Gary ~ What's The Plan For Diamond Lil ? 2006 and Beyond!

[Second Air Force]

Dave,

Thanks for the info on the PB4Y stuff at Greybull. I don't know how the tanks were installed, but they surely had to retain the keel and possibly even the racks. Good suggestion!

Scott

[davegnz]

see:

http://www.ruudleeuw.com/greybull-29Jul06-rp.pdf

As of July 2006 they had in storage:

PB4Y-2 N2872G c/n 66300 Tanker #124

PB4Y-2 N7962C c/n 59882 Tanker #126

also from the FAA:

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry ... xt=2421102

noticed that two PB4Y-2 (N7621C c/n 59991 & N7622C c/n 66247 ) were listed at:

ACE SMELTING INC / PO BOX 10218 SAN ANTONIO TX 78200

* * *

But somewhere I remember seeing pictures of 2 PB4Y-2 hunks / very stripped (minus wings, still in Navy Blue - tail turrets still installed) at one of the tanker bases (were never demilled) from the late 1980' early 1990's

[Second Air Force]

Thanks Dave,

Ace Smelting is probably not a good sign, huh? I'll see what I can do with the information you've founnd.

Thanks again,
Scott

[davegnz]

http://www.oldprops.ukhome.net/Privatee ... graphs.htm

note N2870G Privateer c/n 66304 wreck (not what I was thinking of but still a source of parts)


http://www.airliners.net/open.file/956864/M/

[retroaviation]

Dave,

The elected staff of the B-29/B-24 Squadron voted on what the scheme of Ol' 927 is going to be. There were obviously many different ways they could have gone, several of which could have even been considered "accurate." However, this airplane never went to England (in WWII), and never had the gun pack on it, so even though that configuration was considered, it just didn't get the vote. Unfortunately, I'm sure that no matter what scheme was picked, there will be folks that are not going to be happy about it.

The installation of the bomb bay doors will be a MAJOR undertaking for somebody. I'm sure that whoever does it will certainly put the airplane in a jig fixture before work commences. It will not be done by me, nor can I imagine it being done here. We barely have the facility for the work we've done, much less something major like that. If I have any say in the project, we'll leave that job to the professionals.

Asking if the CAF has plans to do things like installing the original FE panel is like asking if you're going to win the lottery. Of course you'd love to make those kinds of plans, but the likelyhood of it actually happening is pretty slim. If I were to stick around for several more years, I'd probably tinker with the idea of putting a fake FE position in place. It's just one of the many things I'd personally like to do to the airplane to make it more original. Sadly though, I doubt very seriously if it'll ever happen. I reckon it just depends on who they get to replace me, whenever that time comes.

Gary

[Jack Cook]

I reckon it just depends on who they get to replace me, whenever that time comes.

[Elroy13]

Not being a pilot, I prefer the '24s to the '17s... so take that for what it's worth.

I was at the 8th AF Museum in Savanah, Ga for the 8th AF 60th Anniversary. CF had the B-17 and the B-24 there at the local airport. They bused all of the Veterans there for flights and tours. THEY WERE STILL HAVING DEBATES OVER THE BETTER AIRPLANE!!!

[snjfxr]

Gary, I didn't mean to get your blood pressure spiking! I know you take great pains to keep over spray from getting all over the place. I just couldn't help noticing that a couple of the pics of the nose glass had a green hue to them.
I got your e-mail about the 4 WIXER"S that sent Donations! I'll send them a piece of skin tomorrow.
A big Thank's, to all of you that are contributing! It really does mean alot to all of us!!
I love sending these things out!!!

Sincerely,
Dave

[mustangdriver]

Not being a pilot, I prefer the '24s to the '17s... so take that for what it's worth.

I was at the 8th AF Museum in Savanah, Ga for the 8th AF 60th Anniversary. CF had the B-17 and the B-24 there at the local airport. They bused all of the Veterans there for flights and tours. THEY WERE STILL HAVING DEBATES OVER THE BETTER AIRPLANE!!!

That is great. The few vets in my family and frineds that have B-17 and B-24 service still argue as well.

