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

[Mark Allen M]

Here's a couple of 'size comparison' photos. These PV-2 things are not small by any means. So the question begs to be asked "How many Volkswagen Bugs can you fit in a Harpoon?"


Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon (N20PV) Nut Tree Airport, Vacaville, Ca, car unknown, date unknown, original photographer unknown. But I do like that shiny look.


PV2 Harpoon N7483C seen at Chino in October 2010. original photographer unknown.

The shear size of one of these things makes you want to stand at attention doesn't it?


PV-2 NAS Glenview 1946

[cco23i]

That's one thing that threw me about the "poons", when you see them in a photo by themselves they don't look that big THEN get near her and she's a big girl. Of course all the "stuff" Taigh, Richy and the guys have put in her just blows my mind.

Scott

[Mark Allen M]

More 'thread hijacking' stuff ...


1945 July PV-2 Gun Bore sighting NAS Ault Field


An ANAPS-3 radar mounted on a US Navy Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon in 1946, sorry not a good quality photo

And these are interesting (can't remember if I posted these before) and again sorry not very good quality photos. But there's something kind of cool about the bad quality IMHO. Photos only state PV-2 1355 NAS Dallas VPML-2 c 1946











This shot I cleaned up a bit to make up for the poor quality photos above.



And a last few photos. These are old photos I found of the PV-2 your plane is painted as in flight over the South Pacific somewhere c 1945. (actually it's your PV-2 taken by Roger Cain and aged a bit)


Photo property of R Cain


Photo property of R Cain


This one is a real shot from 1945ish


Sorry ... the thread hijacking will now come to a peaceful end.

Last edited by Mark Allen M on Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[GARY HILTON]

Nice photo's Mark! I do enjoy the Poons! 1st picture is a PV-1...you can tell by the shape of the windscreen...Picture 8 & 9 are probably the 1st Harpoon built, this is one of the first 30 PV-2C models...it has a different wing from the later Harpoons...Keep them coming!

[Roger Cain]

Thanks Mark for the photo credit, but the second one isn't mine with the Wildcat.

[Mark Allen M]

Sorry Roger thought that one was yours as well. It's a great shot regardless.

[Roger Cain]

Sorry Roger thought that one was yours as well. It's a great shot regardless.

I think the one with the Wildcat might have been taken by Greg Morehead during Osh this past summer.

[rclausen]

OUTFRICKENSTANDING Taigh!!! Man I wish we were closer!


Scott

*I* wish you were closer!! There's still a lot to do. Vacation coming up...?

[cco23i]

Not yet BUT I get this gig in Yuma AZ I will be a LOT better off for vacation and such

[Taigh Ramey]

Still making progress, slow but steady.

Ricky has been plumbing the auxiliary hydraulic pump so we can cycle the hydraulics without setting up the external pump or mule.

Mark has been wiring up the AIA-2A interphone system. Lots of harnessed to build for that system. Some have 35 pin connectors and can be quite tedious to wire up. Could be worse; it could be the radar system. Speaking of that...

Jon has been getting up to speed on the APS-3 radar system. We are in need of any and all technical manuals and information. Anyone have AN/APS-3 TO's or information or know anyone who might?

I have been assembling the parts list for the connectors we need to make up the harnesses for the radar set. Once we can locate and procure the parts we will start building them.

The museum's bank account is pretty much out of money so we need to do more fund raising before we can go too much further. I think we have done a pretty good job of stretched the funding that we have been given. Thank you to all of our donors. Your money has been well spent and hopefully you can see our progress and agree.

A kind donor has given the museum a real nice flying Lockheed built T-33. We are going to sell this T bird to raise funding for the museum and the PV-2 engine fund. The engines are running great but the oil consumption is too high so the engines will go to Ray Anderson so he can work his magic. If you know anyone looking for a good T-33 please send them our way.

The engines and the guns are the last of the major projects for the Harpoon...hopefully the outer wing tanks will not be too bad...knock on wood...what am I saying...there will always be something to do...job security I suppose...

A local upholstery company named Fran's Creative Upholstery was kind enough to come over and make some custom covers to protect the PV-2. They made a cockpit, astrodome and a top turret cover.











Thanks guys for the good work!

[Taigh Ramey]

We had the Harpoon out for a couple of local events here on the airport. One was an EAA Young Eagles program where we let the kids and their parents into the PV-2. The other was a fund raiser for a local pilot who is running for a County office position. We need to spread the word about our museum.

