PV-2D Harpoon 84062 (Tanker 101) comes back to life

shrike · **Posted:** Mon Jul 04, 2011 7:30 pm

Taigh Ramey wrote:

shrike wrote:

Dunno if this would be remotely useful or not, but I came across it today on eBay

Lockheed B-34/PV Ventura/Harpoon canapy(sic) parts
WWII World War Two Airplane parts Bomber escape hatch
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220805270046&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:MOTORS:1123

Thanks for the heads up. I won it on eBay for cheap now I hope it is also cheap to ship. Maybe we could use it on our PV-1 Super Ventura some day should we ever try to make it stock again. Thanks again for letting me know about it.

You're quite welcome - glad it went to a good home
You can buy me a beer if the opportunity arises.

me109g4 · **Posted:** Mon Jul 04, 2011 7:40 pm

http://www.flightglobal.com/imagearchiv ... =FA_18440s

Dont know why the link didnt go, i had to copy/paste to get it. It is 10 or 11 Ventura pics on a site i found.

Tiger Tim · **Posted:** Mon Jul 04, 2011 10:00 pm

me109g4 wrote:

http://www.flightglobal.com/imagearchive/Image.aspx?GalleryName=Photo Archive/1939-1945&Image=FA_18440s

Dont know why the link didnt go, i had to copy/paste to get it. It is 10 or 11 Ventura pics on a site i found.

Because there is a space between the words Photo and Archive in the link, the forum software assumes the link ends at the space, cutting off the rest. For those who want to open it, highlight and copy everything from the 'http' to (and including) 'FA_18440s' then paste it in your address bar. For those who want it to work when they post it, use a url tag. When typing your reply, hit the URL button (it's right beside font size), then edit the first bracketed part to say url=(paste website here) then between the two bracketed url code thingies you can type in whatever you want your clickable text to be. Clear as mud?

-Tim

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Tue Jul 05, 2011 3:28 am

Thanks for the link information. Great photos with good detail.

PJ · **Posted:** Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:25 am

Taigh, I thought I had a cool thing to go with your torpedo cart, but turns out this exploder box is for the Mark 6 that was so problematic on submarines. They would pass right under an enemy ship without exploding. Still a nice find.

PJ
PV-2 Harpoon "Hot Stuff"
http://www.amhf.org

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:08 pm

Wow PJ that is way cool. I need to wipe the drool off of the keyboard!

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Fri Jul 15, 2011 4:39 pm

We continue to make progress on the prep for paint for the old gal. Mostly scrubbing and cleaning. We did get her dirty when we went to a local airfest at Grass Valley, her third air show so far.

Grass Valley is a beautiful airport in the foothills to the Sierra Nevada mountains. the elevation is at 3100 feet MSL and one 4300 foot runway which is the shortest runway I have flown the Harpoon into to date. I also flew the Beech in there for rides. It was gorgeous and hot too making the density altitude around 5100 feet.

One pass in the Harpoon followed by a botched approach with too much airspeed and altitude led to a go around. I ain't gonna hurt the engines and pull power to make the runway for my ego so around we went for another try. The second attempt went well and she floated right in and we turned off at the taxi way about 3200 feet down the runway.

She was once again well received by the crowd but I need to make a nice sign with her history. Right now we have some large photos in the back to look at but we definitely need a good air show sign.

Here are a few photos of Grass Valley Airfest

We have a few new volunteers that have been working hard. The hardest worker by a long shot lately is Larry who has been coming out almost daily and has about scotchbrited almost the whole airframe in prep for paint. At 70 years old he works rings around us. Thanks Larry. He came by with his daughter yesterday and we worked on removing the leading edges for cleaning, inspections and hardware replacement. The first one was kicking our back sides so I called Long Tall Glenn, Gary and Robert just to be sure we weren't missing some secret fastener inside the wing. The manual says just unscrew it! The consensus from the guys was unscrew it and yank! Thanks for the help guys. Ill post some photos of that process a little later.

Tomorrow we are having another work Saturday. The goal is more cleaning and paint prep, screw removal and some maintenance issues.

On the way back from Grass Valley a circuit breaker popped. One little circuit breaker that's all. It just happened to power the oil temperature indicator, Landing gear and flap position and fuel quantity indicators. One breaker sure covers a lot of ground. I think Ricky is going to tackle tracking down the short.

We also are going to adjust the brakes and a myriad of other little items.

If anyone is in the neighborhood and might want to come by and get some sun while working on the old gal please come on by. We'll be here all day.

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:41 am

Today was a good day for the harpoon. About 7 of us showed up to work on the old gal and good progress was made by all.

Scott and his brother tackled the leading edges on the right wing while Ken and his Cousin Mike worked on the left side

One nice thing about the PV-2 was its hot leading edge de-ice system. It was innovative for WWII and is still in use today. I wonder if the Harpoon may have been one of the very first aircraft to use heat instead of pneumatic boots.

The engine exhaust system had a heat exchanger which allowed hot air to be fed through ducting in the leading edges of the wing and horizontal stabilizer. This hot air was used to melt ice or keep it from forming in the first place.

Our PV-2D was made for the South Pacific and the invasion of Japan and as a result this system was not installed at the factory. even though the ducting in the wings was not in place a nice feature of this system still remains. The leading edges are attached with 10-32 screws (a lot of them!) and can be removed. This gives great access to the forward part of the wing which is not all that common on aircraft of the day.

