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There really IS one of everything in Dallas

Nah, we have plenty of ashtrays, just use it for target practise.
 
CraigB said:
How is that legally over here? It's not outside the 25 year moratorium...
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Some idiot actually went and got the thing fully type certified. Same thing with some Mercedes A-class around the same time.
 
Yes, pretty much every generation of the A-class is trash. The current one maybe not so, but it's far from perfect.
 
Yup. There are actually a couple of Federalized A-classes in Dallas and I've driven one. Unsurprisingly, it's crap.

Back in 2015, I noticed a post on the Ford truck forum I inhabit from a guy in Dallas asking for urgent help with the truck he'd just inherited from his late father. It was throwing belts and there was no obvious reason; I happened to be in the area and arranged to meet him. He turned out to be a Dallas firefighter and had the truck with him at the station. Turns out he and I had quite a lot of vehicular history in common and we spent quite some time talking after I diagnosed his truck's issue. (Dear Ford, please do NOT do the stupid press on pulley idea ever again.) We spoke again a few more times as I had some info about sources and locations that he needed.

Well, flash forward to this week. I've been helping Der Stig get parts for his Bronco out of the junkyards and I noticed the same guy posting that he needed a hard-to-get part that I would coincidentally need to pull to get something else for Der Stig. I got in contact with him, we made arrangements and after retrieving the parts I rolled over to his place to separate out what he needed. Turns out he had a lot of interesting stuff. As usual, pics are clickable for higher res versions.


Some Swedish box in great condition that needs a V8 swap... At least it's not the Swedish Camry. :mrgreen:


Another Swedish box in great condition that needs a V8 swap...


1955-1959 Chevrolet "Task Force" pickup truck.


Ancient John Deere tractor.


There's a pristine MG TD under this cover - unfortunately none of the pictures I took of it turned out.


Shop and house cat.


More on these later.


1918 American LaFrance fire car/fire truck.




1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Wagon (not a Nomad).









This is a 1919 American LaFrance fire car/truck, V12 powered. The owner is following the pre-war hot rodding practice and converting it into a speedster along the lines of 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' or the Professor Fate car from the movie The Great Race. These were faster than some contemporary aircraft.

The best part: Everything you see here still runs and drives - even the near-century-old American LaFrance trucks.
 
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That is a nice looking anvil. I have wanted one for several years.


The fire truck is nice too.
 
How about an attack helicopter? Spotted this outside a Dallas restaurant tonight.

















 
^ I thought it was a memetastic joke but ...nope....it's really a attack helicopter. :|
 
Aren't the Cobras really hard to get a hold off? I thought you needed to get a crashed one and rebuild it or something similar.
 
maxtortheone said:
Aren't the Cobras really hard to get a hold off? I thought you needed to get a crashed one and rebuild it or something similar.
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*Today* an airworthy Cobra is all but impossible to get ahold of for civilians. The surplus ones usually go to the US Forest Service for use as firefighting aircraft if they're not sold to allied powers.

Usfs-ah1-N107Z-bar_complex_fire.jpeg


This is only recently the case - for a short while, older Cobras that could not economically be upgraded to later specs were actually being sold in exactly this condition for cheap as scrap. However, the EPA (yes, the EPA) put an end to that. The Clinton Administration, who this took place under, also went through and blocked sales of surplussed HMMWVs (which had no weapons or provisions to mount them) as well as surplus single-shot-per-trigger-pull rifles of deer hunting caliber and many other things that were of civilian utility. Basically, they ended the classic surplus sales that raised significant money for the government in favor of spending loads of money to destroy perfectly good surplus (including utterly harmless things like outdated cold weather gear and generators!). Just as with the HMMWVs and the M1As, some few Cobras did get through the system into civilian hands before the Administration decided to ruin the party. And just as with the HMMWVs, the government policy was changed to make life as difficult as possible for those people that managed to get the ones that 'escaped.'

This article from the early 2000s helps explain it:

According to present records, there are 17 civilian registered Cobras in the FAA registry. Of course, not all of these machines are presently flying and the ones that are all have restricted categories placed upon them. The rest are in military possession and from time to time others are placed in static display at air museums. According to a spokesman at the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Facility at Redstone the active army has about 2,781 different helicopters in service.

The National Guard has 2,410 helicopters that include AH-64A , AH-64D (Longbow), AH-1 Cobra, OH-58A & C models (Kiowa), OH-58D (Warrior), UH-60 A & L models (Blackhawk), EH-60A (Blackhawk), UH-1 (Huey), CH-47D (Chinook) and TH-67 (Creek, a two-place trainer, modified 206 Bell Jet Ranger ). So what does the military do with the rest of them you ask? To keep them out of the publics' hands, the DOD mandates they be cut up in numerous pieces to thwart individuals from attempting to put them back together again! Sold as scrap.

A few years ago a high profile case emerged involving improper disposal of the Cobra hulls and their associated parts. The U.S. Marine Corp. had acquired approximately one hundred Cobras and after their usage, they stripped them and threw them into the ocean to make a reef for fish! A small number of them actually went overboard before the EPA stepped in and stopped this outrageous action. A spokesman for the Public Affairs Office for the Defense Logistics Agency in Virginia official statement when asked about the Cobra being a threat responded, "This aircraft has no civilian counterpart and was designed for the Military offensive/defensive capability. That decision was made by the DoD in coordination with the Departments of State and Commerce and the FAA".

This Golden Fleecing of American taxpayers' dollars caught Garlick's attention and he did as much as he could about it before the law went into effect preventing private ownership. He bought his before the "experts" deemed this to be a grave concern for "public safety". When the homes of those people responsible for this outrageous behavior are facing complete destruction, I ponder what their faces will look like? Tell that to the Admirals when they need that very helicopter to save their family's lives that they just threw off the ship!

