PV-2D Harpoon 84062 (Tanker 101) comes back to life

[cco23i]

Taigh....YES to the pics!!!

[...]

Thats cool, just calling her the Harpoon, or PV-2, but if you ever call that girl a Beech, well sir, I will have to defend her honor!


[...]
G.

My fine SIR, we will *NEVER* call our Harpoon a Beech, and for several good reasons, not the least of which being that she is somewhat larger than the other planes in our area.

Ricky
--

GET 'EM RICKY!!!

Scotty

[Taigh Ramey]

Don't worry Gary, there's not much chance we will call the Harpoon a Beech. There is very little in common except they are twin engined, twin tailed, taildraggers on clmpletely different orders of magnatude. I have noticed a trend here at our shop for the 3 t's. I think a good serious multi engined training program would start out in the Twin Beech then the PV-2 and finally the PV-1 Super Ventura. Now we need to get the Super Ventura going. I am told that she cruises at 300+ knots Talk about an Oshkosh Express! 6 hours from California and no stops for fuel and 14 seats in Board room comfort, so says the sales brochure! I'm sold...

We'll stick with the Harpoon for now but after working through the learning curve on the PV-2 we're kinda jazzed to dig back into the PV-1.

[soko121]

Taigh,
any pictures of the PV-1

Simon

[Taigh Ramey]

Simon,

even though she is still registered as a PV-1 she has had so many mods that in my mind there is nothing left of the original Lockheed PV-1 in this Howard conversion. I believe that they kept it as a PV-1 as far as the registration and airworthiness is concerned simply to keep it a single pilot aircraft.



I have been through the inside of the structure and I was expecting to see where Lockheed stopped and Howard Super Ventura began but it isn't there. Everything was reworked at Dee Howard's place. Sadly she will never be a PV-1 again but she is a work of art in her own right. This aircraft represents the pinnacle of the piston powered corporate aircraft which had to succumb to the jet age. Dee Howard took a great aircraft and made it better for its new lease on life in the corporate world.

This is what she is supposed to look like and will again some day. Pretty wicked with the four blade props, spinners and 1000 more horsepower than the original PV-1/PV-2. Thanks go to Jim Babcock for the photo:



Here is an old web page about the Super Ventura with more photos:

http://www.twinbeech.com/PV-1superventuraN183PL.htm

[Taigh Ramey]

Last Friday I decided to work on a low priority project just for fun. I don't like all of the new fangled antennas on top of the Harpoon so Ricky and I removed them. Here is a shot showing the offending antennas:



There were 8 antennas on top of the old gal that just don't look right and do not belong. Antennas on WWII aircraft is one of my pet peeves and in my eyes sure can detract from a restoration especially if they are the sleek 500 knot types typically found on jets. Many of the antennas used in WWII are perfectly usable today although I have come across many folks who argue against them.

I intend to install all of the original antennas back on the PV-2 but on a priority basis. I do need a communication antenna so the forward AN-104 is the first one to go back in. The AN-104 was referred to as the ax handle as it was made out of wood but more commonly out of phenolic since it was more stable in changing temperature and humidity. The phenolic was covered with copper or iron. The copper or iron covering is the actual antenna supported by the solid phenolic core. The aircraft structure acts as a ground plane just like modern antennas. Some argue that the antenna provides poor reception on either end of the VHF range but this is not true. If you have an AN-104 that is in good shape it performs beautifully throughout the full VHF range. The engineers back then were pretty darn smart and this antenna is a good example. The AN-104 antenna was the standard used for the new VHF command sets in WWII and was a part of several radio sets like the most common SCR-522 used by the Army and the SCR-274N VHF sets used by the Navy which is what our PV-2 had.

The PV-2 actually used two of these antennas but the aft one only supported the aft end of the ADF sense wire antenna and did not radiate RF. Here is an AN-104AX antenna I had in our stock. The cool thing is that of the several I have two are US Navy contract antennas with the same exact paint that our Harpoon will wear. Navy parts on as Navy aircraft; the way it should be.



To install the antenna I had to fabricate the laminated wood block that mounted the mast to the structure.



And then cut the rough block to size



Machine to fit the contour of the antenna and test fit in the airframe



With the block done some mineral oil was used to preserve the wood



Make a template for the rubber gasket/weather seal and support plate by making a rubbing on paper. Dirty fingers come in handy for this operation



The original paint still left on the area under the original gasket and plate helps to determine the size



Fabricate the mounting straps and secure the antenna with the hardware



One Navy contract AN-104 VHF antenna back where it is supposed to be. I just have to finish the gasket and plate, install it and hook it up to the comm radio.

Now if i can get the rest of the harpoon to match this cool looking antenna!

[PJ]

Very nice!


PJ
PV-2 Harpoon "Hot Stuff"
www.amhf.org

[cco23i]

As usual Taigh, you guys do OUTSTANDING work!!!

Scott

[the330thbg]

Fine, fine job!

[cwmc]

Hey Taigh,
I didn't know you guys had a Super. Awesome ship, especially with the four bladers and spinners.
Chris...

[Dan K]

As usual Taigh, you guys do OUTSTANDING work!!!

Scott

Last Friday I decided to work on a low priority project just for fun. I don't like all of the new fangled antennas on top of the Harpoon so Ricky and I removed them. Here is a shot showing the offending antennas:

Taigh, I also heartily approve of the retro antenna project.