Here is Ken checking out the internal structure.

The aux oil tank is installed just outboard of the engine. This tank held an additional 20 gallons of engine oil for long range patrol work. Early tanks were aluminum but later aircraft had rubber self sealing tanks. The dust on the oil tank looks to me to be Arizona dust as I have seen this on several Beech's I have had that came from Davis Monthan. I wonder if it is as she sad in storage for 12 years at Litchfield Park. Who knows but we will certainly remove the dust soon enough.

The leading edges are built in two parts inboard and outboard. This is the junction of the two.

Kelley started cleaning out the wings and removing what the ground squirrels had left behind. After vacuuming and blowing out the wings they will be washed and treated with corrosion protection. There are no real corrosion problems throughout the airframe which still amazes me. Most all of the surviving harpoons have had big issues with corrosion but we have been very fortunate by finding only minor surface corrosion in a very few places.

Ricky started to do the brake adjustment by pulling the left wheel to gain access to the brake pack. The brakes on the Harpoon are the multi disc type which are used on many WWII aircraft. This system consists of stators and rotors which are set up with .077 clearance without pressure applied. After some initial use and periodically thereafter the brakes need to be adjusted as the clearance increases with wear. I noticed that the brakes were starting to grab which is an indication that they are in need of adjustment.

The brakes looked pretty good after the work they have had since they were installed back in the dust bowl.

Ricky adjusted the brakes, re packed the wheel bearings and installed the wheel. The left side is now all better. Incidentally while we were eating pizza for lunch Ricky put the wheel back on without help which is no easy task since the wheel weighs about 200+ pounds. Next time ask for help!!

I think I am going to head back out there tomorrow to do some more cleaning in the wings and screw extraction. Its good therapy

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Sun Jul 17, 2011 6:26 pm

Cleaning continued today with the right wing leading edge area. After using the shop vac and blowing things out with compressed air the steam cleaner was used to wash it down.

There was some corrosion found in the heat control box in the right nacelle. This is the heat control valve that allowed hot air to flow to the right leading edge and on to the mid body where the heat was used in the cabin and tail. The outboard side of this box was capped off as this Bureau Number had the leading edge deice system ducting removed. Inside the box was a good ground squirrel nest and the cap and flange have corrosion. The rest of the box cleaned up okay as it was mostly made out of stainless steel. A new cap and cleaning the corrosion off of the flange will fix the heat box.

For the detail nuts here are a few shots that may be of interest:

Here is a decal on the aux oil tank strap. Looks pretty good for its age.

This is the heat duct. In WWII a lot of parts were dipped in vats of zinc chromate paint instead of being sprayed. Here you can see runs and uneven paint as evidence of the dipping process. I would think that this process would yield an unlimited number of shades of zinc over time as the paint in the tank would become dirty with age. Maybe the next generation of Warbird restorations will try to recreate this dipped look in their never ending quest to be more authentic than the other guy.

This shot shows the right aux oil tank at the outer wing panel to nacelle junction. Looks pretty decent here too after cleaning. One thing has shown up several times throughout the wings is the paint on the thumb screws of the hose clamps. Red on the end and green on the threads. I wonder what this was all about? I have also seen quite a lot of a pink paint on nuts and other hardware which looks like it may have been used as torque paint. Another little Lockheed mystery.

The stencil '06' was a factory stencil with the Lockheed construction number 1606. This would be more visible at the factory before the outer wing panels were installed. I seem to recall that Gary found the same thing on Annie.

All in all it was a good weekend for the PV-2. Thanks to all of our wonderful volunteers for your hard work and dedication. Thanks WIX for your support as well.

Kyleb · **Posted:** Sun Jul 17, 2011 8:53 pm

Taigh, are y'all bringing the Harpoon to Osh, or is that a year or three away?

me109g4 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 18, 2011 8:24 pm

And what are the chances of getting the Harpoon to Miramar for the show??

Roger Cain · **Posted:** Thu Aug 18, 2011 9:25 pm

Its at the Wings Over Wine Country show this weekend in Santa Rosa, CA.

mike furline · **Joined:** Wed May 05, 2004 3:45 pm **Posts:** 2628

Taigh,

I was at the Archives (NARA) last week, scanned some PV-2 photos in high-rez. I tried sending them to taigh@twinbeach.com and they came back as undeliverable.

Mike

rcaf_100 · **Posted:** Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:43 pm

mike furline wrote:

Taigh,

I was at the Archives (NARA) last week, scanned some PV-2 photos in high-rez. I tried sending them to taigh@twinbeach.com and they came back as undeliverable.

Mike

Hey Mike, you might have better luck with taigh@twinbeech.com ('ee' instead of 'ea' in Beech)

:partyman:

mike furline · **Joined:** Wed May 05, 2004 3:45 pm **Posts:** 2628

rcaf_100 wrote:

mike furline wrote:

Taigh,

I was at the Archives (NARA) last week, scanned some PV-2 photos in high-rez. I tried sending them to taigh@twinbeach.com and they came back as undeliverable.

Mike

Hey Mike, you might have better luck with taigh@twinbeech.com ('ee' instead of 'ea' in Beech)

:partyman:

Typo... I used the link on his webpage.

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PV-2D Harpoon 84062 (Tanker 101) comes back to life

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