Hunting Zeros
Finding an airworthy Zero is not easy these days. In fact, you can count them on one hand.
- By Roger Mola
- Air & Space magazine, July 2007
Seeing a Zero in the air is a rare treat, but if collectors have their way, more like this one could take wing in coming years.
Phil Makanna
(Page 2 of 2)
Fantasy of Flight in Polk City, Florida, displays a Zero largely as it was found as a jagged and corroded wreck at Rabaul, in the South Pacific, but director Kermit Weeks calls it “the basis for a flyable aircraft.” Bloggers for the factory museum at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Komaki, Japan, say its display Zero should not be considered permanently grounded either.
There’s several impostors flying, such as the last of 25 U.S. AT-6 Texan “Zeros” crafted in convincing-enough detail to fly in a blockbuster or two, though bloated when compared to the svelte original Zero. And the Canadian version of the AT-6, the Harvard Mark IV, which Japanese Zero Airshows cast as an A6M2-21 Zero right down to the 7.7 mm machine guns, Zero-style tail hook and retractable tail wheel in the 2006 History Channel documentary, Days That Shook the World.
Deterioration of the CAF’s previous flyable Zero drained the resources to keep it aloft. It is now a static display at the Pacific Air Museum.
Comments (1)
I work for the railroad in Amarillo, Tx. and today July 15, 2008 my coworkers and I were quite surprised to look up in the sky and see what we agreed were 2 possibly 3 Japanese zeros flying overhead. I could almost imagine that I was seeing them on their way to bomb Pearl Harbor. They reminded me of the models I collected as kid. My favorites being the F4U corsair and the zero fighter. It was quite a thrill even If it was our imaginations running wild. I enjoted the above article about the famed aircraft.
Posted by Steve Anderson on July 15,2008 | 12:47 AM