Peter Jackson's WWI aircraft collection • full documentary

[Garfly]

 

 

 

[onetrack]

There's an interesting story in Vanity Fair (link below), about how one of Jacksons employees and pilot, Eugene DeMarco , turned out to be a total scumbag, thief and con-artist, who took Jackon (and others) for multiple millions of dollars.

 

The bloke is obviously a brilliant pilot, and a charmer to boot - but he has a major dark side to his personality, and his personal flaws outweigh his good features.

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/01/peter-jackson-and-the-airplane-thief

[F10]

Wow interesting story, no doubt this played a part in the demise of Wingnut Wings model kits, by far the best 1/32 scale kits of WW1 aircraft. The most amazing detail. They were in fact shortly to bring out a 1/32 scale Avro Lancaster, which had astounding detail and even had wrinkled skinning on the surface detailing, amazing. Needless to say however, they were not cheap models, but you got museum display type detail for your $.  deMarco was pretty matey with Kermit Weeks, who flew at some of the NZ airshows. I had some exposure in a way to the uber rich crowd when I was posted to the SAAF Museum historic flight. There’s a reason there’re wealthy….wouldn’t give you ice in winter, and will fight over 2 cents. This is not meant as a character assassination, just a business fact. Be very wary…friendship is generally based on the thickness of your wallet. I’m always amused at all the articles about aircrew who fly warbirds, as the only reason 90% of them fly warbirds has nothing to do with some magical flying ability, or some unique “burning love of aviation” (who doesn’t have that!). It’s the mighty $. There are rare exceptions. A few ex BBM pilots have built up connections and have managed to wrangle a seat, plus they have of course valuable government sponsored hours on type…plus some personalities from the maintenance world who to their credit, got a bit lucky and a pilots licence. Despite this somewhat murky  world of where the bucks stop,I for one are happy to see it has meant a lot of this awesome flying machinery, in which young men from all sorts of backgrounds, put their life on the line in deadly combat in defence of their country and Judeo-Christian civilisation ideals…..and it was horribly close….