Bureaucracy is an amazing thing. It can be slow, stupid, unresponsive and cause a whole host of problems, but sometimes it can actually all work out for the best.
Take the Boeing F-26D. This highly effective aircraft would never have even existed if it wasn't for the incredibly dense ways that bureaucracy operates.
It all began back in 1942. As the Philippines was being overrun by the forces of Imperial Japan, American forces were thrown into disarray, paperwork became very unimportant, and the proper disposal of assets never was properly dealt with. Take P-26 serial number 33-106. It had belonged to the 3rd Pursuit Squadron, 4th Composite group, and had actually been dropped from records back in 1939, but was still languishing at the back of a hangar. Being technically not on the records, nobody had thought to make sure it was destroyed before the attacking Japanese forces reached the base, and as such, was found in a nearly intact condition in early 1942.
The trail gets a bit fuzzy at this point, but it appears it was restored to flying condition and taken back to Japan as a trophy by a squadron c/o. At some point, he was transferred to Korea, and took his P-26 along.
No sign of it was seen again until 1951, when US Army units involved in the Korean War came across it at a long-disused Japanese Army air base. Korea still had large amounts of World War 2 Japanese hardware laying about, although most was in unserviceable state. The P-26 however was still capable of flying, and a US Army Sergeant decided to get it up and running to fly recon for his unit. It served admirably through the rest of the war, and remained in US Army possession afterwards thanks to gaps in the record keeping system. Since no P-26s existed in US Army inventory when the USAF was created, none were transferred over, so the Army kept it's P-26, although it changed the designation to F-26 to keep with the newer designation system.
Over the years, it primarily existed as a hack aircraft for officers to take out for joyrides, but it also was used as a secure dispatch delivery vehicle and short range recon. Eventually, the US Army was forbidden to operate any fixed wing combat aircraft, so the F-26 was redesignated as "Golf Course Survey Gear" and operated out of Camp Henry, near Daegu, South Korea.
In the mid 1980s, an enterprising airframe tech hit upon the idea of equipping the F-26 with Hellfire missiles. With an engine upgrade and reworking of some internal structures, a test was done and it was found the F-26 could carry 4 missiles while presenting a very small and hard to hit target. A contract was drawn up with Boeing to produce "Golf Course Survey Gear" using modern airframe technology and avionics, and the F-26D was born.
Operated by the 4077th REMF (Recreational/Educational Maintenance Facility) unit out of Daegu, they were usually flown directly from various golf course in the area. The wide dispersal made them quite safe from sabotage or attack by North Korean units, and their small size allowed them to be easily hidden when required. The addition of a bubble canopy gave the pilot a greater degree of comfort, and the silenced exhausts made the plane very hard to hear once in flight.Their existence might have never been known to the general public except for a local newspaper in the American mid west that somehow accidentally revealed deployments of "F-26s" to Korea in 2016. The USAF is still attempting to have them removed from the US Army inventory, but so far, nobody can find anything that expressly says the US Army cannot operate Golf Course hardware.
Kit used was the Academy/Hobbycraft P-26 in 1/48th scale. Canopy was smash molded over a handmade buck, the Hellfires and pylons came from a Hasegawa AH-64 1/48 kit. Decals are from my inkjet printer and an F-16 set in 1/48. Inspiration came from somebody posting on ARC that his father had heard "F-26s" were deployed to South Korea...and that got the ball rolling.
Alvis 3.1
