Warbird Information Exchange

Just read this one twice...

While I think we have raised the bar compared to what CAF-GCW was doing before, we have a way to go before we hit what Sabremech and his shop have done with the F-86.

But it t'ain't for lack of desire... just time and money and a pot to whiz in and a hangar door to throw it out of.

Thanks CrewDawg!

SPANNER

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Support Your Local Warbirds! KBO!
The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.

We'll be out working on Chuckie again this weekend. We kind of had a break over Easter, but now that I've got the family and friends out of my house I can get back to business!!
If any WIX'ers are in the area stop by and say hi. I know that a few of you are coming in town for the Cowtown Warbird Roundup next weekend. Let me know if you need directions or any other help.
B-25 Pacific Prowler will be in Corpus this weekend doing the airshow thing.
I should have some photo's to post after this weekend hopefully showing some progress.

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Bill Gorin
Vintage Flying Museum
http://www.vintageflyingmuseum.org
https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=57513906106

Work is still progressing on the 100 hour. We are just about to wrap up inspecting the engines and will then move on to the rest of the airframe. Work goes slow when everyone can only come out on weekends, including me - those pesky day jobs keep getting in the way of REAL work.
We have some corrosion on the belly to work near the camera bay, but other than that, nothing major - so far. Sorry no pictures this time, I'll try to get some next weekend.

The Cowtown Warbird Roundup is at Meacham this weekend, so if any of you are out there, come down to the south end of the airport (first right after the fire station) say hi and drop a dollar in the donation box please.

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Bill Gorin
Vintage Flying Museum
http://www.vintageflyingmuseum.org
https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=57513906106

WIXers Scott "Second Air Force" and Ellen dropped in today to lend a hand working on Chuckie. Scott has experience working on other B-17s, most notable Texas Raiders. As you all know, we are in deep in the midst of our 100 hour inspection and other maintenance. Scott suggested that we pop open the life raft compartment and inspect it, since other B-17s have suffered from varying degrees of corrosion in that area over the years. Well. . . we climbed up on the right wing and opened the door to the life raft compartment. . . and were greeted by a virtual time capsule! Not only is the compartment very nearly pristine, but most of the original USAAF stenciling and manufacturer's production line QC stamps are intact! We even found some initials written on the floor of the compartment in red grease pencil! So, without further blabbering by yours truly, here are my photos. Enjoy!

Here we go,. . .



Let's have a look inside!







Here's an original QC stamp on the inside of the compartment door from the Vega assembly line!



This stamp was on the forward bulkhead. It's a little hard to read upside-down. . .



So let's zoom in and turn it rightside-up. . . wow. . . I guess every company in America had something to do with B-17 production!



Here are the initials written on the floor of the compartment:



All in all, it was a pretty neat experience!

Scott was impressed by the physical condition of our beloved Fort. No popped rivets, no nasty cracks, no ugly corrosion, no pi$$-poor repair jobs, etc., just a nice, solid airframe! (Aw, shucks. . . we all knew that!)

Scott and Ellen, we sure do appreciate your help and we enjoyed your company! Please come and see us as often as you can.

I'm sure Crewdawg will have some more updates for everyone soon. Right, Bill?

Cheers!

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

I hope you guys got my screwdriver out of there before you closed it up!!!! Just kidding, I know you did.

Yup, the crew keeps growing in numbers and talent, we're glad to have Scott and Ellen joining us. The 100 hour/Annual inspection is coming along nicely, we've got most of the airplane inspection panels opened up, so now it's just a matter of inspecting and doing the inspection items. We still haven't found any major problems yet, but we've still got a lot left to do yet.

I may have said this before, but my primary goal this time around on the inpsection is to get Chuckie back to a safe, airworthy and legal condition so we can start flying again and making money. I'm not so concerned with doing any major restoration type work this time, we'll tackle some of that during next winter's down time.

Here's a couple of pictures to go along with Deans.

Yes, Dean and Rick do actually work!


There's actually pretty good access to the wing area's believe it or not.


That's all for now, we should have more to talk about next weekend.

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Bill Gorin
Vintage Flying Museum
http://www.vintageflyingmuseum.org
https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=57513906106

Very Cool! Is Chrysler's warranty still still valid!?

