Warbird Information Exchange

To be honest, I hope that they don't do that. I sayy restore her and park her in the museum. If this is done, you are going to start dealing with oil leaks, clean up, and not only that, but the museum has a no fuel in the tank system. I prefer her to be static. The engine run prior to movement in would be cool, but even the taxi stuff is more then needed. Besides the fuel alone would cost a ton.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Besides as she sits now, the last pilot to operater her is Robert Morgan, the way it should be.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

If they stick with the original plan, they will only operate the Belle on special occasions just like the Chaplin Museum had operated their ultra rare Focke Wulf FW-190D-13 Bucher Bird where they would tug it out of the hanger, do an engine runup outside then return it to the hanger. Course they no longer have this German fighter since they sold it. The engines on the Belle would only be run up for approximately 5 minutes then shut down. It would not take a whole lot of avgas to run the engines that long. In fact, they will likely run the engines until the fuel tanks run dry. Oil leaks would not be too much of a problem if they only run up the engines occasionally. Besides, almost every radial engined aircraft in the entire museum leaks oil regardless if you run them or not. I seriously doubt if they will taxi her any more than one time if at all.

I heard they do plan to make the Memphis Belle appear exactly like it did when it first arrived in England back in 1942. At least thats what the General told our Restoration Staff and that it was Robert Morgan's wish that it appear just like it was back then. The tail section has been bead blasted down to bare metal inside and out. The interior will remain as bare metal, which is the way it had appeared originally from the factory. The tail section looks much better now with all the OD interior paint stripped away. Won't be too much longer and they will start bead blasting the interior of the forward fuselage.

Jim

Thanks for the info man. Great stuff. It is amazing how rough she was.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

To bad Robert Morgan didn't live long enough to see her go into restoration at Dayton. I would think that would have made him very happy...

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

I believe that he was aware that it was going to be moved, but I am not sure.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Kind of ironic, because Colonel Morgan didn't have a lot of faith in the Studebakers. There's mention in his book where his crew chief knew Morgan didn't like them, so he made sure that the Belle never had any.

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"Anyway, the throat feels a bit rough...the legs have gone...but I'm still able to chant, so let's get going."

Joe Strummer, 1999

Yeah, I am sure that it got those in it's training days. I think that the engines that are going back on the Belle are Pratts.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

As far as I am aware of, Pratt and Whitney never made an 1820

Steve

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"Any excuse is good enough if you're willing to use it!"

Sorry I was thinkging of the engines at work. My bad.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

It world not surprise me if they did, until recently I was not aware that the B-17 had three different manufacturers: Boeing, Douglas and Lockheed-Vega

Steve

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"Any excuse is good enough if you're willing to use it!"

Here is a fun fact, most of the remaining B-17's are not Boeing built. There are only a few left. Most of them are Douglas or vega built.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Well What do you know?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
The R-1820 Cyclone 9 represented a further development of the Wright P-2 engine dating back to 1925. Featuring a greater displacement and a host of improvements, the R-1820 entered production in 1931. The engine remained in production well into the 1950s.

The R-1820 was built under license by Lycoming, Pratt & Whitney Canada and also, during World War II, by the Studebaker Corporation. The Soviet Union had purchased a license for the design, designated M-25, and the Shvetsov OKB was formed to further develop the engine.

The R-1820 was at the heart of many famous aircraft including B-17 Flying Fortress and SBD Dauntless bombers, the early versions of the Polikarpov I-16 fighter (as M-25), and the Piasecki H-21 helicopter.

The R-1820 also found limited use in armored vehicles in two forms. The G-200 was a 9-cylinder gas-burning radial that developed 900 hp @ 2,300 rpm and powered the M6 Heavy Tank. The Wright RD-1820 was converted to a diesel by Caterpillar Inc. as the D-200 and produced 450 hp @ 2,000 rpm in the M4A6 Sherman.

Steve

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"Any excuse is good enough if you're willing to use it!"

O.K. so I guess I did hear that right. I thought that it had either pratts or Wright built ones originally.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

The original engines when the Belle was first delivered to the USAAC in 1941 were actually Lycoming built engines. Finding four Lycoming R-1820 engines capable of being reconditioned back to zero time today would be like finding a needle in a haystack. The Lycoming Museum in Pennsylvania has an example of their R-1820-97, but they are not about to part with it for obvious reasons. Besides, Lycoming is kinda upset at us for not locating their rare 5,000 horsepower 36-cylinder Lycoming XR-7755 water cooled radial engine that was intended for use in the B-36 Peacekeeper bomber. An example of this 7755 cubic inch monster engine was tested in the Propulsion Lab at Wright Field back in 1946. Last I heard, the Propulsion Lab guys had dumped this rare engine in a field on base and had burried it there after its testing program was completed. So far its not turned up anywhere. There are only two other examples of the XR-7755 that are known to exist. Both belong to the NASM in Washington DC.

The Lycoming R-1820 engines that do exist are more likely too far gone to be reconditioned back to zero time. I'll recheck those zero time engines we have the next time I'm over in Restoration this week. I'm 80 percent sure the data plates on them said they are Studebakers, but I'll check again just to be sure.

Jim