That time I saw a Japanese Zero sitting in an Atlanta backyard

Let's go to a time before cell phones, before the internet, before all of life's answers were just a moment away.

I was in Atlanta with a friend for the weekend to visit her parents.

I forget the exact conversation, but it was something like this: 

Her: Hey, wanna see a Japanese Zero?

Me: Okay, sure.

She drove us there, and there it was: a WWII fighter sitting in a backyard. It looked like it had been there for a few decades. 

I can't even remember if we got out of the car. It was one of those, Yep, that's a WWII fighter just sitting there in the elements, and I guess that's normal for this part of town.

Fast forward to recently. 

Did I really see a Japanese Zero sitting in a backyard? I wondered.

After a few keystrokes, I had my answer: yep.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Wow. 

That is not the Tora, Tora, Tora  T-6 Texan I was expecting.

Oh, and the PS: I also pinged my friend the other day and asked if we really saw a Zero.

She also confirmed that it wasn't a dream.

I'm not an aviation geek, but there's something magical about that era and the warplanes.
 

Take cars from the same period. The engineering seems so primitive. Single channel brakes, flatheads, 1bbl carbs, points, all of It. Everything was made of metal, tolerances were horrible, inefficiency in the extreme. Apply all that to these planes. The folks that built them, flew them, designed and tested... a different breed. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Wierd timing, David.  Just this past Friday, I saw two of them at Willow Run Airport.  Well, I'm not sure they were genuine, but there were two of those, two Kates (the torpedo bomber) and then two more behind all of those.  And as we were leaving for our B-17 flight, a FW190 came in- which I've never seen one of those in person.

In reply to alfadriver :

Plate of shrimp.

Very cool, our air museum had a flying one for a few years but it has since moved on to new pastures.

Edit: These planes are parked both at Texas Flying Legends Museum, Houston TX and at Dakota Territory Air Museum, Minot, ND.

Texas Flying Legends Museum

Dakota Territory Air Museum

My dad was a Spitfire mechanic. But he was not great so they put him to work milking cows instead. He was stationed in Iraq.

That is rare.  There was a well known collection in a backyard in Ohio years ago, that had an F2G in it (super rare giant engined Corsair that was popular in post war air racing, not so coincidentally done in Cleveland) and a bunch of other planes.  It was commonly reported as a crash site by pilots!

The guy who owned the place eventually died (?) and the collection was sold off.  The F2G (there might have been 2?) did eventually get restored, to this (pretty sure it was this one):

That zero, I suspect will be restored eventually.  It could not have been the Atu zero as originally suspected because it's clearly an Army plane (Army planes are green, Navy planes are white).  There are at least a few flying Zeros.  One is local to me, but there is only one with the original engine, and that one is in Chino, CA

Of course, if you all are into airplanes, you must know about the Mach Loop in Scotland (Wales), right?

Youtube.com: Mach Loop

Was just watching the History Channels show Dogfights: US Hellcat vs. Japanese Zero and at 23:19 they discus the Akatan A6M2 Zero. 

Airplane Nerd Mode - Activate!

I saw it back in the late '80s. As was almost always the case, I didn't have my camera with me when I saw a cool airplane. This forum has a couple of pics and says it went to the Flying Heritage Museum, which has since closed. No idea where the Zero is now, but I imagine it was sold with the rest of Paul Allen's collection. Here's a little more info with a photo of the plane taken in 1945: LINK.

In reply to BenB :

Yup, I remember it looking like that. We did our drive-by in 1988 or so. And, same, I didn't have a camera with me, either. 

At the time, I didn't realize that the plane was parked behind a museum. I thought it was just in someone's backyard. 

Reminds me of that pile of warbirds in someone's actual backyard in Newbury, Ohio.

That's the backyard I would love to have !

Wikipedia: Vought F7U Cutlass

That one in the upper center took me a while to figure out. 

Appleseed said:

Reminds me of that pile of warbirds in someone's actual backyard in Newbury, Ohio.

I'd completely forgotten about that guy/place! I like the doodlebug in the top-left corner too. 

I'm surprised the Navy let that guy keep the Cutlass. They're major shiny happy people about private individuals/organizations possessing abandoned Navy planes. That's why there are lots of salvageable airplanes, including a one of a kind TBD Devastator, still sitting on the sea floor.

In reply to BenB :

It depends. If you locate an FM-2 Wildcat, and tell the Navy about it, they won't care. The FM-2 is not rare at all. You find a TBD Devastator, the Navy's going to want it. Until they located Lexington, there were only 3 known. A private individual found them. They Navy layed claim to them all. The individual wanted a founder's fee and the Nsvy balked. So...there they sit, rotting.

I seriously doubt the Navy wanted anything to do with that Gutless. It was underpowered ,  experimental, and it ended up killing a lot of aviators. When it was acquired as surplus, the Navy was glad to see it go. The key is, get Naval permission. They pulled up a couple of Corsairs out of Lake Michigan. One was a rare early "bird cage" F4U-1. The Navy wanted it because they had no early Corsair. The salvage team was allowed to keep their F4U, in return for recovering what the Navy wanted.

The Air Force, once they sign off on a wreck or airframe ,  you are free to have it. That's how you can go out into the desert and recover bits of Walt Ray's A-12, Article 125 and not be arrested.

As noted, finding one laying around is entirely different from buying one for scrap.

The one exception I know of is the F14 (not that you can buy one).  The US does not allow any private ownership of F14's for fear of someone selling parts to Iran (they still have some, certainly not operational at this point).  You can see one sitting outside at Mehrabad airport in Tehran. Interestingly not painted in the camo they are know for:

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7049955,51.2973019,319m/data=!3m1!1e3

...is that Tom Cruise I see running towards it?....

A short story I don't tell often because a big part of it sucks.  My grandfather flew for the Navy pre-WW2 and in WW2.  His squadron found the Akutan Zero in the Aleutians.  They called the Navy brass Army Air Force brass and told them about it.  They asked if they could get it.  Well there was no place to land and get it.  So the men of VB-144, sometimes VPB-144, and local Alaskans used boats and sleds and drug it back to the airbase in pieces by hand largely.  That effort led to a complete functioning Zero for the Air Firce and Navy to evaluate.  That led to changes in tactics that led to air superiority for the US and changed the war.

I don't talk about my grandfather much because I never met him.  He died one month before my dad was born which was also one month before the end of the war.  He could've stopped and gone state side but he was on his 3rd tour of bombing the Japanese.  I guess being at Pearl Harbor upset him a lot.  
 

It's also why I think other things I do about our current society.  People that have given nothing feel they should tear down what others actually fought to defend.  I served but didn't give all.  I have the utmost reverence for those that did.