something rare to find in WWII as they trained pilots as fast as they could. The Martin B26 was an advanced aircraft when it was designed in 1939/1940. The Douglas A26 was not as large a bomber.

 

The A-26 was technically a light bomber, a follow-on to the similar A-20, but it was nearly as big as medium bombers already in service.

(The B-36 changed all the designations when it came along. The B-29, which was originally a "very heavy" bomber, suddenly became a medium!)

 

My brother-in-law said that you were flying around and "joy riding", the B-25 was his choice but if you were going into action he would prefer the Martin B-26 because it was so tough. When they increased the span on the B-26 B model it did make an easier flying airplane but then the Air Force saw that it could carry a bigger load so they did that and the airplane went right back to what it was. My good friend , Tom Cloyd was killed in a B-26 during a training flight with the CAF instructor pilot when they experienced engine failure on take off.

 

This thread went way off topic and never gave me an answer, although there was lots of very interesting chatter.

Bringing my own thread slightly back on topic is this film on you tube:



This awesome film shows, very early on and only briefly, Didier Pironi's cousin/half-brother and racing driver Jose Dolhem.

If you have not seen this film it documents flying five B-25s across the Atlantic in the early '80s for the filming of Hanover Street, a mediocre movie that stars Han Solo/Indiana Jones/Rick Deckard.

I grew up not far from RAF Little Rissington and remember the aircraft flying over my home during the making of the movie.

 

FWIW: There is a six pages feature in the last issue of "Aeroplane Monthly" about the altlantic crossing of the five B-25s in 1978 for "Hannover Street"; Dolhem is briefly mentionned and can be seen on one picture.
Rgds

 

Thank you very much for that information. I will try to buy a copy of that, and their website says it is a two part story so will be looking out for the next one too.

 

I don't recall many (any) B-25's in Britain during WW2... were there?

 

The RAF used quite a few of them, though admittedly I don't think many, if any, were used at home.

 

Indeed, the article in "The Aeroplane" says they weren't any USAAF B-25 based in the UK in WWII, but the movie (= "Hannover Street") producer's had to make do with the best choice available, considering their budget and the type of aeroplanes in flying condition available for a movie: for formation flying scenes, there were 5 B-25 available (6 were hoped for at the beginning) of which two that flew for "Catch 22". There were no flyable B-26 (The "real one", the "Baltimore wh*re") available at all, so...
Actually, the B-25 were the obvious choice.

Rgds

 

So, I just watched the Hawke video above.... great. Then watched "Hanover Street" on Amazon.

My big question is WHY in the world did they need to fly those B-25's across the Atlantic???? Those aircraft scenes could have been filmed many places....Newfoundland, for instance.
The rest of the film could have been filmed in England....

I"m glad they did fly the Atlantic, otherwise we wouldn't have the nice Hawke video.

Why?
Shoot, "Catch-22" was filmed in Mexico, not the Mediterranean, using a bunch of B-25's, including one they deliberately crashed and burned...

 

Well, I can't answer your question, simply because I don't know...BUT here are some clues.

The first one is that after filming from Bovingdon and Little Rissington, the five B-25 stayed for a year at Blackbushe and eventually, four of the five stayed in Europe for good, in Museums.
Only 44-30210 (serialled 151863 in the movie, as "Big Bad Bonnie" returned to the US; was it intended from the beginning, this I don't know.

15164-Marvelous Miriam = B-25J 44-29366/N9115Z: currently at the RAF Museum, Hendon
151790-Amazing Andrea = B-25J 44-86701/N7681C: destroyed in the Le Bourget Museum fire
151863-Big Bad Bonnie = B-25J 44-30210/N9455Z: returned to the US, and restored at Chino, California
151724-Brendas Boys = B-25J 44-29121/N86427: to Museuo del Aire, Spain.
151632-Gorgeous George-Ann = B-25J 44-30925/N9494Z/G-BWGR; with Imperial Group, Sandtoft, then to Brussels Air Museum

The second one is when Kris Kristofferson backed out of the movie, Harrison Ford was named in his stead, but he was already fillming in Europe, for "Force 10 from Navarone"; as some of the movie scènes were planed to be filmed in London, perhaps it swayed the location towards England? Perhaps there was a question of costs also, MAYBE (??) it was less expensive to fly the B-25s across the Atlantic and then sell four of these, rather than fly the entire staff of the movie across the Atlantic?

The scenes in the planes' interiors were filmed inside a B-25 fuselage at Elstree.

Nothing against the B-25s, but the B-26, the "real deal", aka the Martin Marauder, has always been a great favourite of mine; pity there was only one flying (perhaps not even at the time), so it was impossible to make a film with the "correct" US medium bomber for ETO.

Rgds