PBY wings at Chino with Yanks Air Museum

[David Legg]

A question for anyone close to YAM that might be able to help. I have seen photos taken in the last few days showing two sets of PBY wing centre-sections at Chino. One, on a wheeled stand, is clearly from the recently arrived N9505C (from Ephrata, WA). The other is on a road trailer and it would be helpful to know which PBY it beings to. I would have guessed that it might be from YAM's stored N2763A that has been at Chino for many years. Perhaps the centre section has now been trucked to Chino from elsewhere? Can anyone confirm which PBY it belongs to?

[JohnH]

Yes , other wings are from their other PBY, they've been outside awhile. Other PBY is in the storage hangar behind them. I'm on the airport every week.

[JohnB]

What are the plans for the airframes?

Which leads to the question, why two?

The Ephrata ship was a fairly recent (10-15 years?) flyer before being parked in the central Washington desert, so its structure is probably sound even though it has all the usual fire bomber mods.

[David Legg]

Yes , other wings are from their other PBY, they've been outside awhile. Other PBY is in the storage hangar behind them. I'm on the airport every week.

That's v helpful - many thanks.

[David Legg]

The Ephrata ship was a fairly recent (10-15 years?) flyer before being parked in the central Washington desert

More like 20 years. Does Ephrata, WA count as desert?

[Cvairwerks]

N9505, which was the aircraft from the movie "Always" is scheduled for restoration and return to flight. The other set of wings may be from N2763A. Both aircraft are owned by Yanks Air Museum.

[JohnB]

The Ephrata ship was a fairly recent (10-15 years?) flyer before being parked in the central Washington desert

More like 20 years. Does Ephrata, WA count as desert?

Yes, though it is not always referred to as such.
Basically, weather systems from the Pacific hit the Cascade mountains and dump the precipitation there. That causrs a "rain shadow" of dry land in Central Washington (and Oregon).
The area is irrigated with canals off the Columbia River and its tributaries....and thanks to the Grand Coulee Dam.
So, basically everything between Wenatchee to just west of Spokane is dry.

Because of the dryness, it was considered pretty marginal and had low population. Which is one reason they built the Hanford nuclear facility in south central Washington for the Manhattan Project.

I was born just south of Ephrata at an air base near Moses Lake (Larson, closed in the mid-60s. It's where Boeing officially delivered B-52s and C-135s and I believe there is still a Boeing presence there) so I know the area fairly well.

[Stoney]

haven't flown into Moses lake A/P in 30 years, but there was 3 PBY fire bombers there then. JAL was doing flight training there with 747s.

[JohnB]

The last PBY based in Moses Lake left in the Spring.
It is now with John Sessions in Spokane waiting to be reassembled.