AT-6B Static Restoration - Chanute Air Museum

[Sir Blue Henry]

Hi Norm
those manuals that you said you had digital copies of. Can you tell me which, if any comes closest to having detailed drawings of the parts, and in particular here I mean the parts that make up the rear fuselage bulkheads. I have been told by someone else that the only place to obtain the engineering drawings was microfish, not manuals??

[Mustanger55]

Thanks for the photo and explanation on the slot. Can I assume then that the opening has a clear plexiglas panel installed? Or, is there a cover that attaches before flight?

Gotta get those engineering drawings soon!

[rcaf_100]

Thanks for the photo and explanation on the slot. Can I assume then that the opening has a clear plexiglas panel installed? Or, is there a cover that attaches before flight?

Gotta get those engineering drawings soon!

Yep, it has a clear panel installed.

Here's a diagram from the Harvard IPM -


Part # 17 is 66-310108 'Window Assembly - Fuselage rear section ballast weight inspection'
Part # 18 is 14-31107-8 'Angle - Fuselage rear section inspection window reinforcing'

I like telling people that it's a giant piggy bank...

[Mustanger55]

A big Piggy Bank, eh? Maybe I should leave the slot open and put a donation sign over it.

Thanks for the info. I'll have to crawl inside and see what might remain of the original glass panel, if anything. Ought to be pretty easy to make a replacement out of polycarbonate.

[Mustanger55]

Sorry Sir Blue Henry,

I somehow missed your post earlier.

The manuals we have show no more than the component assemblies, with no scale or measurement references. They are only meant to identify an assembly and aren't worth much for any sort of detailed work on fuselage or wings. The only way to get detailed dimensions and shapes are from the NAA Engineering Drawings.

The full drawing set on microfilm (AT-6A through AT-6F) is available from NASM for $270 USD. A 235 page numerical index comes on a separate film roll, or printed out on paper, for an additional $70.50 USD. I've been informed the drawings for the AT-6G are also available on microfilm, but I don't have a price for you on those.

Assuming the AT-6 drawings are as complete as we found the P-51 drawings to be on our P-51H Project, virtually all of the individual parts as well as the assemblies should be contained in the microfilm set along with all of the general dimensions and specs.

In a nutshell, to do any really detailed work, ya gotta have the engineering drawings.

[Sir Blue Henry]

Hmm - ok
I probably just want those for the T6-D but I guess its still $270 for the lot.
whats the website or link for this.
So do I understand you correctly in that they will supply the printed out version for 270?
any idea what size paper/book this is?

[Mustanger55]

Sir Blue,
Only the Index is available printed out on paper. It is an either/or choice. The $70.50 USD price covers either the film roll or printed version.
The engineering drawings are only available from NASM on microfilm.

Start here>>>> http://airandspace.si.edu/research/arch ... /mfilm.cfm

BDK,
Had a lot to do today on the Mustang, but couldn't resist starting on the propellor governor you so generously donated for the T-6. Seperated the base from the unit and rotated the top to align the actuator shaft correctly. Cleaned and bead blasted the governor before giving it a couple of coats of satin black enamel. Working on fabricating a base for it and hope to have it completed this week so that it can be installed by next weekend.

The part collected a bit of dust before I shot these and I didn't notice, but it looks good to me.
Your Letter and Certificate will mail Monday. THANKS!

Last edited by Mustanger55 on Sat Dec 06, 2014 11:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[bdk]

Looking good! Can't wait to see how the base comes out. Glad to help a worthy cause.

[51fixer]

Hmm - ok
I probably just want those for the T6-D but I guess its still $270 for the lot.
whats the website or link for this.
So do I understand you correctly in that they will supply the printed out version for 270?
any idea what size paper/book this is?

For less money there is a cd on eBay of the same drawings scanned. Each drawing is searchable by part numer where the NASM microfilms you have to use a reference listing to match a P/N to a drawing number and then look up the drawing number by rolling through a roll. If it is the last frame on the roll it takes some time to get there. Unless your microfilm viewer is also a printer you will have a difficult time to print a frame.
Computer allows you to magnify an image, cut and paste or select a portion of a drawing to print. Much better access to the info in addition to being searchable.
Warning, there is a small percentage of drawings that don't exist it seems. Probably 90% or more of the drawings are there so it is a great resource.

[Sir Blue Henry]

Hi Rich
oh ok - I think I found that DVD on ebay - but it was around $300 and was listed as containing all the manuals. is that the one. I wasn't sure if it included the scale drawings of parts. must be the same DVD. Though I'm now left wondering, because after looking up on NASM it seemed to be that they didnt want anybody copying and redistributing anything. But anyway - thanks - will probably get the DVD on ebay

[51fixer]

Hi Rich
oh ok - I think I found that DVD on ebay - but it was around $300 and was listed as containing all the manuals. is that the one. I wasn't sure if it included the scale drawings of parts. must be the same DVD. Though I'm now left wondering, because after looking up on NASM it seemed to be that they didnt want anybody copying and redistributing anything. But anyway - thanks - will probably get the DVD on ebay

If you search SNJ Blueprints as of today 2 come up. Neither are what I purchased but the $125 one seems closer to what I got.
I purchased one from a guy in CT.
I can't speak to the content or quality of the listed items.

