MAAM P-61 Visit 11/26/10 Pics.

[TAdan]

I headed to Reading PA and the Mid Atlantic Air Museum today to check on the P-61.

It is really coming along nicely, the best part is that it is really starting to look like a Black Widow!

Wiring work is in progress and my tour guide said the motor will be temporarily hung in order to do some cowling work.





















My camera battery died so I did not get too many pictures of the rest of the museum, but they did have a pair of recent additions, a very nice Culver Cadet and the great little blue and yellow bi-plane pictured below.

[bilwor]

Please refresh my poor memory. Is the P-61 being restored to fly or static?
bill word

[airknocker]

http://www.maam.org/p61.html

[Mudge]

Youse troops know that as long as we've been friends, I've never been a troublemaker BUT...Am I not correct that the P-61 has ENGINES, not MOTORS.

Mudge the pedant

(OK...OK...If it hadn't been me, somebody would have mentioned it. I've been here too long to think otherwise. )

[The Inspector]

Depends, in English engine, in French moteur, and what sort of chain are you using with that pendant?

[12XU2A3X3]

the 2800 is getting hung cause it's heavier then a 55 gal drum

[TAdan]

Sorry Mudge, I meant to say that they will be hanging the big round thing that sometimes makes smoke and noise and spins the prop...

[The Inspector]

Actually, a 55 Gal. drum full of cement will come in around 1100 lbs. We used them @ BADWRENCH (and they probably still do) as ballast on 727's while in maintenance and especially when they are on jacks. I've actually weighed 727-200 freighters where the nose scale read 35 lbs. (had one for a certain brown and white operator that came in @ ZERO lbs. on the nose jack, so we had to add a second barrel to get a number to work from) using the foreward body jackpad with a cement filled barrel attached @ sta. 350 on the jackpad. As part of our quality audit program we would weigh each ballast barrel with a dynamometer and paint the accurate weight on each barrel twice a year with a paint pen.

Using sta 285 (jackball on a 727 nose gear) X 35 lbs. gives an arm of 9975 which is added together with the weights X arms of the mains ( and those moments can and do reach high seven or eight digits) to give the total moment divided by the total weight and a manufacturers provided divisor formula realizes the % of MAC, and on a 727, as long as it's around 41% of MAC (mean aerodynamic chord since all weights are positive to Datum) your empty weight and balance is in range, a standard desk 10 key wasn't capable of doing one of the division problems but I had a really cheap bank gift pocket calculator that would do that particular quotient. The standard is three weighs, moving the load cell to the next location for each weigh, add up all the weights and all the moments (the arms stay the same because the are constants) take the total weight and divide it into the total moment using the moments(REALLY BIG number!)for your averaged weight of the empty aircraft). Had one 727 where the weight kept drifting on the scales, someone pointed and said 'why is 'he' inside?' Seems some blanket bunny got missed when the tube was closed up and he was walking back and forth inside the cabin while we were trying to weigh.
So a barrel full of water laid on the engine lord mount should be more than enough to keep the nose on the ground. Drain the water and the barrel is easily removed or installed then fill it through one of the bungs.

"If you see a man crouched over a desk using a single lamp and he has a calculator and a pad and pencil, and he's cursing he's either doing his income taxes or calculating weight and balance."

[Second Air Force]

"If you see a man crouched over a desk using a single lamp and he has a calculator and a pad and pencil, and he's cursing he's either doing his income taxes or calculating weight and balance."

--OR--

He's re-figuring the weight and balance the old fashioned way after the "computer program " was done by the computer whiz and some numbers transposed. And the flight crew is standing there wanting to go play with "their" airplane so why don't you maintenance guys hurry up! Never mind that the first set of numbers was wrong, figure it quick so we can go bore holes in the sky!

[Mudge]

Depends, in English engine, in French moteur, and what sort of chain are you using with that pendant?

Pardonnez-moi, M. Inspector. J'ai jeté un coup d'oeil autour et ai découvert ce we' ; re PAS EN FRANCE !

And I said PEDANT not PENDANT....SHEESH. (When ya' gotta' 'splain 'em )

Mudge the incensed....no, not the stuff ya' burn.

[The Inspector]

OH stop being so pedantic and I'll stop pulling your chain-and I know about as much French as a Cajun does, after 'oui' 'non' and 'eh' I'm out of phrases except one very nasty one taught to me by my one of my ex bosses, it deals with things you might have suggested to you that you can perform on yourself!

The post check weight and balance is done days before the crew is called by the rep after he's submitted the W&B to the 'office' and it's been accepted and we're down to the post check engine runs and so forth (what we called the 'last 50 cards'). If you've got an 'on the ball' team of mechanics working with you, a 727/737/DC-9 series weigh shouldn't take over four hours from 'take it up' to finishing the computations, however I've been involved in some where it was the Three Stooges meet the Marx Brothers, directed by W.C. Fields combined with 'herd the cats'.

Did weigh a -50 series DC-9 for Northwest and they rejected the weigh three times because the airplane came out around 600 lbs. heavy on the right main after all three weighs. Finally after they had loudly cast veiled doubts on our ancestry and the mating habits of our forebearers we suggested that NWA (not the rap group!) call the previous operator (in this case SWISSAIR). They did, and refunded the cost of two of the three weighs because SWISSAIRS maintenance control said 'yeah, that pig was right side heavy by around 600 lbs. out of the factory'

What's the difference between a DC-8 Captain and a 757 Captain?
The DC-8 guy has to really know how to fly, and the 757 guy just needs to know how to type 90 words per minute

[Airplanejunkie]

What's the difference between a DC-8 Captain and a 757 Captain?
The DC-8 guy has to really know how to fly, and the 757 guy just needs to know how to type 90 words per minute

Easy there......

How many DC-8 pilots does it take to change a light bulb?

Three: one to change the bulb and two to reminisce about how good the old one was.

[Airplanejunkie]

My camera battery died so I did not get too many pictures of the rest of the museum, but they did have a pair of recent additions, a very nice Culver Cadet and the great little blue and yellow bi-plane pictured below.

Makes my little heart go pitter pat.

It's a Brunner Winkle Bird. This one is unique because it's the only one left with a Tank engine (think air cooled OX-5, not armored military vehicle.)

Great pix of the P-61. Thanks for posting!

[The Inspector]

AJ,
Would you happen to have a DEUTCH fuse in your pocket?

[andyman64]

man there is some days you guys make me chuckle!!!!