[Steve Nelson]

Thanks for the info on the PB4Y stuff at Greybull. I don't know how the tanks were installed, but they surely had to retain the keel and possibly even the racks. Good suggestion!

The Yankee Air Museum's Privateer Tanker still has the keel..it doesn't appear the bombay was structurally altered much when the tanks were installed. The museum removed them and re-installed bombracks and doors, and I don't believe they had to do much in the way of (de)modification. They did have to re-skin much of the underside to repair the damage from the runway excursion that ended her flying career (not to mention the repairs from when she was cut in half with power saws.)


SN

Last edited by Steve Nelson on Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

[retroaviation]

Since the discussion about the FE (or Flight Engineer's) panel came up yesterday, I thought I'd show y'all the pictures of how ours looked originally, vs. how it looks now. You can see that there would be a lot of work involved to make this a functional part of the aircraft. Not only that, but in it's current configuration, the FAA only requires a two-man crew for the airplane. If we were to reconfigure it, they would require a minimun crew of three. No big deal, but just making a point. By the way, even though he doesn't really do a whole lot (compared to say, the B-29), the B-29/B-24 Squadron never flies the airplane without a Flight Engineer, even now.

Now...




Then...




And while I'm here, I might as well show you a couple of shots that were in my camera. The first one is of Ken Hyman (one of only about four of our pilots who comes out to help) building some of the lexan floors for the PX compartments. I wanted them out of lexan in order to save time on future inspections so that we can simply see beneath the floors and won't have to remove them to look at the underlying structure. It's just an experiment, and might be a bad idea, but we'll give it a try for now....




And this one is of Andy prepping the nose section for installation. Mark Baxter and I made a couple of little lifting eyes to make this job a little easier for us. We should have it installed this morning.....




I hate it, but I missed getting pictures of fellow WIXer, Rob Mears, helping us out on Monday. Thanks Rob! I was at the house nursing a small bout of food poisoning, but he, Andy, Ken, and Brad Pilgrim were all out here working their tails off to help get this project done.

I'll try to get more pictures today.

Gary

[henry]

hi gary and crew, as always excellent work.

this may be a dumb Q but is there any reason that you haven't painted the nose section? to me it would be easier to do on the ground, then just touchup and match the camo in situ.

also, if you have the time (and you have any) could you post some factory pics of the pilots control panel etc. all the extra little details that consolidated fitted are fascinating (sp). they certainly packed a lot of stuff into the AC.

thanks.
henry.

[retroaviation]

The nose is now installed. It'll just take at least all day for Andy to get all of the bolts in and tight. I started on it by myself this morning, but Andy came in at the nick of time to help.

Henry, good question about the paint. There are two reasons, however, that I chose to paint the nose while on the airplane. The first one was because with the nose on the ground, it was more likely to get damaged. Just yesterday, I saw a tourist tapping on the brand new Plexiglas with his keys! I reckon he just wanted to see if it was glass or plastic, but geez-louise, that pisses me off when people do things like that! And people do stupid things like that every freakin' day in this museum. I just don't understand folks sometimes.

The second reason for waiting until the nose was on the airplane is because I could match up the paint lines of the camoflauge better. I intentionally wanted to leave the majority of it brown, so that I didn't have to worry about the separation between the brown and green lines, but no matter what, I still had to deal with the black and the brown. Shouldn't be a big deal, but it's certainly easier to line it all up while on the airplane and not on the floor. Hope that helps explain it.










Gary

[TAdan]

Just yesterday, I saw a tourist tapping on the brand new Plexiglas with his keys! I reckon he just wanted to see if it was glass or plastic, but geez-louise, that pisses me off when people do things like that! And people do stupid things like that every freakin' day in this museum. I just don't understand folks sometimes.

Gary

And YOU would be the one in touble if ya had decked the guy, what a world

The nose job looks awsome Very clever idea about painting the nose and not having to worry about the camo lines.

[Ztex]

WOOT!

Looking better every day!

I don't think it the nose looks as long on with the camo paint on it vs the pink...especially after seeing the J Model last week...

Keep it up guys!

Z