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

[cco23i]

She looks AMAZING!! Great job!! I wish we were closer to help.

[Blackbirdfan]

I look forward to seeing you guys at Reno. The plane looks fantastic.

Will

[Taigh Ramey]

It turns out that the USS Indianapolis production folks changed their mind and they wanted us in their movie once again. The movie is called USS Indianapolis, Men of Courage. Nicholas Cage plays Captain McVay of the Indianapolis.

The Indianapolis had delivered the atomic bomb to Tinian and was on its way south when it was torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese submarine I58. Lt Chuck Gwinn was the captain of the PV-1 Ventura that originally spotted the survivors in the water. The story goes that they had trouble with the trailing wire antenna. Gwinn's son told me that they had lost the weight. Evidently Gwinn went back to help fix it. He then spotted what looked like an oil slick and thought it was from a Japanese sub. He scrambled back up to the cockpit and started an attack run when he saw hundreds of survivors in the water. Anyone have access to any official flight reports about what actually happened?

Since there aren't any PV-1's flyable we were approached to use our PV-2. The first part of the day was used for filming on the ground and the last part was air to air. It was a ton of work to get ready but it was a blast and we all had a great time. The production crew was really good and they worked hard to get the shots they wanted. The director is Mario Van Peebles.

Our 1945 Federal Army Air Forces C-2 Wrecker even became the behind the scenes star to lift the tail to get the Harpoon level for filming. They were going to use a lot of green screen shots to make her look like she was over water.











The director Mario Van Peebles





Cousin Mike on the right who was a great help. Ask him to do something and it gets done right and real quick











For the air to air Mike Decastro was kind enough to come out with his Beech 18. Thanks Mike and Michelle! Jim Dunn was in the back relaying the film crews desires to Jerry Anderson who was the photo Beech pilot. Jerry would let me know what they wanted the Harpoon to do and I would try to give it to them. Jerry is an awesome photo pilot and has done countless photo missions for local photographers. On top of that he is just a great guy. He has a signature crossover maneuver that allows head on shots that look great. I can't wait to see how the air to air shots look. It sounds like Jim and Jerry suggested some of the best angles and passes as the film crew really liked what they shot.

This is a Bill Larkins shot of Mike and Michelle's Beech shamelessly stolen from the interweb.





The film crew hard at work!



Max Ryan who plays Lt. Gwinn. I offered for him to be in the left seat but the director wanted me there for the duration.



Here is the crew at the end of filming. Missing are a few of the actors who had to run off to catch a flight and Mike DeCastro.



Thanks to Jim Dunn and David Lezynski who contributed photos for this post.

[Blackbirdfan]

I caught this shot of you guys at Reno Saturday night.


Will

[JOHN MILLER]

[Zac Yates]

Awesome stuff, Taigh! Now I really do need to go see the movie! Thanks for the behind-the-scenes exclusives.

[Taigh Ramey]

I sure hope they do the vets and the story justice and that we can be proud of the movie. It's a lot to ask these days with budgets and all. History and accuracy versus entertainment and the bottom line. Fingers crossed.

[Taigh Ramey]

I am saddened to report that one of our PV vets and good friends, Earl Snyder, has passed away.

He was a tough son of a gun who ran circles around us. At many shows he would be standing there talking to the crowd sharing his experiences. He wouldn't take a chair either. All day long, it was amazing.

Here is Earl flying the PV-2 to Mather for the California Capitol air show







Here he is flying at the Radar ops station on our Veteran's day flight around the Navy installations in the SF Bay area.



At Travis AFB air show





At Reno



Earl was a lot of fun to have around. He had great stories and sure did a lot of flying. My favorite was when he was flying patrol in PV-1's off the coast of New York when they came across "the biggest God damned German U boat you ever saw!". Earl was in the top turret shooting at the sub. He said they were trying to attack it and had problems getting their bomb bay doors open when the deck gun on the U boat hit one of their engines. That sub took out two Venturas that day.

What a blast when we were at Travis AFB walking under the C-124 Shakey which Earl also flew in. He was telling us stories and pointing out all sorts of things. Great times.


















We will miss you Earl!

[C VEICH]

Godspeed Mr. Snyder and thank you for your service to your country.

[Mark Allen M]

Heartbreaking to see them leave us.

Thanks Taigh for what you do. You made an old vet's last years the best of his life I'm sure. Your a class act all the way.

[Robbie Stuart]

Sorry about the loss of your friend Taigh, those guy's are fading away fast now, thank God for them, well never know another generation like that.
You sure do have the airplane looking good, & congrats on your role in the movie.
Yall take care.
Robbie

[Taigh Ramey]

Thank you Mark. Thank you Robbie.

It is hard to lose our heroes. I just wish I could find more PV vets to share the Harpoon with before it's too late.

[pontiac58]

So sorry for your loss. I was once involved in a local air museum that had a bunch of vets always around, most of them served at the base during WW2.. It always hurt to see one of the vets leave us. Some were cranky, some where happy, but they where all my hero's. I will never forget their stories. I heard a lot of stories from them, my favorite and most of theirs, was about chasing the girls around town, hearing about the pilots that didn't make it back to base, the p47 that was doing some low level flying that had a prop strike with a tugs steering wheel, or how the navy pilots would buzz the field when the army was not flying due to low visibility (you could still see the red in their eyes talking about that).

Thank you for what you are doing to keep their memories alive, so we all can not forget what they did for us.

Now if you can just bring that airplane over to the east coast.

[PJ]

PV folks are a small group as it is....sad to lose one of them. Glad he was able to fly on your Harpoon and share his great stories and memories. Wonder where the Harpoon in the photo was based? His inscription says "where "Irish" was". Can you enlarge the emblem on the nose of that Harpoon? God speed, Earl.






Paula
PV-2 Harpoon "Hot Stuff"
www.amhf.org

[Taigh Ramey]

Nice to hear from you Paula.

I just took those quick and dirty photos of his log books, pictures and documents at an air show when he brought them out so I do not have a good quality scan of that image. Maybe after a while I will ask the family if I can come by and scan his photos. Its amazing how much information and detail you can get out of some of these old photos when you scan them at high resolution.

It could be that the bureau number of that bird was 37489 so maybe if someone has access to the navy record cards we could find out where it was stationed.

Hey Mark,

Got any good Harpoon shots to share?