I believe that this canopy came from Palley’s Supply many years ago (probably close to 30 years ago anyway). Palley’s was a surplus outfit that had a lot of WWII aircraft gear. I used to get a lot of cool stuff from them and they offered me a job identifying aircraft parts as they wanted to auction it all off. In the mix they had probably a half a dozen or more of SB2C-5 Helldiver canopies, windscreens, gear legs, cowling and lots of other parts to different Warbirds. The canopies were beautiful just covered with dust. I picked up a windscreen which was also new old stock and even had the paper masking from when it was painted. I remember scrounging through the different ones to find the bullet resistant glass that mounted inside the frame. I still have that windscreen and a right accessory cowl panel with all of the different colors of the three tone paint scheme still on it.
I think Carl Scholl picked up several of the canopies at the auction and I would bet if you looked far enough back that the one on eBay came through him.
I also found three upper noses from a B-25H at Palley’s and I called Lou Fulgaro at the Weary Warriors to ask him if he needed one for their H model. He thought I was some crazy kid from left field, which I was, but I eventually convinced him that what I had was for real. I always have to smile when I look at Barbie III to see that upper nose back where she belongs.
Palley’s also had a mountain of K-3 and K-4 gun sights for Sperry upper and ball turrets. They were packaged for overseas shipment and had come back from the European theatre for repair. Each of the sights had fuselage buzz codes painted on them as they were calibrated for each specific turret and were not interchangeable without re calibrating and bore sighting. I still have one of those sights marked with PE*K. I was told that it may have been for a B-17G 42-97717 of the 482nd BG 813 Squadron at Alconbury but I have never confirmed this.
Ah, the good old days when WWII aircraft parts were all over the place.
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Taigh Ramey
Vintage Aircraft, Stockton, California
http://www.twinbeech.com'KEEP ‘EM FLYING…FOR HISTORY!'
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