This 1972 photo shows a rare formation: Jack Tillman (Barrett’s father) flying their 1943 A-24B restored as an SBD-5, and Jack Lenhardt in his Eastern FM-2 Wildcat. Barrett took the photo from an SNJ-5 near Portland, Oregon.
The Dauntless
Jack Tillman sold the Dauntless to Oklahoma aircraft collector Doug Champlin in 1974. At the time it was the only one of its kind flying in the world. Subsequently Champlin traded it to the Marine Corps Air-Ground Museum at Quantico, Virginia, for a Goodyear F2G Corsair and Douglas AD-5 Skyraider. Eventually the Dauntless (called Banshee by the Army Air Force) went to the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.
The Wildcat wound up at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida.
In 2006 there are at least a dozen surviving SBDs and A-24s of which three are flying.
Barrett’s high-time airplane. This Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-3 (Bureau of Aeronautics No. 2613) was built in the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1941 and became one of four flown by the Coast Guard. The Tillmans had it restored in Greeley, Colorado, in 1966-67 and flew it in Oregon from 1967 to 1986 when it was sold to a collector in Idaho. From there N1120 went to New York State. Barrett logged 501 hours in the “Yellow Bird”.