In addition to the varied emergency type of services Cobra's can conduct, they also are excellent camera platforms for still and major motion pictures. In areas where fixed-wing aircraft cannot provide suitable abilities the helicopters are possibly the only craft that can safely do the job. Agricultural interests are centered in spray applications for insecticides, herbicides and fungicides as well as aerial surveying. Direct hourly costs run about $600.00 and indirect fees are computed at $800.00 per hour. When Cobra's are fitted with AH-1G L-13 engines they produce 1,400 shaft-horsepower, have a 247 gallon fuel capacity and a 9,500 pound gross weight. The improved S model upped the gross weight to 10,500 pounds and cruise speed increased to 166 mph. That version is known as the AH-1S Cobra.

Garlick personally has flown for both major picture and television greats such as "Always", "Independence Day", "Dante's Peak", "Walker Texas Ranger", "Tour of Duty", "Air America" and most recently "Pensacola Wings of Gold". His exuberance for flying the ship is profound and his remark of piloting a Cobra for the first solo is, "Your initial testing in a Cobra is a once in a lifetime experience. I have a hard time conveying my innermost feelings because it is so overwhelming". Garlick smiles and adds, "Comparing a Cobra to the UH-1 series ships shows some big differences. The Cobra exhibits almost excessive power but has tremendous maneuverability and stability when flying". He has flown the helicopter several hundred hours and says, "The same feeling continues when I fly the ship and it is an excellent experience to have such control," he adds.

So, you all excited and want to go for a spin in one? What's it cost you ask? Forget it. FAA regulations forbid you paying to take a joy ride in it this for recreational usage. Period. Unless it is for purposes of training or journalism your ride in a Cobra might just stay a dream. If you get serious and decide to train in one it'll set you back about $1,500.00 per hour for instruction. A qualified helicopter pilot would need about five hours air time of instruction to be considered for a LOA. That coveted paper and ink can only be given by a FAA designated examiner or a military instructor pilot. A $2,000.00 flight can be arraigned for you to be a "crew trainee" and you will need a special insurance endorsement as well as a liability waiver sign-off. If you would like to have a job done by the Cobra and Garlick, the cost is a flat rate of $1,500.00 per hour.
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More here: http://www.helis.com/stories/mil2civ.php

The 17 examples that made it into civvie hands before the crackdown happened don't actually sell for much (relatively) because of how the FAA restricts them.

http://www.islandaero.com/airsales/cobra.htm

Edit: To give you an idea of how little that costs, here's a listing for the much smaller, much less capable MD500 helicopter aka the OH-6.

http://www.globalplanesearch.com/no...douglas/helicopters/turbine/single/md_500.htm

My friend who was a career attack chopper pilot in the Army from Vietnam on into the 80s says that despite what's stenciled on the port side of the tail boom, it's an Army AH-1S with one of the last modernization packs installed, indicated by the air data sensor mounted above the canopy and the canopy itself lacking the rounded canopy glass of the earlier AH-1S revisions. This was also known as the AH-1P or AH-1E depending on what else they put on at the same time. (No way to tell the difference with the armament and turret removed without looking in the cockpit.) Puts the production date somewhere in the late 70s at most and it would possibly have been a new build aircraft in the late 80s.
 
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Did a little more digging - this one slipped out from the re-surplus system. It was produced in 1979, then sometime years later (would guess in the late 1990s) was handed over to the Washington Department Of Forestry, then in 2012 *they* surplussed the craft out as scrap and a man from Dallas got ahold of it before it was cut up. It's technically non-flyable at current and the interior was stripped out. Somewhere between 1979 and the time it was handed over to the Forestry people it was upgraded to AH-1F status, but the -1F parts were removed and replaced with -1E parts before letting it out of military hands.

It was intended to sit on a plinth at a private veteran's center back in 2012.
 
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huh, it looks very similar to the Volvo C303
kb-0267.jpg
 
When I was in college, there was someone on campus that had one of those. Was always fun to watch reactions to him driving around.
 
Actually, I just checked the license plate number and you are correct. It is a Volvo, not a Pinzgauer - or at least it's registered as a Volvo. I didn't get a good look at the nose so I'll blame the misidentification on that. :p

That does make it even rarer though. I'd not heard of anyone importing one of those, but more than a few Pinzgauer import firms have been around.
 
yeah, i dont' hear about a lot of our military vehicles ending up in the US. Like the Mercedes G wagon is concidered a luxury car there from what i understand.

WHile we get some very spartan ones here that's seen military service :p
Mercedes-Benz_Gel%C3%A4ndewagen_Norwegian_military_fq.jpg
 
Those actually do show up here occasionally. I wouldn't mind having one.
 
Hemily said:
yeah, i dont' hear about a lot of our military vehicles ending up in the US. Like the Mercedes G wagon is concidered a luxury car there from what i understand.

WHile we get some very spartan ones here that's seen military service :p
Mercedes-Benz_Gel%C3%A4ndewagen_Norwegian_military_fq.jpg
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That's because the officially imported Mercedes ones are only available in luxobarge trim sporting six digit price tags. Prior to that, there was a company called Europa that managed to get the US type certificate for the G-Wagen at great expense and they imported all trim levels of G-Wagen. Mercedes had to buy the certificate off Europa at an extortionate price to be able to import the G-Wagen themselves - poetic justice since gray market imports of the G-Wagen and S-Class were what prompted Mercedes to get the US Government to pass the Mercedes (anti-gray-market import) Law in the first place.

Prior to the Mercedes Law, G-Wagens were usually imported as specialty offroaders, usually in the lower trim levels, just like Land Rover Series trucks and Defenders.
 
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