Warbird Information Exchange

Hello all,

Does anyone have pictures or information on the present status of the restoration/preservation of the He.219 wings at the Garber Facility. The display at Udvar Hazy now includes one of the engines and the cowl.

Does anyone know when the wings and fuselage will be together again?

Kevin

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Kevin McCartney

Kevin,

A quick search did not turn up anything in regards to the completion of the Uhu, other than this Washington Post article which contains a brief mention

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03117.html

A conservation laboratory will house the research team that's developing special preservation strategies for the artifacts. Now, they are working on the camouflage colors used on a Heinkel He 219, a German night fighter plane from World War II.

M.

Restorations at Garber seemed to have slowed down quite a bit. I wonder how big of a staff they have compared to the restoration staff at the NMUSAF.

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

Pat,

I would imagine with the donation in the afforementioned Washington Post article, the restoration dept. will be on their way.

I caught a TV show about a month ago called "America's Hanger" all about the Smithsonian A&S museum.

During the program they showed the Garber facility and I saw people giving the He-219 wings attention.

The show talked about how they were documenting all of the original paint, and trying to get the colors correct etc... The wings looked complete and did not appear to be dissasembled at all.

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That would be excellent if the wings were all set to go. I would be interested to read about the process of the finding of the colors.

I visited Udvar-Hazy on Dec 22, 2008 and found the fuselage looking quite nice (at least externally) and mounted on a cradle for public viewing. Here's a photo..
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Anybody know what is mounted on the wood crate beneath the stabilizer on that previous picture. The one finished engine is on the edge of the picture; are they bribgig the second engine out?

A solicitation video for the Phase II restoration building shows the wings mounted vertically for access to top and bottom. I am thinking taht after a long lapse they might be working to get the wing finished.

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Kevin McCartney

The aft ends of the engine nacelles. I assume the central portion of the nacelle is integral with the wing. Here's a shot I took last summer from the overhead walkway (man, I wish NMUSAF would install something like that!)

SN

I am very familiar with Luftwaffe color and at a meeting of historians, a presentation was given on this aircraft. Note that the area that the wings were attached to is un-restored. This is how they got a near perfect color match.

When the plane was made, it was painted with the wings off so the camoflage was painted in the wing root areas then the wings attached. When they pulled the wings off years later, they got a perfectly preserved area to match the repainted, stripped, painted again and left outside outer fuselage and wings. Look close and you can see just a bit of a color shift.

Cool aircraft. I would love to see one of those fly! Too bad it will never happen.

Kel

A fairly recent picture of the wings being restored at Garber can be seen at http://www.nasm.si.edu/imagedetail.cfm?imageID=2012.

I am guessing that this picture is a few months old. Anyone have a more current picture?
.

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Kevin McCartney

Here's a few pics during restoration in 02.

1. Right side fuselage, original paint under fairing shown. IIRC this plane had to different type camo paint jobs applied depending on which part of the aircraft you looked. Possibly more than one aircraft was put together.

2. Aft fuselage looking forward, ammo box and feeds for "Shrage Muzik".

3. Aft fuselage looking aft, heater and anti-ice ducts.

Will be at Garber this week will try to get more pics.

Regards,
Mike

Edit: Dang, should have used the last 2 pics for a Quiz!

Great photos Mike. How did you manage to get into the Garber facility? Is it open for tours again?

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

Wow..the condition of the interior is spectacular! Did they do any cleanup inside, or is she just that well preserved?

I understand the plane's orginal radar system has long-since disappeared. Does the museum plan to install one (either original equipment sourced from elswhere or a fabricated replica?) The plane just doesn't look complete without the big antenna array on the nose.

SN

The above pics were taken in 02. There are no tours at this time, but the Archives at Garber are still open.

Regards,
Mike