Warbird Information Exchange

In the second shot it looks like it has gear doors....PV-1?
Just a guess
Dave
PV-2 "AW"

I believe you are right Dave....Gotta be a Vent.....tunnel position, early type verticle fin...only thing that throws me, is the engine cowls...

I think it's because the cowl flaps are wide open...looks like the cowl is shorter than it really is
Dave
PV-2 "AW"
PS: We are still going to try and make it to Nellis...if weather holds

Great Dave! Wish I could be there! I was going to ask if y'all were going to cycle the gear on AW a few times....Tunnel guns????? I have no pictures!!!

Thought I was going to get down to Texarkana, but boss says go to Detroit...bummer.

I think what might be being witnessed by Col. Winder is perhaps the arrival or departure of Admiral Thierry d' Argenlieu.

Researching French Venturas a little, appearantly Flottille 6F is the only unit that used a small number of PV-1s. In post war usage the aircraft served as Liason. The pictures are believed to have been taken shortly after the end of the war in French Indo-China. Admiral Thierry d' Argenlieu was given command of this area just after the war until 1947.

My guess is that one of the people in the pictures depicted is him. Might even be possible eventualy to determine the likely BuNo of the aircraft in the pictures

Shay
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Semper Fortis

Shay....I did mean to ask where you came across the pics....The French did have some PV-2's as well, but I'm not sure what years they operated them...I am pretty sure that most of the -2s went to Portugal and maybe some to Italy...

By the way....should have some Lodestar pics in a day or so!

Yes I admit to being a neophyte with regards to the HUDTURAPOON platform. So I will stand by the insight of the more informed.

The pictures are my Wife's Great Grandfather's. He was USMC and was all over the Pacific at many of the main conflicts. After the war, being a lawyer, he was involved with the Japanese War Crimes tribunal.

Ironically I was researching the Col. about a year ago and came across an old ebay sale where the person was selling his pictures. It's unkown how the pictures got release to the world but the seller was gracious to give the remainder of them to us which included alot of personal family photos.

With even more irony I just dicovered another expired ebay sale for more of the Col.'s pictures. So my quest continues.

Shay
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Semper Fortis

My son and I managed to spend a couple of hours working on the Lodestar today....We didn't get very much accomplished, as we had no power tools with us. We did manage to keep from getting stung while removing the hornets from the verticle fins though....

We ran into a vast amount of rusted screws on the rudder, fins, elevator and horiz. stab...and fear that most will end up having to be drilled out.

Did some additional work getting the flaps disassembled. Tried to get them to drop completely down, by disconnecting the hydrolic lines to the flap actuator, but no joy....believe they have been setting in one position for way too long....

Will post a few pics later.

Here's a few pics from Friday....Sorry, but this new format isn't letting post but one pic at a time
Gary

Didn't think I was going to make it down to Texarkana, but my son had to attend to business in Oklahoma on Saturday, so he met me in Tulsa Thursday nite, and we proceeded to Ark. He just wanted the free beer and hotel pool....



Mike is removing the metal cross-brace in the rear fuselage, to get to the rudder and trim turnbuckles.

Just a few seconds after this picture was taken, Mike left the area with about 50 lbs of boost pressure as the hornets started looking for who was banging on their home (rudder)....The fat man was happy that he was a distance away....but didn't bother to hang around either...thus , no pics of the sprinter!

Don't know how that happened, but I screwed up...last pic is the Realto, Ca PV-2....Lets try that again....

We could have done a little damage if we'd of had some power tools....Got a start on the removal of the rudders and verticle fins.....Disconnected the hydrolic system to try and drop the flaps more than what they are, but they have been like that for some time and are frozen for the moment...There are a lot of similarities between the Lodestar and the Poon, but even more differences....but we are figuring them out....I drained a couple of spray cans of nut-buster on the rusty bolts, hope that it will seep in and make life a little easier next visit!

P.S. Nut-buster works real good on hornets and other tree huggers!











Gary

Sweet Jiblets!! I totally missed these updates. Good Onya Gary and crew!!

Shay
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Semper Fortis

Made it back to Texarkana Friday evening....A fellow PV-2 and L-18 owner, flew out in his really cool Cessna 195, to give me a hand, and clue me in on some valuable info on parts removal on the Lodestars...

It is really interesting to compare the differences between the L-18 and PV-2....One thing that I have found....rusted and striped out bolts are almost identical on either aircraft! A real S.O.B.!!! Another Hilton discovery....I have been Poon bit, and now Lode-bit....and I bleed the same color blood from either beast!

This time, I have power tools! The knocker has been very busy on the crusty bolts....about 30% strip out even using the air hammer...and those old stainles bolts are heck on drill bits....

The rudder/verticle fin on the Lodestar is the same as what is on the PV-1....There is a major difference between them and the Harpoon set-up....The shape is noticably different, and the earlier Lockheeds have a two piece rudder. The lower 1/3 of the rudder is removed first....There are also two trim tabs on the L-18 rudder....the lower tab is spring loaded, not manually adjustable, where the upper tab is cockpit adjustable. Lockheed has a peculiar manor of hiding bolts and I can't imagine how in the world a person was able to safety wire these hidden nuts and bolts!!

Anyway, Aubie and I managed to pull both the lower rudders off today, before he and his son had to head back home.
For the rest of the day I hammered on the bolts on the tail section....Thats the plan of action...to get the tail feathers off, remove the flaps, and then pull the wings....but not just on my L-18...The other that is setting next to mine is getting the same treatment....The tail is already off this bird...flaps are almost ready to pull on it.

I removed all the bolts I could, until I broke my last #2 phillips bit, then moved on to the flaps....There are 5 flap tracks (like the PV-2) for the fowler flaps on the L-18....on each wing....Each track has a wire and pulley set-up that will be a nightmare to re-assemble....takin' apart is easy...At the end of each track toward the trailing edge, there are two stoppers to block the rollers at the end of travel....then you have to remove the cables from the rollers, then the flap is (supposed to be) ready to remove....Unlike the Harpoon, the L-18 has no emergency hydrolic hand pump to manually drop or raise the flaps...The L-18's flaps were partially opened, so as advised, I disconnected the hydrolic lines to the actuator for the flaps, in hopes that it would relieve pressure, and allow the flaps to fully deploy.....no dice...And after disconnecting all the cables on one side, it still won't drop....I can get it to manually raise up about 8", and they will only drop back down where they were before....I guess they have been in the same position too long....Oh well...there's always tomorrow....

Will try to get more here tomorrow, along with a few pictures.