Kermit Weeks Tempest projects.

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Member for

8 years 7 months

Posts: 427

Sad to read that Kermit has put both his Tempest Projects in indefinite hold now to focus on other projects.
Seems all the parts and pieces are heading back into storage

Original post

Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 4,796

Why doesn't he just finish one damn project & then move onto the next?

Member for

14 years 8 months

Posts: 131

I see his British engineer Andy (?) is retiring.maybe this is one of the reasons? And they are his projects to manage as he sees fit. And his engineers have to maintain the ones already airworthy.

Profile picture for user DH82EH

Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 580

Andy Saulter is a very skilled engineer.
I always thought that if anyone could get one of Kermits' Sabres' running, it would be Andy.
Sad to hear that he won't be involved any longer.
The reality of the human lifetime, dictates that there is no way for Kermit to see all of his projects to fruition.

Andy

Member for

17 years 11 months

Posts: 2,605

We need a younger generation to fill in some shoes..Cant replace experience though..Money comes and goes..I think the B26 is close to flying.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 360

Aren´t there a few other Tempest projects put on hold for several years/decades? Is there a common denominator as to why none of these projects sees completion?

Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 4,796

Baz62: Except he doesn't maintain the ones that are/were already airworthy. He buys aircraft that are perfectly capable of flight.. & grounds them. I heard he's also given up on the Vega resto & is now going to build a seaplane base.... which will no doubt be too small for the Sunderland

Profile picture for user 1batfastard

Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 3,650

Hi All,
Despite the sad news I thought I would post these pictures from the Faceache page.....:D

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Geoff.

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Profile picture for user DH82EH

Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 580

HA!!
That's a pretty funny retirement card.

Member for

20 years 1 month

Posts: 115

funny thing about retirement, I think if I could negotiate a deal with Kermit to work on AND fly his aircraft,
that for me WOULD be retirement!

Member for

8 years 7 months

Posts: 427

Sad that it seems alot of his projects are on the back burner......he's got a 109G and an A model mustang in the works too but god knows how long it will be until they get flying! Wish I had the money.....theres so.many projects that could be very very interesting if people were willing to keep them running

Member for

13 years 11 months

Posts: 409

As mentioned a bit already, the work that was being done at Fantasy of Flight on the Tempest projects was all Andy Salter, and therefore with him retiring, the projects will be halted for the time being. I recall Andy had also been involved with working to get Kermit's Spitfire back up and ready to fly again, as well as of course the various WWI generation in-house projects. There aren't very many people involved in restorations at Fantasy of Flight, and I know Paul Stecewycz had been busy (following the lengthy Stinson L-1 project) with the Wirraway, then the BT-15, and now the Fw-44 Stieglitz, Bucker Jungmeister and Bf-108, and Rick Reeves has been doing the P-35A restoration. Ken Kellett has been working on the Standard J-1, Curtiss Jenny and Sopwith Pup projects.

Fantasy of Flight projects being done at other shops include the Bf-109G-6 being done in Canada by Don Bradshaw, the P-51A at Cal Pacific, the A-26 Invader at Aero Trader (should be flying in 2019), the CAC Boomerang at Matt Denning's in Australia, the Boeing 100 at Roy Rehm's shop in Nevada (should be flying in 2019), the Lockheed Vega at Kevin Kimball's, the Sikorsky S-38 being refurbished at Langer Aviation in Minnesota, and some other long-term/possible eventual projects in New Zealand and Australia (Kingfisher, Tony, Corsair).