• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Speaking of Warbirds . . .

Share this page

G

Guest

Guest
Guest
Offline
I've been meaning to get this up for you guys for a while. Was reading the Top 10 Fighter Aircraft thread today and finally took the time to convert the photos and upload them for you.

I rode by this curious "little" airport with a long grass strip and a big new fancy building a number of times. Kept looking for some activity there or a hint of what it was for but never saw anything going on - just a little sign that said "Caution! Low Flying Warbirds" and another that said Virginia Beach Airport. Finally decided to stop one day when I had some extra time. As it turns out, it belongs to Gerald Yeagan, who owns among other businesses, the Aviation Institute of Maintenance and it's subsidiary the Fighter Factory in the Virginia Beach area. The building houses his private collection. He was in the process of trying to turn it into a museum and charge a small admission fee. But when I was there (this past January) he just had it open for free for anyone that was curious and wanted to stop in. Glad I stopped! Except for one, they're all airworthy and flown regularly. The Buzz bomb isn't flown, but the engine works. The Jag is a reproduction. The water tower, which actually supplies water for the building's fire suppression system was disassembled and brought to Va Bch and reassembled. It was from some well know racing site (the details escape me) and was used as "pylon". There's much more to the story - but that's all I can post for now.

Va Bch Airport
Fighter Factory
Virginia Beach Airport
 
Yeah, he's the guy who brought the Spitfire to VTR 2004 at Richmond. Not a Triumph Spitfire, the Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire!

More later, I see a TR6 in my driveway!
 
Very nice Allen. I ever get around there, I'm stopping in.
 
More:

The college closed the Aviation Mechanic Program where I taught in 2004. A week after VTR 2004, the college auctioned the shop equipment and aircraft and stuff. I wore a Triumph shirt to the auction. Yagen was there to bid on everything for his schools. He asked for my resume. Yagen noticed my shirt and said,
"I was at a Triumph show in Richmond Last week."

I said, "So was I."

He said, "I had the Spitfire."

I said, "There were lots of Spitfires there."

He said, "No, The Spitfire!"

"Oh."

Then he offered me a job at The Fighter Factory working on his collection. Too bad I'm disabled.
 
Thanks, Allen. ANd neat story, John

Man that place is *clean*. Those are some of the most sano round motors I've every seen.

He seems to have a lot of the real famous stuff, plus a pile of Polikarpovs, that neat Chipmunk and neater Moth....and a Storch! Nice L-5 too.
Wonder what it costs to restore a PBY that nice?
Very cool! This place is on my retirement "to do" list!
 
I have an airworthy Mk XV (I believe) Spitfire, an airworthy Mustang P-40, am airworthy replica Mitsubishi Zero, an airworthy T-6 trainer,along with several other vintage aircraft (including an airworthy Stearman and a replica Folke Wolfe 135 that is still under contruction) just 10 miles west of me. The collection belings to Rudy Frasca (who made his money producing flight simulators).

Rudy called me up one Saturday morning and wanted to know if I wanted to come out and help get the Spit out of the hanger as he was going to fly it to a nearby airshow that day. What an experience!
 
aeronca65t said:
Thanks, Allen. ANd neat story, John

Man that place is *clean*. Those are some of the most sano round motors I've every seen.

He seems to have a lot of the real famous stuff, plus a pile of Polikarpovs, that neat Chipmunk and neater Moth....and a Storch! Nice L-5 too.
Wonder what it costs to restore a PBY that nice?
Very cool! This place is on my retirement "to do" list!
Click to expand...

Did you get a chance to look at the main website? They have the history of the planes on there. I took a quick look at the PBY page and found that THAT PBY is one of the few left around with an actual war time history... I haven't gotten around to reading much more after that.
 
Back
Top