"Glacier Girl" and Other Warbirds Flying to St. Barths

[Bomber_12th]

Back in 2011, the Texas Flying Legends Museum flew a few of their warbirds (B-25, P-51, Corsair, and P-40K) from Texas down to the Caribbean to take part in the "Bucket Regatta" event, held around the island of St. Barths. They based their flying operations out of nearby Princess Juliana Airport on the island of St. Maarten, but performed flybys of the St. Barths airport and area off the coast where the boating event took place. Coming up in just a few weeks, they will be doing so again, and joining them this year will also be warbirds from the Lewis Air Legends collection. For about the past week, the Texas Flying Legends have been posting on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/TXFlyingLegends?ref=br_tf) announcements of the individual aircraft that are going to be participating. So-far confirmed include the P-38F "Glacier Girl", B-25J "Russian to Get Ya", and the F7F "La Patrona" of the Lewis Air Legends collection, and the B-25J "Betty's Dream", FG-1D Corsair, TBM Avenger, and P-40K of the Texas Flying Legends collection - and there still may be more announced in the coming days. The "Bucket Regatta" event is being held at St. Barths from March 19-22.

Here are some videos from the last time the Texas Flying Legends sent some of their warbirds down to St. Barths:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcpRYMaB3fw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nkrLxBiFr8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcmE7QI1WZY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMl_tInSkrI


For those not familiar with either the Texas Flying Legends Museum or the Lewis Air Legends collection, here are their websites, which also provide pages on each of the warbirds the collections own and fly (which are continuing to grow larger):

http://www.texasflyinglegends.org/
http://www.lewisairlegends.com/

[Bomber_12th]

Here's another update posted today, straight from the Texas Flying Legends:

"The countdown to the sendoff has begun! 10 days remain until the planes will be leaving for the most incredible flight of our modern day.
This adventure will envelop the most WWII aircraft assembled at one time to make a trip this far since the war.
Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and other multimedia. Share our progress with all your friends as we travel over 2200 NM to spread the word!"

https://www.facebook.com/TXFlyingLegends

The full list of participating warbirds are:

P-38F Lightning "Glacier Girl" (Lewis Air Legends)
P-40K Warhawk (TFL)
A6M2 Zero (TFL)
FG-1D Corsair (TFL)
B-25J Mitchell "Betty's Dream" (TFL)
B-25J Mitchell "Russian to Get Ya" (Lewis Air Legends)
TBM Avenger (TFL)
F7F Tigercat "La Patrona" (Lewis Air Legends)
F7F Tigercat "Here Kitty, Kitty" (Lewis Air Legends)

[Bomber_12th]

The flight of 9 is leaving tomorrow, so final preparations are being completed. As seen in some of these recent photos from the past couple days, the giant reg number decals are back on, like that were also used on the last trip to St. Barths, which is required in the area of the world/international waters they'll be flying over.

[Bomber_12th]

Well, they're on their way! Having left about an hour and a half ago.

From the Texas Flying Legends Facebook page:

"So the Trip Begins! The Texas Flying Legends crew depart for a historic 2,200 mile trip across international waters! The longest course warbirds have taken across international waters in 70 years. The B-25, P-40K, TBM Avenger, Corsair and Japanese Zero will venture to St Barths for an air show in collaboration with Lewis Air who will join flight with their P-38, B-25 and 2 Tigercats! 9 warbirds across 2,200 miles in celebration of freedom!"


They will be meeting up at Miami, FL, today, before making the final leg of the flight down to St. Barths. https://floridawarbirds.wordpress.co...ssing-through/

I've began tracking their flight progress so-far by using Flightaware by tracking "Betty's Dream" (N5672V), the lead aircraft amongst the TFL group. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N5672V

[Bomber_12th]

They arrived in Anguilla on Tuesday, where they are staging out of for the displays over St. Barths (for those familiar with the airport on St. Barths, you'll know that it would never even be a proposition to land any warbird there). Today they did some practice formation work. For the next three days (Friday through Sunday) they'll be performing flyovers around St. Barths, including an airshow on Saturday. Here is video of a practice flight today, over the island of Anguilla (this being just the TFL group, and not including the Lewis Air Legends warbirds which will also be part of the flyovers/airshow): https://vimeo.com/122656207