TEXAS RAIDERS- First Flight in Seven Years- Oct. 14, 2009

[airnutz]

You should have cracked all the windows open and let the humid out..For about 2 or 3 hours I shut off
the AC in the truck with the windows down and enjoyed the cool. After that, the sun came back
and brought Houston humid with it...

[SPANNERmkV]

Scott,

He!! this is better than hanging by the pool OR spending all night at The ONYX club with Gary and da lubbly ladies!

Note that left brake assembley up on dunnage.

Thanks for posting the deluge photo. I will show it at the Wing Mtg. on Saturday and see if I can talk some people into getting parts off the floor.

[Second Air Force]

Since there were no floods today things went a little smoother. Hotter, but smoother. There are two stringers on the left aft wing that support the trailing edge skin that need replacement, so I've been conjuring up a method to replace them without disassembling the entire aft wing. This first one isn't hard to access--it's on the trailing edge just above where the flap normally rests when retracted. The problem is that Boeing didn't design the stringers to be removed, and there is a three foot section missing. The first photo is of the skin joint that the removed stringer attaches to:


Here is a little overview of the general area that needs attention. Someone removed the discrepant stringer sometime before I got involved, and I'm not sure how he got it out without cutting it into sections.

The missing stringer goes through three bays.

An interesting aspect of working on this airplane is the use of production splices on stringers, longerons, etc throughout the machine. This splice is located just outboard of the area I'm working in, and it is quite the example of haste on the assembly line. It's strong, but it's also ugly:

These are scattered throughout the wing and fuselage wherever a splice was needed. I am used to being around Boeing products of modern construction that have neat, well made structural components, and when I stumble on things like this I have to remember how hard the production lines worked to crank warplanes out for the boys overseas.

Alan, if you would like to come down again here is the little job I would LOVE to give you (or any other unsuspecting soul):


This little section of stringer is buried just behind the intercooler vent ports aft of #2. You can see the vents forward of the corroded stringer. I decided to learn as I go on the trailing edge stringer so I have a little experience for this one. It is going to be a bear to work for an old fossil like me.

Scott

Last edited by Second Air Force on Thu Jun 12, 2008 5:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Matt Gunsch]

[quote="Second Air Force"]Matt,
Did SJ still have the support structure in the upper fuselage for the turret ring when you installed the new turret? If not, I'd like to pick your brain--TR has none of the original structure up there and it's going to have to be scratchbuilt. Another question that's I've always wanted to ask: where did the tinted center pane in SJ's turret come from?

I don't remember any of the structure being in there, I believe all the structure came from the Milwakee, OR B-17. Before we put the turret in, SJ was reskinned from the cockpit back.

The reason for the tint is simple, it is HOT in az, the tint helps on the temps in the plane.

[retroaviation]

Scott,

He!! this is better than hanging by the pool OR spending all night at The ONYX club with Gary and da lubbly ladies!

Don't be starting no rumors!

Gary

[Second Air Force]

Thanks, Matt.

I saw the new skin in your photos and suspected you had to do lots of rework. Now if we could just find another B-17 sitting around as a donor we'd be in business with TR! I have a copy of an old Arizona Wing newsletter or magazine article that documented the turret installation at home--I'll dig it out when I get back up there.

Gary,
Since I've adopted your "B-24 hours" of going to work at two in the morning I'm sleeping when the Onyx is open for business, so I don't know nuthin'. I do know why you prefer getting your twelve hours-a-day of work in early, though---you never have to close the doors or shut down the hangar!

Going to work to start on the "Austin stringer" now,

Scott

[SPANNERmkV]

Phenomonal...
I checked up on El Segundo Aero Fuerza at lunch time and he was already clico-ing in the T-stringer and doubler patches on our Left Wing "Hicky"...
I'll save the pictures for his post, maybe because they will have to come from his camera...

Scott is saving the "in the wing" stringer for Just call me "Al"...
and our QC Team is saving the paperwork for Stephie.

I love it when a plane comes together.

[Second Air Force]

Here is a little "in progress" update on my adventure in the left wing trailing edge. I showed you how the damaged stringer passed through three bays of the wing structure. Since there is no way to install the entire repair stringer in one piece due to the Boeing design, I studied the B-17 Structural Repair Manual and Tech Orders for help. I'll be using a standard splice from the manual. The stringer had to be sectioned in order to get the parts into the wing, and the splices will tie everything together exactly as Boeing intended. Fabricating all the parts takes most of the time, after sitting and thinking about the plan first. Here is a photo of most of the pieces that I had just finished alodining in preparation for a coat of primer. Tomorrow morning I plan to rivet this together so I can get to the ugly one further up inside the bowels of the wing.


Scott

[Matt Gunsch]

Thanks, Matt.

I saw the new skin in your photos and suspected you had to do lots of rework. Now if we could just find another B-17 sitting around as a donor we'd be in business with TR! I have a copy of an old Arizona Wing newsletter or magazine article that documented the turret installation at home--I'll dig it out when I get back up there.

