Warbird Information Exchange

A-1 Skyraiders are how easy to restore to flight and keep maintained?

How many are left unrestored but can be reflown with some restoring work?

Are their any currently in rebuild to fly?

if you want a vietnam type...Its a military combat aircraft---bring many wheelbarrows full of money and elbow grease....I know first hand, I helped Jay Cullum clean his once!

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P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.

S: Took hammer away from midget.

Just my humble opinion...

I've never heard a pilot bad-mouth a Skyraider, most can't say enough good things about the them. They are obviously a great airplane to fly.

But, in my experience they are not a mechanics airplane. Everything is big, heavy and DIRTY. And probably only reachable from a tall step ladder. More like working on a single engine prop-liner than an aerobatic aircraft. You can have all the cowling off a Mustang by yourself in a few minutes. Try that with an AD; better have your Tyvek suit on or you'll be filthy by the time you're done. And yes, I know they have that neat hinged split cowl that opens up for easy access. You've just got to watch out for the black rain that falls after it's opened

Keep in mind that this is was a pretty high tech aircraft in '45, so has a more complicated hyd. system than some other contemporary aircraft. Very similiar to the Corsair in that respect.

And there are some parts issues with the AD as there are no businesses specialising in parts for them like Pioneer for the Mustang or Lance for the T-6. The stuff is out there, just a little tougher and time-consuming to find.

Again, a great aircraft; I wouldn't trade the time I've spent working on them for anything. There just not as easy a restoration as a Mustang or T-6.

Oh yeah, for a good run-down of the remaining Skyraiders and projects underway check your back issues of Warbird Digest. They ran a two part series about them last year.

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Hal B wrote:


Wrong! Totally depends on the airplane and how it's maintained. My airplane is a clean as any round engine airplane you can find. It was just as you describe, when I first got it. It's not cheap to get them clean and dry, but it's not too bad to keep it that way once you get it set up. As for working on it, B4 stand is a must, and the shop has to be set up for it, correct tools different lighting etc. But once again, once you get it all set up, not bad at all. There is nothing you can't fix on the Spad with a huge pile of O rings and a huge pile of cash.

Check out Danny Summer's AD5 as well, it's very clean also.

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Eric

"I spent most of my money on alcohol, women and skyraiders....and the rest of it I just wasted."

Yup. What Eric said. And ol' "Dirty Three Filthy" can indeed be made to run quite clean. Besides, you don't have to adjust the valves every 25 hours and retorque the heads on an AD and you don't have to worry about coolant leaks like you do on a Mustang.

Gary

I knew my comments would get Eric's attention

The engine in ours was a real oil pumper, even with lots of new cyls. and o-rings. The new engine will help the "filth" problem. At least the oil; there's not much you can do about the black soot down the side of the aircraft after a flight.

And Gary, I'd rather run the racks on a couple of Merlins than change a couple of cylinders on a 3350

As I kind of hinted in my first post; my experience with an AD has not been all that much fun, (try changing 60+ cylinders to get 18 good ones)but still worthwhile.

Again, this has just been my experience, and YMMV...

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"They can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that"

http://www.heritageflight.org
http://www.bravo369.org

Bob Watts did a formation at Oshgosh a few years ago with his million $$ T-28B N313WB. He was in trail behind "Naked Fanny" and though it odd to be raining I'm told that after he landed and saw his a/c covered with black gold his tortured screams could be heard miles away

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Don't touch my junk!!

Hal B wrote:



WTF? 60 cylinders? When you get the new engine in, call me and I'll tell you how to get rid of the soot on the airframe. Really simple, but to complicated to go over in the forum.

60 cylinders? I say again, WTF?

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Eric

"I spent most of my money on alcohol, women and skyraiders....and the rest of it I just wasted."

HOW MANY SPARK PLUGS???

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"There are two types of people here; airshow whores and airshow prostitutes. The whores, like you and I, do airshow stuff for free, whereas the prostitutes are paid" - Reg Urschler

Yeah, I don't want to change another jug for a long time...

Lets just say problems with the rebuilt cylinders and leave it at that.
Had troubles with the rockers they installed; and many stuck valves from keywrap in the guides and insufficient valve/guide clearance.

Changed rebuilders and the top end problems went away... Until the bottom end let go

_________________
"They can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that"

http://www.heritageflight.org
http://www.bravo369.org

For my future reference, I'd really be interested to know who your cylinder rebuilder was. Feel free to PM or E-mail me if you'd rather not post it on the forum.

Gary

Gary wrote:


Me too. I'd like to avoid that problem. What happened to the poorly overhaul cyls? They would probably make great cores.

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Eric

"I spent most of my money on alcohol, women and skyraiders....and the rest of it I just wasted."