Warbird Information Exchange

I love to see these updates!!!! Any chance this plane may fly at Oshkosh?

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Rod Schneider
Ball Ground, Ga

Hi Rod,
That's a good question. It all depends on when we get her back together, get the ops checks done and if we can overcome one last hurdle after that. It's very likely we'll have it flying and bring it home then work on the issues that remain. I'm very optimistic on this project and am sure we will get it to become a regular flyer, it's just a question as to when that will happen.
Thanks for keeping up with us.

David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

Hey Dave, what's the piece in the second picture on the left hand side of the frame? Looks to be a plate and square tube but not part of the air frame. Yes, no?

Glad you are making good progress. Can't wait to see her.

Scott

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Hi Scott, Good to hear from you. If I'm looking at the same part you are, it is a bracket off of the engine to support the accessory gearbox. I'll try to take a better picture of the gearbox and the components as they are mounted. It's been a long time since we did any work on this airplane and I'm realizing just how difficult of a task it was to remove these parts with the engine installed. It isn't as difficult to put it together on the stand, but it isn't a piece of cake either.
Keep checking back as we have some news coming from the Foundation.

David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

Doh! First picture. Looks like 3/8's plate.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Hi Scott,
That's part of the forward engine support I built to store the engine on until we were ready to reinstall it.

Here's a side view of how the engine sits on the trailer.



David

Figured as much. Thanks Dave. Hope to get together soon.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Headed to Oshkosh tomorrow to put some more parts on. Pretty exciting to actually be going back together with the bird. I'll try to take some pictures of interest that I can post when we get back. We've been working on it a fair amount lately, but haven't had anything interesting to post.When we are finished, it's going to look a little different then it did. Nothing major, just some tweaking here and there.
David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

Fellow WIXers and Scooter fans, we've made some exciting progress. The engine components that were sent out for functional check or overhaul are installed on the engine. We inspected the engine bay one more time as well as the engine then installed it. A big thanks to our engine install team, Sean, Tom, Cindi, and Phil. The manual is right that you need 5 people to get the job done. It was a challenge using the sling and the overhead hoist.
Here's a few pictures from yesterdays work.





This is a big step forward for us. Our focus will be on getting the airplane and engine assembled to the point we can get an engine run done. We need to know if we have a good engine. We'll keep you updated as we continue to work towards an engine run. Check out our website for more photos as the Scooter comes back together.

David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

Awesome thread and work as usual. I would love to see this bird fly at Oshkosh.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Wow, everything is operated hydraulicly. What's the fuel burn rate? My guess would be at least 300 GPH.

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"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!" R.R.

Welcome to the USSA! One Nanny State Under the Messiah, Indivisible with Tyranny, Higher Taxes, Socialism, Radical Environmentalism and a Loss of Income for all. Boy I'm proud to be a part of the USSA, what can I do to raise taxes, oh boy oh boy!

I'd like to see it fly at oshkosh as well, but I don't think that will happen this year. Still a few items to work out before we can do that. As for fuel burn, I haven't given that much thought. I know that we have plenty of fuel between the wing tank and fuselage bladder to go quite some distance before needing more fuel. We'll most likely fly it without the drop tanks installed as they need some work and we'll have our hands full checking all the other systems before the first flight. Getting to the point of the first engine run is our main focus now. That will determine if the Scooter flys home or takes a ride on a truck.
Thanks for the support and we'll keep you updated as we progress.

David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

Nice work, Dave.

I've decided that any job that starts with " remove the tail " is a big deal !

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

Hi Rick,
Good to hear from you. Things are coming along nicely. Lot's of little stuff to do as we work towards an engine run. I suspect things will not go perfect the first time we attempt a start, but we'll keep our fingers crossed we won't run into too many problems. I've been working on the canopy and a few other parts in my shop. We're using the canopy off the parts bird we have as the one that was on the airplane was damaged when it was accidentally jettisoned a few years back. There's some more parts we are replacing as a result of hangar rash over the years. Nice to have spare parts when we need them. We'll be headed back up to Oshkosh next weekend to continue the engine hookups.
David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

Last Saturday we went back to Oshkosh to hook up the engine. Sean spent the day doing that while I worked on the engine thermal blankets and the blankets for the tailpipe. It took most of the day to get that done. they just don't go back together as fast as they come apart. We also found another bird nest in the tail so I went after cleaning that out only to have it turn into a much larger job than anticipated. There were some access panels that had been installed in less than the right way. It took 2 hours to remove 2 panels. Not much for pictures that show progress. We'll be back up there this Saturday and we hope to install the tail fuselage section.

David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org