Warbird Information Exchange

photos taken 5-26-2011

They are making good progress on the Hellcat. Thanks for the photos.

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

What is it they are doing on the right side of the fuselage? Sanding corrosion off?

Thanks for taking the time to post the photos, John. It looks like they're making good progress.

Mac

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WWII Naval Aviation Research - Pacific
https://www.ww2nar-pac.com/

very few Hellcats left, good for them!

What are the display plans for the aircraft? The museum already has both a -3 and -5 on display.

Great to see the progress they've made. Have they found replacement outer wings, or will they have to be scratchbuilt?

SN

I'm the crew leader for the restoration project. to answer a few questions. The fuselage was extensively corroded. Not only did we have to nearly sand the complete fuselage, but several skin panels underneath had to be replace. On the port side, crash damage aft of the cockpit necessitated replacement of a considerable amount of skin, as well as the underlying framework. We're currently in work on the wings. The port wing is only missing the last six feet or so of the outer section, so we're tackling it first. Most of the existing skins are corroded to the point that replacement is called for. The underlying structure is being repaired as we expose it. Once the intermediate sections are repaired we'll tackle the creation of the outer part of the wing.

We've finished building a new canopy, vertical fin, rudder and elevator from scratch--none of these were recovered with the aircraft. We've also built a new seat and most of the cockpit fixtrues are ready for reinstallation, once the interior is painted. The engine is about 95% complete and will be installed after we get a bit more weight on the plane, to move the cg a bit further aft. With the fuel bladders and all the avionics removed, and the flight controls not installed yet (a few more coats of dope) the aft end is pretty light, and that R2800 QEC weighs in at about a ton.

The flight controls pictured, btw, are SBD elevators, off the project next to us, as is the seat below it

The plans are to display it in the museum, and send off one of the others out on loan to another museum yet to be named.

rob

Thank you for the info and welcome to WIX!

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Magister Aviation
It's all in my book

John, when did you shoot those??

Owen, 5-26-2011

Rob,

Great to hear. Heard it had gone quiet for a while - not the F6 but the hanger?

Hopefully John can get some updates.

I had still hoped A&T could go back and recover the fin/wing section which was on the lake bed but the main section. The fin we thought was important as ithis is where the side number was painted. The cowl has 2 and we assuming these are not replacements. Shame the other engine cowl were replaced as we currently don't know the 'name' of this Hellcat. Have 6 named Hellcats with VF-38 - must be the 'Blacksheep' Marine influence rubbing off on them.

regards

Mark

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'Coups De Foudre'
(511FS, 405FG watering hole), St Dizier, France 1944/45

a home made video of the restoration to date


http://youtu.be/Fi_pgdSgeB0

Awesome video!

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Magister Aviation
It's all in my book

Yes, thanks very much for posting...can NEVER have too much Hellcat.

And the soundtrack took me way back. Anybody else remember watching "Victory at Sea" as a kid on PBS channel 10 out of Milwaukee (and channel 36, if you could wheel it in juuust right on your UHF dial)? Good times.

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Great progress. Here's a question: is the quality of restoration from the NMNA considered to airworthy specifications? Or just static display quality?

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Christopher Soltis
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