But honestly, for me there's something else about this pic that stands out even more than the antennae:

The non-retracting tailgear...reminds me of a businessman walking to work with his fly open.

Any chance you and your crew are looking to... umm... zip things up in the future?

[Taigh Ramey]

The non-retracting tailgear...reminds me of a businessman walking to work with his fly open.

Any chance you and your crew are looking to... umm... zip things up in the future?

Dan,

I agree it is an eye sore for sure but it is a requirement of my type rating. I have to have the training wheel fixed down until I am off of probation. I guess it's sorta like the drivers training sign on top of the car...

I wondered why the tail gear was fixed down on the tankers so I started asking around and came up with the same answer from several sources. They said that often the mud/retardant would get up in the tail gear well and mucked up the works and jam the tail gear. The result was a true taildragger. The fix was to simply secure it down and disconnect the hydraulic lines. There is a log book entry for this that said they removed the serviceable strut and replaced it with a used strut. The strut also has a piece of angle iron held against the piston rod with hose clamps. It looks like a good strut so I hope a simple overhaul and reseal will work.

Why was I playing with antennas before working on the tail gear or one of the other infinitely more important things? As I said at the beginning it was a low priority thing that I did just for fun. I will get the tail gear to retract in good time. I am going to have to jack the Harpoon up and do a full gear swing/tail gear bleed/rigging so it will take the better part of two days to finish. All in good time but until then I will likely throw in some little jobs that are a part of my personal therapy program like the antenna thing.

Today for Harpoon Friday we started troubleshooting some oil leaks in the left engine. We tightened up some loose push rod tube gland nuts before Sad Diego and it helped a little but there are still some leaks on the left engine to fix. We will be replacing some seals and some cracked cowl mounting brackets and bushings. It also feels like we have a bad spark plug on the right side so an engine run and a cold cylinder/spark plug check with the laser temp gun should let us know where the culprit is.

Last week Long Tall Glenn from Hot Stuff came by to visit. Boy it was sure Nice to talk Harpoon with him. He is a wealth of knowledge and information and I got to pick his brain for quite a while. The Hot Stuff folks certainly have been Harpooning for a long time and I am very thankful that they are willing to share their learning curve with us greenhorns. Thanks Glenn, Jenn, PJ and the rest of the Hot Stuff gang. One of the really nice things is the camaraderie between all of us PV-2 nerds. No egos visible so far just kindness and open sharing of information. Just the way it should be. Robert Kropp, Gary Hilton, Dave Hansen, the Hot Stuff gang are all a bunch of good folk and I appreciate you all letting me play in your sand box.

[TimAPNY]

Wish there were a few more out there in the air. Love them... Thanks for saving her and getting back into shape.

Tim

[Canso42]

Taigh, I'm just reading all this and doing some WIX catch up. How many D models exist today? Do you plan to install the eight gun setup? Lone Star in Galveston has a D model but it hasn't flown in a good while and got wet and yukky in Ike. Not to mention that it was targeted by Ol' 740 the Catalina when it floated in the flood. Seems like it has a tricolor paint scheme but I haven't looked closely at it in a long time. I don't know any of its history but I do know that eight-gun D models were pretty rare to start with.
I think I have a couple of pix of it somewhere but I don't do well posting pix here. Electrons are not my friends.

Add my "Well Done" to the list.
blue skies

Doug Ratchford, aka Canso42
LSFM crew dawg.

[Taigh Ramey]

Hey Doug,

I'm sure Gary has better numbers that I but by my count there are 7 surviving D models which is a pretty high percentage. 35 built and 7 surviving is 20%. Your D at Lonestar and the one at Tillamook are the next ones closest to flying I suppose.

I am guessing that there are so many surviving D's because they were likely the newest and the lowest time Harpoons available when they were sold surplus. Similar to all of the surviving warbirds. If you had a choice to buy a war weary bird with cool history or a brand new one that was just flown in from the factory which one would you have picked back after WWII? Silly question as you and I would probably have picked the one with the most colorful history instead of the boring new one. If I could I would pick the historic bird and the new one for spare parts! I think this is why there are so few Warbirds with combat history that survive today.

Yes we most certainly are going to put all 8 50's back in the nose along with the ammo boxes, feed chutes, chargers etc. It ain't gonna be cheap though as replica 50's are $1000 to $1200 each these days for the aluminum ones. That's out of reach for our financially strapped museum as we are still collecting donations for the paint. I suspect we will have some cooling jackets sticking through the gun ports until we can afford the full 50's. Carl Scholl at Aerotrader has one of the cool stainless steel link and spent case ejection chutes, about a 7 inch square part, that we need for $450 so that is on the want list too. It's only money right?

I'd love to see what your Harpoon looks like on the inside. Any chance of some interior photos sometime?

This weekend was a good one for our Harpoon. A kind gentleman drove up and dropped off an air flask for the Mark 13 aircraft torpedo. The air flask is the center section of the torpedo or the middle third. It looks like it is in good shape too. Now all we need are the nose and tail. Anyone know where any torpedo parts or complete torpedos are? Here is our start:



This thing could be mistaken for a hot water heater which I suppose it kinda was...



The cool cart was picked up a number of years ago and is a WWII Navy bomb and torpedo dolly. I found it in a lady's back yard and it was being used as a planter. Looks good with a Mk 13 Mod 2A air flask on it. It will look even better with some restoration attention and a full torpedo.

[Second Air Force]

I just love that little "Cletrac" trailer! You have saved some of the coolest ground equipment money can buy.