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

TBDude · **Joined:** Mon Aug 14, 2006 10:54 pm **Posts:** 582

Outstanding!

"Let me hear your guns, boy .. yang, yang, yang ..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZf_Sr5RFGk

Cvairwerks · **Posted:** Sat Jun 17, 2017 1:38 pm

Taigh: You guys going to copyright and sell plans for the guns? Please...Please....

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:02 pm

We are looking at selling the full gun ready to install and shoot made to installation specs for both the air and ground gun. It's been pretty labor intensive so we are looking into more cost effective methods of manufacture. Its pretty cool so I think it will sell.

Deuelly · **Joined:** Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:30 pm **Posts:** 70

Taigh, I was working on the same idea of a self contained gas gun. Is your gun rigged so it will fire when the firing solenoid actuates?

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Thu Jun 29, 2017 10:50 pm

Yessir. Remotely or locally fired. Choice of heavy barrel ground, ANM2 aircraft or single shot rates of fire. Over temp shut off with automatic reset. Fixed or flexible mounting capability.

airnutz · **Posted:** Sat Jul 01, 2017 12:02 am

Taigh Ramey wrote:

Yessir. Remotely or locally fired. Choice of heavy barrel ground, ANM2 aircraft or single shot rates of fire. Over temp shut off with automatic reset. Fixed or flexible mounting capability.

That Sir, are the sexiest string of words ever compiled on this board! A beer and a cig are in order...And Pretzels Baby! Woof!

Dennis7423 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 10, 2017 5:05 am

I bet the folks at HBO for their 8th AF series would be very interested in your gun technology there Taigh...

- Dennis S.
Thornton, CO USA

Fouga23 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 10, 2017 5:46 am

I want one for my car :p

Scott WRG Editor · **Posted:** Fri Aug 18, 2017 5:13 pm

Fouga23 wrote:

I want one for my car :p

I always wanted to fit a B-25 upper turret on my Focus.......

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Thu Sep 28, 2017 8:51 pm

Here is a video of the night testing of the guns in the Martin 250CE top turret.

http://www.twinbeech.com/images/Aircraft/manufacturers/lockheed/PV-2/PV-2D84062/mx/turret/250ceguns.MOV

The guns are coming along nicely and we have made the front trunion mounts for the 8 gun nose and soon we will build the rear post supporting structure. Slow but steady.

Here are Sydney and Kenney cleaning the beast for the airshow this weekend at Salinas.

Goof balls!

Fouga23 · **Posted:** Fri Sep 29, 2017 2:37 am

Thanks for the update. How did the Swiss trip go, Taigh? I assume all went well? It was a pleasure meeting you

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Wed Nov 29, 2017 8:33 pm

A quick update on some recent projects that have been making progress. First is the nose guns. The guns themselves have been pretty much finished up and are working great thanks to Jon. Now it's time to direct our efforts to getting them mounted up. Some of the structure is still in the nose but a lot will have to be fabricated.

Here is Jon pulling the 8 gun lower nose off of the harpoon so we can start fitting the guns.

One important part is the front mount which was set up to secure an Edgewater adapter. The Edgewater adapter is one of two methods used to handle the recoil of the 50 cal on many WWII aircraft gun installations. It has internal springs that absorb the energy of the gun as it is being fired. The adapter screws on to the front trunion of the gun and had two bosses for mounting bolts or lugs to the airframe. The Harpoon has a special casting that the Edgewater fits into with a quick release cam type of mount. We had the front castings made as per the drawings along with the special studs and cam locks. Here is a shot of the parts all ready for assembly with the Edgewater adapter being the grey cylindrical thing on the right:

Incidentally should you need replica Edgewater adapters let us know as we are tooled up to make them out of steel or a lighter aluminum. The one that we made in the photos are steel and are Parkerized just like the originals.

Here are the Edgewaters set up on one of our new guns in their front mounts.

The gold cad bolt is what secures the assembly into the Harpoons nose and we are lucky enough to have the front structure still present in our 8 gun nose so these will bolt right in once we make the special bolts.

The bigger project will be the rear mountings as a lot of the structure has been drilled off and will have to be fabricated.

Slowly getting the parts together to mount up all 8 guns. I am giddy at the thought of how this is going to look with a tight V formation of 8 browning 50's. Even giddier at the thought of firing all 8 of these guns together. we expect to have the guns mounted up before air show season 2018.

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Wed Nov 29, 2017 9:17 pm

The next project involved more work on our cool Mk 13 torpedo. We did a lot of conservation work to stop any further rust and corrosion. We cleaned and prepped the torpedo and painted it. We even had a Warbird museum meeting that featured the Mk 13. I put together a presentation on its development, systems and operation complete with a demonstration of the motor all powered up for the crowd. It was a lot of fun and the thopedo looked great.

Here are some progress photos:

This is the inside of the warhead which was also in good shape. We are lucky to have an actual warhead instead of a training head although I'd like one of those too!

Here is Tim stripping the paint

The well for the exploder mechanism. Anyone happen to know where we can find a Mark 8 contact exploder?

Paint going on. We are just preserving it with primer at this point. It looks like the original finish was bare metal on the air flask and afterbody. Still trying toi find detailed finish specs

Making and fitting the saddles for the torpedo to fit in the bomb bay of the Harpoon.

I have misplaced the photos of the torpedo presentation. I'll keep looking.

mike furline · **Joined:** Wed May 05, 2004 3:45 pm **Posts:** 1896

Nice update! Thx.

And what do eight .50's do for your weight and balance? Do you currently fly with ballast up there? What will the completed gun bay installation weigh?

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Thu Nov 30, 2017 2:27 pm

Hello Mike,

With 8 steel replica 50's, ammo boxes. feed chutes, hardware etc. I'm estimating that it will add about 520 pounds and moves our CG forward three inches which is a good thing. We were relatively aft CG at 195.54 and a BEW of 18,751 pounds. The addition of guns brings us to 19,271 pounds with a CG of 192.15. The CG range is 184.5 to 197.9 so we are good. Even with full fuel we are still good on CG and are under 26,000 pounds takeoff weight. Mag gross weight is 33,000.

Here is the weight and balance according to the load adjuster:

The new index is 45 so we are good for the basic empty weight CG

Loaded with full air show fuel and oil (like we could afford to top her off!)

Armor plate up front and the APS-3 radar antenna in the nose will also help.

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

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