The Az wing mag has pics taken from the right wing when the turret was being installed, I was on the left wing. I might have some photos around here that show the reskinning. There was alot going on at that time, all the inside paint was stripped, all the fuselage was rewired, plus the sheetmetal, new tail turret. When it was rewired, all the fuses were removed and replaced with breakers, the turrets were on key switches, and the main gear could be lowered seperatly to do the Tora act.

[Alan Brooks]

Scott, found a few pictures to help out on the top turret structure question..... pics from another B-17 being rebuilt..... the Urbana Project. Look at the photo gallery from 2008, March, then about halfway down the page are two views of the top turret structure.
http://www.b17project.com/

Scott, you can also view the top turret structure from above using the websites webcam, station 3, high..... It is not a great view at night, but should be a little better during daytime hours....... Alan

[Second Air Force]

Alan,
Thanks for the link to the Urbana project. The photos and webcam can't really show the total scope of the structural modifications that need to be done, but they help. Those guys definitely have a bigger task in front of them than the GCW!

A little update since I overslept this morning:
The trailing edge stringer is finished and primed. No more unsightly gap in the skin lap:

And a shot of the stringer itself with a flap support tube just in front of it:


I removed the corroded stringer that Gary wrote up on his visit, and it has severe intergranular corrosion:


Here is the worst section after sectioning it to remove it from the wing:


And here is how the corrosion works itself from the inside out of an extrusion--notice how the aluminum around the rivet hole is delaminating:


I don't know if this particular stringer didn't get a proper heat treating or why it did what it did, but the corrosion was thankfully limited to the section I removed. The skins riveted to it are fine, and the new stringer section and attaching doublers will be fabricated sometime this weekend.

An interesting bit of trivia about the trailing edge construction of the B-17 is that it is skinned with .025 thick aluminum sheet. It wouldn't be all that difficult to poke a pocket knife through it. Everything aft of the aft spar is simply a fairing to complete the aerodynamic shape of the wing and as a flap support structure. That is the reason you see the "No Step" lines painted on some B-17 upper wings--if you walk around aft of the main wingbox you could do some serious damage.

Scott

Last edited by Second Air Force on Sat Jun 14, 2008 7:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[retroaviation]

...An interesting bit of trivia about the trailing edge construction of the B-17 is that it is skinned with .025 thick aluminum sheet. It wouldn't be all that difficult to poke a pocket knife through it. Everything aft of the aft spar is simply a fairing to complete the aerodynamic shape of the wing and as a flap support structure. That is the reason you see the "No Step" lines painted on some B-17 upper wings--if you walk around aft of the main wingbox you could do some serious damage.

SCott

Same thing on the big ol' B-29, only everything aft of the rear spar is .020". Like you said, it's just a big ol' fairing.

Gary

[Second Air Force]

I wonder if the B-29 was the first production airplane to use .020 sheet instead of .016 and .025. I looked at the B-17 SRM again today, and the .025 was used in the area I'm working in. Inboard on the main wing panel was .040, and the outer wing used .016 in the aft area. The '29 pioneered a lot of the construction methods Boeing has used ever since, and it wouldn't surprise me if the .020 was introduced on the Superfort.

Here are a couple of photos of the new parts I'm fabricating for the corroded stringer:



And Alan, I know how it feels to have your torso stuck in that %!$(%@ aft wing!!


For those of you who would like the "glamour" of Wing Leader status, here is Spanner preparing a motor mount for a new coat of paint on a ninety-something degree afternoon:

And the intricate masking job he did prior to painting:


Enough for one day,
Scott

[Second Air Force]

Here are a couple of photos I took this morning just before I headed back home. Spanner got the engine mount painted Saturday evening and it looks excellent:


Some of you may wonder why he didn't just pull the mount off the engine in order to paint it, rather than doing all that work masking. The B-17 cowl flap actuating mechanism has linkage connected to hinge points all around the engine mount. It would take a goodly number of hours to completely disassemble the linkages, aft baffles, motor mounts, and other items fastened to the basket, and since it simply needed to be cleaned and painted, this was the simpler way.

Now it's back to reality and working on a flying corrosion heap instead of a Boeing product. At least it's got CF6 engines.
Scott

[SPANNERmkV]

Glamorous Wing Leader's Position?
Yeah... I'm in it for the Babes!

I think my maintenance crew would have strung me up if I removed the frame for painting.
The reason for doing this at ALL was a couple of large surface rust patches showing through the old paint on a couple of tubes. If they were showing through, there was a good chance the others tubes were going to have "issues"...
I will try and get some pics of the un-masked engine. I am hoping the OD Green makes the heatshield and the engine "pop-out" visually.
Ya know... Like... does this 1820 make my Bomber look Phat?

SECOND AIR FORCE... Gulf Coast Wing salutes you!
That was some much needed Dirty Work Done Dirt Cheap you did this week just past.

Work break.