Over the past few months many of you, who follow Warbirds or P-38s in particular, have wonder if the P-38/F-5G registered to Giorgi S. Moody (N1208N, 44-26670) still exists? In my opinion---it is not likely that it does, but heres the story.

Last night I spent a few hours with Mrs. Moody's Grandson. In 1956, N1208N was purchased by Walter Moody (Giorgi?s husband) and put in storage at an airport (which airport is unknown but it was probably near Vero Beach) in southern Florida. The photos I was showed clearly indicated that that aircraft was more-or-less an unflyable derelict at the time of its purchase. Mr. Moody, a former B-17 combat pilot, apparently didn?t have the time to dedicate to the plane, so it remained in storage until it was purportedly damaged by a hurricane in the 1960s. The airport manager informed Mr. Moody, who now was working in northern Florida, of the aircraft?s condition and Moody, without actually viewing the wrecked Lightning, allowed to airport manager to dispose of the airplane. In 1979 the FAA canceled N1208N?s registration.

After Mr. Moody's passing members of the Moody family often wondered if N1208N had, in fact, met it end during the aforementioned hurricane. Then in 1996 Mrs. Giorgi Moody received a letter from a man, who shall remain nameless, anxiously asking about disposition of N1208N. Mrs. Moody, rightly or wrongly, became very suspicious, so she took steps to once again register N1208N with the FAA in case the aircraft was to suddenly reappear after assuming it had been destroyed in the 1960s. Mrs. Moody went as far as to hire a lawyer and a private investigator to look into situation. And this continued until her death in 1998. No evidence of N1208N was ever found, so it is very unlikely that Moody Lightning made it beyond the 1960s.