CrewDawg wrote:
Dean took a few pictures, hopefully he'll post them when he gets a chance.
Ask, and ye shall receive!
There is some corrosion evident on the upper surfaces of the fuselage. We think the corrosion is the result of 43 years' worth of bird droppings from the ship's time at the Pate Museum.
The wooden rotor blades have been totally destroyed by the ravages of time and weather. We may be able to salvage the steel tubing spars, but little else will be of use.
Here's a terrible shot of the Wright R1820 engine. You're looking at the starboard side. It's all there, but it's really cruddy and everything is dry-rotted. There is also some vandalism damage to the wiring harnesses in the engine bay.
This is the main transmission assembly. The drive shaft from the engine comes in from below and behind at an angle, and the rotor drive shafts exit forward and aft from here.
These are the rotary inverters for the electrical system. They reside in an otherwise empty compartment directly forward of the engine. The top of this compartment is open to the air. It's where the cooling air for the engine comes in. A large fan on the front of the engine draws air in and blows it rearward over the cylinders.
Here's a shot of the interior, taken from the port side cargo hatch. She's mighty dirty, but she's pretty much all there. We'll have to make new troop seats and anything else that's covered in canvass. Hopefully, we'll be able to carefully remove the old pieces without damaging them so that they can be used as patterns.
The subject of "Why we do what we do" has been discussed here on WIX many times. Here's a perfect example. The gentleman sitting in the helo's doorway is Glenn Todd, the last USAF crew chief on this particular ship before it was retired from USAF service and flown to Pate. Glenn and his son-in-law drove to Fort Worth from New Mexico just to visit Glenn's old ship! He was thrilled to be there, and we were thrilled to have him there!
As you can see from the photos, Shaky Magoo needs a lot of restoration work. This 'copter led a long and very interesting life while active with the USAF, serving literally all over the USA and in many foreign locales, and we hope to be able to tell that story through our restoration. Restoration work requires labor and money and parts and manuals and shop supplies and paint. We invite you to help with these needs in any way you can. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, so your donations are tax-deductible.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
We removed and disassembled the wheel and tires, cleaned, blasted, primed and painted the main wheels and installed the "new" tires. The nose wheel was in pretty good shape, so we cleaned it and installed the new tire. Repacked all bearings and reinstalled the wheel and tire assemblies.