Soon to be seen in skies near you!

When I took these photos at Harlingen in 1984 I never thought I'd ever be poking around on Chuckie! We really appreciated the hospitality shown us when we met everyone yesterday.



Dean posted a bunch of pictures of the liferaft compartments--here are a couple more:

Both of the plexiglas inspection windows are still in the aft bulkhead and in perfect condition. The crew would check both of these ports to confirm that they had two rafts before leaving on a mission overwater.


The stencil on the forward bulkhead refers to the wooden panel that separated the two liferaft compartments. You can see the angles with nutplates where these dividers mounted and that they could be removed to use the center compartment for storage.


This little balsa panel with two elastic bands held the liferaft lanyard to the inside of the door. The lanyard was fixed to the upper left bolt/nut, and you can see the anchor still on the fastener. First you load the raft into the compartment and then stow the lanyard on this affair. When the raft was deployed and inflated the lanyard would pay itself out so that the raft would float clear. Once the raft was occupied the lanyard was cut by the crew to free the raft from the airplane. I thought it was pretty neat to find this stuff still basically the way it was from the assembly line.

Speaking of the Chrysler stampings on all the components up there, I'm wondering if Chrysler supplied the entire turtledeck as a subassembly to Vega. More snooping is in order.

Scott

Just how were the rafts deployed? Yank a handle inside to pop the hatch and charge the CO2 bottle? Or was it accessed from the little outside panel?

There are two methods of opening the raft hatches. The first was two pull handles in the radio compartment (up on the top right side near the space where the flexible 50 cal gun use to be stowed.) Pull the left handle and the left raft compartment hatch would open. Pull the right handle and the right hatch would open.
Second, there is a small access hole just aft of each raft compartment on the outside of the aircraft (Dean's hand and watch is in one of those holes. So if you were standing on the wing you could open the raft compartment from the outside. The airplane usually stayed afloat long enough for the crew to gather on the wing, open the hatch, and lauch the raft from the trailing edge of the wing. A CO2 bottle inflated the raft.

Every time I open our raft compartments I am amazed at how clean it is in there.

Patrick Mahaffey
B-17 "Chuckie"
B-25 "Pacific Prowler"

Welcome to WIX Bill,
I didn't think I set the bar so high. Just passionate about sharing our birds especially the Sabre. The work you and Spanner are doing is equally impressive with these B-17's. Keep up the good work and keep posting more pictures!

David
WHF Maint

The little door is the normal access to close and latch the doors, Patrick. At some point the outside release handles on Chuckie must have been removed, or Vega didn't install the external releases in the same fashion as Douglas did. I've been looking at close-up photos of various NMF Forts--some had them, some didn't from what I can tell.

Here are the interior release handles on TR:


And these are the external release handles:


The latches actually pull fairly hard since there is a spring that keeps the pins engaged in the normal position. To close the raft doors you open the little rectangular door, close the raft door, push the locking pin forward, and a safety catch and spring assembly keeps the pin from sliding aft (unless you pull the release lanyards). The two cables for each side are bussed together at the pin connection.

Scott

Thanks David,
You and Don and Gary have done great jobs both on the airplanes and on posting your trials and tribulations for the rest of us to learn from and drool over.
We may be talking more in the future, since we have an F-86F in the back of the hangar that one day we would love to get flying again.



Know anyone who wants to sponsor an F-86F restoration? You'll have to start by cleaning Second Air Forces' drool off of it. We've got an engine minus the burner cans, but it needs a total overhaul. It's ex-Boivian Air Force.

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Bill Gorin
Vintage Flying Museum
http://www.vintageflyingmuseum.org
https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=57513906106

Yup, I concur. I'm normally kinda camera-shy, so you know I'm interested in a project when I have my picture taken next to it:

Since I work on the "wrong" kind of round motors (RB211s) 40 hours a week this little beauty has much to offer.

Scott

Very nice boys! Thank for the info on the life rafts as well. Always wondered what the heck was inside there.., looks like space enough to mount a couple of extra .50's if it was me!!!

best,

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S.

A couple extra 50s will reduce your range, make you slower.....and they don't float so well!

Didn't they call that the YB-40? And kept the life rafts!