Warbird Information Exchange

Here’s write up on Mr. Awesome on AAFO.com from a few years ago http://www.aafo.com/racing/news/rheat.htm
And is current status for sale in Trade-A-Plane http://www.trade-a-plane.com/classified ... template=1

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Jason Schillereff

What's the story on the Boeing F4B? Is it the Morell replica?

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http://www.biplanerides1.com/

Brandon,
You forgot "Paint it silver and hang the gear". I thought that was pretty funny.
I'm glad they were able to align the cockpit and the beam. If you look close you can see all the dents in the beam from everyones head hitting it. Now that end of the hangar has been removed and doesn't exist anymore.
Rich

Brandon & Rich....

Mind sharing some of the endless fun U guys seemed to had with the P38 restoration ?

Only the PG13 content of course & of course if you fell like it.

Tks

"Endless fun" and "P-38 restoration" just don't go together.
Brandon and I have both worked for Steve Hinton at Fighter Rebuilders.
I worked on Stephen Grey's P-38 for more than 2 years. Part of the things damaged on it when it was brought into our shop was the nose gear had been busted off which included damage to both Nose gear pivot attach structure. The bulkhead that this structure attached to also had been damaged as a cable sliced through the sheetmetal. It took some head scratching to figure out repairs and maintain alignment of things. I had test fitted the nose gear. We had machined a new trunion from a 4130 billet as well. The final fitting showed that the nose wheel just wasn't aimed straight and also the up lock wasn't hitting perfect. The nose strut had been overhauled by someone else and I discovered there was some chunks of rust left in the upper chamber. A few chunks drifted down and prevented the strut from fully extending. The Nose strut had an internal cam arrangement that centered the nose wheel when the strut fully extended so that everything would fit in the wheel well.
This required a bit of extra work to re-overhaul the nose gear and get rid of the rust chunks. Then I test fit the parts again.
Steve had left town to do some movie work. He left me instructions to "Paint the gear silver and hang it" by the time he returned.
I knew I would miss this deadline. I found a 6" dia gear from a P-38 crash. With a spray can I painted it silver and hung it with safety wire under the nose.
Rich
Rich

I hope you have both the pics of the bent painted gear hung under the 38 & Steve's face when he saw this

I only meet Mr Hinton once & what a nice gent he his......however this does not tell me what his reaction as a boss must have been

Tks for sharing.

Thanks Jason,
Now if only I could come up with 225,000! That's a neat story, it's amazing some of the stories behind the racers.

Yes that's it.

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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I've done a small amount of work to Mr. Awesome (the hot rod Yak 11), but not too much. Jack Frost has done quite a few improvements to the airplane since he's had it, but has obviously given up on getting it finished. It's my opinion that no matter how much horsepower you put on it, that flat bottomed Yak wing just isn't the right wing for racing. You can only make a cinder block go so fast.

Gary