[Mustanger55]

As we finish up work on the Mustang, I had a chance to do a bit of scrounging through the museum's parts stock for possible AT-6 parts. We are fortunate to have a lot of old aircraft parts that have been donated to the museum for restoration work, and we occasionally find some gems among the mass of mostly unidentifiable parts.
In this case, I found a bunch of bell cranks and brackets and after a little cleaning, was able to see NAA stamps and part numbers on most of these. Without the NAA Engineering Drawings, I've only been able to identify a few of them.
I hope to determine the application for all of these, and possibly trade un-needed parts for useful items. (pictures are posted at
http://p51h.home.comcast.net/~p51h/at6b ... ogress.htm )

AT-6C-5-NA
19-43007 Bracket - Engine Throttle Control Lower Bell Crank
28-43014-2 Bell Crank – Engine Throttle Control Lower
28-43014 Bell Crank Assy – Engine Throttle Control Lower
36-43011 Bell Crank Assy – Engine Mixture Control Upper
36-43016 Bell Crank Assy – Carburetor Air Control Upper
36-43017 Bracket – Carburetor Air Control Upper Bell Crank
36-43016-2 Bell Crank – Carburetor Air Control Upper
36-44007 Bracket – Propeller Control Front Bell Crank Assy
55-44008 Bell Crank Assy – Propeller Control Center
55-44011-2 Bell Crank – Propeller Control Rear

AT-6C-10-NA
36-33547 Part not identified
36-33549 Part not identified

Aircraft Model/Description Unidentified
19-43012
28-48006
62-43125-2
62-63149
62-63122
62-63123-2
62-43019
62-43021
62-43022
62-43023
62-43024
62-43124
63-50006
63-56005
63-59004
63-59005

[Mustanger55]

Question for the group......

I have had a chance to peruse a DVD of the AT-6 engineering drawings, and have a question for those who have purchased the microfilm from the NASM, and/or, are familiar with both.

The DVD Index I have indicates the drawings cover SNJ 3 through 6. My question is, does the NASM microfilm set contain the same information as the DVD, or does it contain drawings and index for USAAC/USAAF (AT-6) variants?
The report from the NASM says film rolls are from AA to HH, the same as the index with the DVD, but would the drawing set, and index, for the Navy have been different than for the Army?

I realize the drawings should be mostly the same, but I wonder about variations in equipment between Navy and USAAF aircraft.

Any advice appreciated.

[51fixer]

Question for the group......

I have had a chance to peruse a DVD of the AT-6 engineering drawings, and have a question for those who have purchased the microfilm from the NASM, and/or, are familiar with both.

The DVD Index I have indicates the drawings cover SNJ 3 through 6. My question is, does the NASM microfilm set contain the same information as the DVD, or does it contain drawings and index for USAAC/USAAF (AT-6) variants?
The report from the NASM says film rolls are from AA to HH, the same as the index with the DVD, but would the drawing set, and index, for the Navy have been different than for the Army?

I realize the drawings should be mostly the same, but I wonder about variations in equipment between Navy and USAAF aircraft.

Any advice appreciated.

AFAIK the drawings are indexed to NAA P/Ns, not to any service it was used in.
I have T-6G Microfilm which is different than the Standard Set of drawings I have on DVD. The T-6G was a remanufactured model using earlier model components either as they were or modified.
The DVD I have is searchable by P/N. Punch in the P/N and it finds the drawing.
The P-51 set I have is indexed per the Microfilm where you must look up in the list of what Reel and Drawing Number the Part Number is located at.
My DVD starts with Prefix 15 and goes up to 121. The -G prefix was 168.
Some P/Ns have the same number with different Prefixes. You can search by the number (don't include pre-fix) and if it has multiple prefixes it will give a list. Some parts were changed so the same part used on an earlier model will get a different pre-fix later on.

[Mustanger55]

Thanks Rich,
I guess what I was wondering about was, if the DVD set came as a Navy set, then it may not contain drawings specific to Army aircraft. I realize the vast majority of drawings were applicable to many variants, but it's the differences that have me concerned. If someone has the NASM index, I'd like to know if it has an Army index or the same SNJ index as the DVD has.

When I was creating the index for the Mustang NAA Engineering Drawings, there were over 1200 drawings that weren't listed in the NAA index at all, and using the printed index was a pain in the butt anyway. The Alphabetical Index wasn't strictly alphabetical, and the numerical index had some errors in it.

I compiled the alphabetical and numerical indexes into a single Excel file set for each section so that all the information was on a single line for a drawing. If you have the title, or drawing number, the film roll/image info is right there as well as the application info.

As an Excel file, it's easy to sort and search. If you don't have it, you should download it and give it a try. You can get it here... http://p51h.home.comcast.net/~p51h/sig/sig.htm
It's FREE! (if you find it useful, you can to make a donation to the Texan Restoration Project if you'd like)

I think I'm going to compile the SNJ DVD index into an Excel spreadsheet like I did for the Mustang. The printed index isn't in strict alphabetical order and the numerical index isn't much better. Being able to sort and search quickly should make things easier.