Bill Greenwood
07-23-2013, 09:39 AM
If you've won the lottery and want to buy something unique, not just a big house that has the same granite countertops as all the other fancy places: then here is your chance.
For $4.5 million real money (good old US of A dollars) a Messerschmitt Me 109E can be yours.
This is the genuine thing, a real Diamler engine Me 109. It was restored by top wrench Craig Charleston and is painted in the colors of the one flown by African desert ace Hans Joachim Marseille, the pilot called by Galland, I think it was, the "Ace of Aces".
This is the plane owned by Ed Russell of Niagara, Ontario, Canada, and is something special.
I have seen this plane, heard it run, seen it fly, up close takeoffs and landings and got to sit in it.
One of the most fun and memorable things I have done in 34 year of being a pilot, was being lucky enough to get to fly beside this 109 on a flight from Ed's airport at Niagara South to a Willow Run, at Detroit, Michigan for their excellent airshow, Thunder Over Michigan. To look out one way and see a genuine Hurricane and next to it a genuine 109 is an experience I wish I could bottle and sell.
It is a mean looking little thing. It is mostly engine, not even that much wings and doesn't seem to have much fuselage and tail, it seems 2/3 engine. It is more angular than a Spit or Huri, doesn't have the nice, round, almost feminine curves of the Brit planes.
And it may even look a little primitive, but make no mistake, in the right hands, and the Luftwaffe certainly had some of those with the right hands, this was an efficient and deadly little weapon.
For $4.5 million real money (good old US of A dollars) a Messerschmitt Me 109E can be yours.
This is the genuine thing, a real Diamler engine Me 109. It was restored by top wrench Craig Charleston and is painted in the colors of the one flown by African desert ace Hans Joachim Marseille, the pilot called by Galland, I think it was, the "Ace of Aces".
This is the plane owned by Ed Russell of Niagara, Ontario, Canada, and is something special.
I have seen this plane, heard it run, seen it fly, up close takeoffs and landings and got to sit in it.
One of the most fun and memorable things I have done in 34 year of being a pilot, was being lucky enough to get to fly beside this 109 on a flight from Ed's airport at Niagara South to a Willow Run, at Detroit, Michigan for their excellent airshow, Thunder Over Michigan. To look out one way and see a genuine Hurricane and next to it a genuine 109 is an experience I wish I could bottle and sell.
It is a mean looking little thing. It is mostly engine, not even that much wings and doesn't seem to have much fuselage and tail, it seems 2/3 engine. It is more angular than a Spit or Huri, doesn't have the nice, round, almost feminine curves of the Brit planes.
And it may even look a little primitive, but make no mistake, in the right hands, and the Luftwaffe certainly had some of those with the right hands, this was an efficient and deadly little weapon.