Paul and his daughter came out to help out last Saturday. Paul has been a camper at two of our Bomber Camps and he flew in both the B-24J and the B-17G. Thanks for coming up and helping out!

They worked on one of our major projects which is the bomb bay. The bomb bay is pretty much untouched and is in need of a lot of work. We will need to clean up everything, repair some mods and dings to the bomb bay doors, fix up the bomb racks and bombs for display.

We have two 1000 pound GP style bombs in the left stations that were in the middle of getting reworked when we had to throw them in for OSH. We didn't even have time to prime or paint the fins we had made.





The bomb bay can hold six 500 hundred pound or smaller bombs or four 1000 pound bombs.



It can also carry one Mk13 torpedo or two big Tiny Tim rockets. I think a pair of Tiny Tim's would be great for the ultimate lawn dart game! It will be a while before we can get the bomb bay to look like this once again. Man does that look good!



Work on the Harpoon lately has been mostly low visibility with a lot of work going on to assemble and acquire parts for projects. We are low on funds now so we have to be quite selective. Any donations are greatly appreciated.

The one project in need of money is for the radar wiring harnesses. We have found a good source of cannon plugs to build the harnesses and each plug will be about $50 each. Here is a typical drawing for one of the harnesses.



At last count we will need about 30 cannon plugs and a lot of the shielded conduit. One quote for the conduit came in at about $5000 so needless to say we are looking for more cost effective options.

Any of you all come across any surplus flexible braided aluminum conduit out there? You will be our new best friend if you can help us.

We had Pat Patterson come up and give a talk to our Warbird Group meeting. We had a good turn out and Pat was one of the best speakers in a long time. Maybe it was because he was a PV-1 copilot and then pilot out of Attu with VPB-135 and he sure had my attention. He did three tours up there and he is as sharp as can be.

I loved the one story about how they were real tired of the powdered milk that they had which tasted like chalk. They had a farmer amongst their crew so they sent him to Seattle to rustle up a cow to bring up to Attu. I was surprised to hear that the weather in Attu was about the same as Seattle and not as frozen as I thought it was. Anyway, they set up a real nice shed and corral for the cow and fed it from bales of hay that they also brought up.

Pat said the milk was wonderful for the guys until they ran out of hay. He said they let it graze on the tundra up there and soon after the milk turned sour!

Great stories and Ken and I agreed that we will drive down and visit Pat to take him out to dinner soon just so we can listen to more of his stories and ask questions.

Anyone know of any PV radar operators out there? We have a lot of questions about the radar and how it was used.

That's all for now.

[Taigh Ramey]

Before Christmas we had a nice visit from the Sea Scouts. These kids are great and they pitched in to help out cleaning up around and on the Harpoon. I sure wish we could get her indoors but that isn't in the cards for the foreseeable future.

Thank you all for your hard work!



Two cadets received their first fork lift lessons.



Thanks again guys and gals




Christmas came through for the Harpoon this year.

We found one of the 4 quick attachable chest pack parachutes that we need. There were four stowed in the Harpoon near the crew positions and the two most visible were in the stowage bin above the radar operators station.

Here is the parachute stowed in its place



This chute came with a matching harness both of which are dated June 1945. Perfect for our bird. There is even a full parachute still packed inside complete with lead seal on the thread around the ripcord pins.

Should any of you have a lead as to where we can find three more please let us know. At least one more to finish off this bin would be awesome.

Slow but sure.

More big news to come

[barneybolac]

Woah EIGHT 50 cals? man I would not have liked to have been on the receiving end of those!

Twin 50 gun pods bringing the 50 cal count to 14 forward firing 50's! Not sure how often it was done as I haven't seen too many photos of them installed but they certainly had the capability.

Thought you all might like this information on the gun pods.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/180556378/Dou ... al-gun-pod

http://www.scribd.com/doc/191570148/Dou ... un-Package

[Taigh Ramey]

I found a few weeks ago those and they are full of great information. Now I need to find the pods themselves. Anyone have any leads on a set or single pods?

[barneybolac]

Now I need to find the pods themselves. Anyone have any leads on a set or single pods?

Since the pilot could jettison them if needed not to sure if many of these are about. The Greeks used them in their Civil war after WWII was over on the SB2C. Maybe some of them still floating about over there? Also it looks like the DGP-1 may have been tried out again in the 60's based off of the manual cover picture I posted.
Or something very much like it?
I don't have that manual the link I found it on is posted below.







http://www.machinegunboards.com/forums/ ... opic=12895