Houston, Texas Vietnam War Flight Museum's Douglas A26 Invader, N26BP, 4139359, at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford on 25 and 28 June 2024, where it stopped for some remedial engine work pending its flight back to the USA.
This Invader was built as an A26B, which designation changed later to B26B, after the Martin B26 Marauder was withdrawn from service and replaced by the Douglas, Invader. It was later converted to an A26C. The A26B had a solid nose containing 6 or 8 0.5in machine guns for the ground attack role, whereas the A26C had a glazed nose and bomb sight for a bomb aimer.
The aircraft is currently shown as registered to the Marine Aviation Museum, Wilmington, Delaware but is listed on the website of the Vietnam War Flight Museum, Houston Texas as one of their exhibited aircraft. Its sponsored by US business aviation company Million Air, to whom it has been leased since May this year, when their maintenance team commenced restoration and preparation of it for a Million Air Tribute Flight to Europe in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of DDay, 6 June 1944.
The aircraft and its crew began their journey from Texas on 1 June 2024 to join the DDay Squadron Legacy Tour of Douglas DC3/C47 Dakota/Skytrain aircraft, also flying to Europe for the DDay anniversary.
The Invader routed to Europe via the southern Blue Spruce route The Blue Spruce Routes are air routes that were designed by the US Air Force during WW2 to ferry their aircraft from USA to Europe. These routes minimize the time over the Atlantic Ocean and offer reasonably short distances for aircraft with limited range. The route taken was via Goose Bay, Canada; Narsarsuaq, Greenland; Reykjavik, Iceland; Wick, Scotland; Antwerp, Belgium; Cherbourg, France. Following the anniversary event at Utah Beach in Normandy the aircraft flew to Warsaw and Leszno, Poland where it attended and displayed in a couple of airshows; Salzburg, Austria with The Flying Bulls at Hangar 7; Berlin, Germany and Duxford, England where the aircraft is currently temporarily laid up in the Aircraft Restoration Company's Stephenson Hangar receiving care and maintenance before its flight back to the USA. While at Duxford the aircraft and crew visited United States Air Force bases at RAF Fairford and RAF Mildenhall. The Invader was departing for RAF Lakenheath when this was filmed.

Known history of this aircraft :
November December 1944 Manufactured by Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach, California.
Delivered to the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) as an A26B30DL model and allocated USAAF serial 4139359.
It served in Europe with the 9th Air Force during the Battle of the Bulge.
(Group and Squadron history not cited).
It also served during the Korean War with the 3rd Bomb Wing, Far East Air Forces, Kunsan AB, Korea.
It was later stored at Davis Monthan AFB, Arizona and in November 1956
was put up for disposal. Between 1966 and 1970 it was owned by Aero Union Corp, Chico, California and registered as N91281, flying as one of their fire suppression bombers until 1970. It was then bought by Conair Aviation Ltd, Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada and registered as CFBMR, continuing to fly as a fire suppression bomber, flying as tanker number 21. During 1979 its registration changed to CFBMR.
In January 1987 it was bought by Jerry C. Janes, Rockford, Illinois and in
November of that year was sold to Robert J. Pond/Planes Of Fame East, Minneapolis, Minnesota, when it was registered as N26BP and flew as 39386/21.
In 1998 it transferred to Bob Pond/Pond Warbirds LLC/Palm Springs Air Museum, Palm Springs, California flying as 39359/21 "Invader"'.
In April 2008 it was bought by Rick Sharpe for the Marine Aviation Museum and then was ferried to Houston's Hobby Airport for maintenance and restoration work. Some plexiglass was replaced, it was repainted in blue markings (minus the "21" tail number) and its name changed to "Guns for Hire". It was then returned to air show service.
It has been converted to an A26C with the installation of a glass nose, but it is not known when this was done, although this would have been after its life as a fire fighting aircraft.
During October 2022 an incident involving another aircraft resulted in some minor damage to the Invader, during the Wings Over Houston Airshow. After this it was parked at Ellington Airport, Texas for about six months, before being purchased from insurance by Rick Sharpe.
​During May 2024 the aircraft was leased to Million Air and has received numerous avionics updates as well as some minor paint work.
It's is now being flown under the name "Miss Million Airess".

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