Worlds only USMC Mitchell PBJ-1J Restoration CAF's Semper Fi

Dan Newcomb · **Posted:** Thu Mar 15, 2007 9:56 pm

One more thing and then I’m done for the night.

On May 5th our wing is having a special event involving an unveiling of a huge war bird painting that will hang in our museum. Our Zeke and Chino’s P-40 Warhawk along with our C-46 China Doll will be involved. This is a fundraiser so expect a fee (donation) non profit ya know. As soon as I get more info I will pass it along. I would love to see a three ship fly by!

Dan

Dan Newcomb · **Posted:** Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:01 pm

I have been flying since 1975 and in all that time I had never experienced a bird strike until Saturday. I was in the rear seat of Marc’s T-34 which was lead with Jason Somes’ T-6 echelon left for a formation take off. We took off to the west and just as we started to turn to the north, I felt a slight thump as a large mass of something shot past the canopy. For an instant I wasn’t sure what had happened. I heard a voice in my headset say “bird strike” and then it registered in my brain. Jason had a bird’s eye view of the entire incident. Pun intended. We left the pattern and had Jason look us over for damage. The plane seemed fine and the engine never skipped a beat. All we could see was a couple of splatters on the canopy. When we got on the ground we could see where the bird had hit the prop but other than a grease spot and mashed feathers there was no damage. Jason thought that the whole thing was about the coolest thing he had seen in some time. He described the explosion of the bird as massive. I guess visually it looked a hell of a lot worse then it was. I was just damned glad that my first bird strike was in a single engine aircraft. That beautiful three bladed prop kept that bird from possibly flying formation with our heads.

Dan

Dan Newcomb · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:58 pm

Work continues on the right wing. Scott (day job flying 744s) spent the day bucking rivets for me. Marc spent the day driving one of Untidies 77s from IAD to LAX but we pressed on without him. Our plans are to re-hang the right gear in a few weeks. The firewall is finished and I hope to show you pictures of the lower skins going up on the wing in a couple of weeks. I wish we could work on this thing 40 hours a week, then you would see real progress!

Warbird Kid · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:28 pm

Lookin Good Dan!!!

Keep it up!

Alan Brooks · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2007 11:01 am

Hey Dan, the work looks great....... I don't know for sure, but this may qualify as the most ground up restoration of a B-25 yet......... Keep the updates coming...... Alan

Dan Newcomb · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2007 11:24 am

Alan Brooks wrote:

Hey Dan, the work looks great....... I don't know for sure, but this may qualify as the most ground up restoration of a B-25 yet......... Keep the updates coming...... Alan

I'll bet you're right Alan! Most of the top fuselage from the wings aft is new. If we had any sense years ago we probably would have never accepted her. But most of the scary stuff is done.
Dan

Dan Newcomb · **Posted:** Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:56 pm

If the Tejon Pass is open tomorrow I will run down to CMA to work on the bird. I will post in a couple of days. Meanwhile check this out from fellow member Eric. All work and no play makes Dan a dull boy! I'm the fat guy in the Hawaiian shirt holding, what else, a brew!

http://www.vg-photo.com/articles/31707.html

rwdfresno · **Posted:** Mon Mar 26, 2007 4:29 pm

Quote:

Hey Dan, the work looks great....... I don't know for sure, but this may qualify as the most ground up restoration of a B-25 yet......... Keep the updates coming...... Alan

How 'Boot That may have the record. I think the entire main spar was rebuilt. Regardless, this PBJ is getting first rate attention. I remember seeing it when it first arrived and at that time I don't think they realized just how far they were going to have to take the aircraft down, but they certainly are doing it the right way.

Dan Newcomb · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2007 12:54 pm

Rain, sleet, snow, and high winds. I got it all yesterday during my round trip from BFL to CMA. It was cold and windy all day as Ken, Jeff, Scott, Roger and yours truly worked away on the PBJ.

The lower wing attach angle is up and in the process of being bolted and riveted into place. Most of what we did yesterday was in hard to get at areas that have to be dealt with before we can shoot the lower hat channel. It was slow going but necessary. As we all know this is like one giant puzzle and we have to be careful that we don’t close our selves out too soon.

On another note C-46 China Doll ran her engines up and all is well for her air show appearance in Riverside this weekend.

Well by now Scottie is somewhere flying his 744 over the Pacific on his way around the world once again. It’s always fun working with him and this month he was able to come out two weeks in a row, which is rare.
Dan
Scott and the wing attach angle

Good to have her back from her visit at HQ!

Our Hellcat

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2007 1:03 pm

Awsome pics.

vg-photo · **Posted:** Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:13 am

Here is the evidence of that bird strike, Dan. It looks like the prop blade chopped it in 2.

Front of the blade

Back of the blade

Bird bits

Dave Fish · **Posted:** Fri Mar 30, 2007 12:46 pm

That will teach the son-of-a-bitch bird not to get in the way!

Dan Newcomb · **Posted:** Fri Mar 30, 2007 5:12 pm

You should have seen it when it went by the canopy!

Eric Friedebach · **Posted:** Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:40 pm

I saw the results of bird that went into a 114 cowling – put a good dent in a pushrod on an engine that had all of 25 hours SMOH. To add insult to injury, seagull guts cooking on hot cylinders smells awful.

Thanks for the restoration updates!

Dan Newcomb · **Posted:** Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:49 pm

We had a great day yesterday! We banged a lot of rivets and drove the guys crazy but it is the sound of progress. We put the forward lower skin panel in place and will start shooting it in a few days. I love putting big parts on airplanes! While removing a skin from the right inboard flap we found August 1944 stamped on the inside. Working on old airplanes is like finding buried treasure sometimes. I have also included a couple of shots of our fabric guys.

Warbird Information Exchange

Worlds only USMC Mitchell PBJ-1J Restoration CAF's Semper Fi

Who is online