The Glacier Girl

A few years ago, I was visiting relative in Middlesboro, Kentucky.  While there, I learned about that they had a WWII P38 Lightning on display, but it has since moved locations.  This particular P38 has quite a story, but I will start with the basics.  For those of you who aren't experts in World War Two aviation, the P38 Lightning was a pursuit (hence the 'P') plane designed and built by Lockheed during World War Two.  It gained a reputation in aerial combat.  Over 10,000 of them were produced.  It became well known as the plane that many Medal of Honor recipients and aces flew.

The P38 (tail number 41-7630) that was on display in Middlesboro is known as The Glacier Girl.  Early in the war, she was on a flight to British Isles when it had to make an emergency landing in Greenland with a few other P38s and a couple of B17s if I remember right.  The plane sat there for 50 years and quickly became encrusted in hundreds of feet of ice.  Years later, it was brought up and restored to flying condition. 

At the hangar I saw it in, they were selling original radiator tubes from the plane.  I bought one for $10, I think.  So now I began to think, is it ethical to sell pieces of the plane?  They were not going to use 60 or 70 year old radiator tubes in an air worthy plane?  So the pieces would have just sat in storage somewhere taking up space.  Also, there are hundreds of these radiator tubes, so it would have taken up a lot of space.  I am still unsure about what to think of it.  On one hand, I see how this could be interpreted as unethical since they were selling an original part of the plane.  On the other hand, the radiator tubes were a major part of the plane and it would be the equivalent of selling a screw off of a Model T.  I would be cautious and refrain from selling them, but I have to remember that this was a very small musem and they needed all the funs that they could get.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Girl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNEmGaAplgI