Warbird Information Exchange

Good news, EAA announced that Aluminum Overcast will be returned to Oshkosh by road for repairs.

This was posted on the Aluminum Overcast Facebook page.

I'm sure the repairs will be easier to carry out at their home base rather than all the way in Florida.

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=482 ... 8444239794

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Trucked from Florida to Oshkosh in February? Pray for a mild winter on the highways...

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

That is going to be one heck of a rigging and crating job. And as Chris said trucking from Fl to WI in this time of the year, will be quite the proposition. I'll have to check with my bro in law, he's hauled oversize loads in all 48 states. The permit costs will be breath taking, let alone the cost per mile. I hope someone post's a pic of the rig pulling it.

Won't be a bad set of loads really. The inboard wing sections will be over width permits, and the fuselage will be an over length one. Depending on how the transport cradles are built, the fuselage will only be about 10' wide. Some careful angle setting on the inboard wing section racks may be able to keep them under 12' in width. They may be luck and be under limits for escorts.

Double post...stupid mouse....

We were just talking at my airport about this B-17. I suspect it may be years before it flies again. When I was in the Tenn. Air Guard we were transitioning from C-130A's to C-130H-1's. Long after the rest of the A models were gone there was one lone aircraft sitting on the ramp. I was told it had spar cracks so bad it would have to be trucked out of there. It sat there about a year and one drill weekend I noticed it was gone.
It turns out a civilian crew came in, loaded it very lightly, and with min fuel and flew it to Davis Monthan, smooth air, no weather, for it's final flight. I always wished the EAA's B-17 could've made one more flight and gotten home. It has incurred storm damage and been sitting outside in the Florida sun for a couple years.
It took the EAA a few decades to get their B-25 and Ford Tri-motor flying again after the tornado at Hale's Corner.

So it went from "wing attach fitting repair" (or something like that) to disassemble and move 1,000 miles by road to Oshkosh? Wow. That is a heck of a lot of scope creep. I wonder what else they found that drove this decision.

If you take it apart at the production breaks probably can do it without oversized permits.

Still going to be overwidth at the attach fittings for the wings. A proper cradle will be more than a foot wider than the outside of the fittings. Taking the fuselage apart at the rear production break, is a lot of unnecessary work for minimal gain. Besides, then you would have to construct a cradle to handle the aft fuselage, and add another truck and stretch lowboy to the transport requirements.

I was part of a team that moved a P2V-7 from Houston to Fort Worth, long years ago. We knew it was never going to fly again, but it still took a massive amount of logistics to get it there, and we kept everything under permit limits on top of that.

Too bad a certain Air Force couldn't have moved it in a C-17.
Yes, expensive tax dollars...yada yada...

But considering they fly 2-3 full of limos, trucks and helicopters anytime a President (of either party) decides he wants to take a trip (either business, recreation or blatantly political), seems like it's the least they could do to protect a (increasingly) rare part of of our national heritage.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

John: It took two years to get permission and almost another two years to get thru all the weight and balance planning to move the B-58 from DM to Fort Worth. It then took almost another year to get everything to line up and get a mission date. And back then, the military wasn't as risk adverse as they are today.

How long ago was that? Was it the B-58 that was in the park adjacent to Carswell in the late 80's?

Saw a C-130 fuselage going down the interstate a while back. They can figure it out. In all fairness to the EAA, it’s never had a ground up restoration. Dr. Bill Harrison bought it from the crop sprayers in Alabama. Dr. Bill slapped a bit of paint on it but it was very ratty airplane with lots of fuel, oil leaks and worn out everything. Once donated to the EAA they brought it up to a very nice condition and no doubt will be doing progressive maintenance.
This will give them a chance to go even more in depth than ever.

NASM had been/has been actively moving parts of Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby from Dayton to Washington, DC. I lost touch with the effort, so it may be complete by now. IIRC, the move crew was made up of in-house specialists. After disassembling so many aircraft downtown and moving them during the building restoration in Washington, they must be fairly current on big airplane handling.

Ken

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"Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

When "My Gal Sal" was trucked from Cincinatti to New Orleans, it was dissaembled at the production breaks and loaded on a truck. Photos were posted on AeroVintage at that time.

https://www.aerovintage.com/b17news12.htm