B-17G "Chuckie" Update

[RAMC181]

Hi Guys,

Here's some more reference images for the H2X system.
All the items are currently held by the NASM, so I've included the relevant archive numbers.

Top:
Antenna Assembly AS-18A/APS inc. Dish APA-14, Rotating Joint CU-18/APS and Transmitter-Converter RT-15A/APS-15.
(NASM A20070042000)
Bottom:
Modulator MD-5C/APS-3.
(NASM A20070043000)



Closeup of Modulator MD-5C/APS-3:
(NASM A20070043000)



Receiver-Indicator R-78A/APS-15A:
(NASM A20070044000)



Range Unit CP-11A/APS-15A:
(NASM A20070045000)



Control Unit C-33A/APS-15:
(NASM A20070046000)



Computer CP-10/APS-15A (Late/post WWII, not often seen on ETO PFF B-17s):
(NASM A20070046000)



Junction Box J-15B/APS-15:
(NASM A20070048000)



All the best,
Paul

[CrewDawg]

Great stuff! What I wouldn't give for "A Night at the Museum"!!! Do you think that they'd miss it? I'll trade the NASM a Piaggio Royal Gull for their Mickey stuff, that's a good deal right?

[CrewDawg]

One more plug for our 19th Annual Big Band Hangar Dance. It's our biggest fundraiser of the year and we don't have any great sugar daddies (yet) so we need all the support we can get from the generous WIX'er's out there. This years honored guests are the members of the 95th Bomb Group.



Note that we are planning to give DC-3 rides for $35.00 each for a short hop around the patch courtesy of Jim Terry who is splitting the proceeds with the museum. It costs more that $35.00 in fuel to start both engines, never mind flying! Heck of a deal!!

Thanks everyone!

[cco23i]

Hey fellas, are you all going to Midland Odessa in October? Just curious.
We will have our ground crew display there and was curious.


Scott

[Second Air Force]

Hey fellas, are you all going to Midland Odessa in October? Just curious.
We will have our ground crew display there and was curious.


Scott

If you mean for the CAF show we'll all be busy with our hangar dance at VFM that weekend.

We just finished closing up the Fortress so she will be ready for a bath prior to the dance. I only wish the inspection was complete so we didn't have to open parts of her back up after the dance, but it is what it is.

Scott

[cco23i]

I know the feeling Scott, we had one of our KC-135's in for maintenance and they decided to have a change of command so we had to button it up, push it out and then pull it back in the hangar and open it back up. I know your pain.

scott

[CrewDawg]

If anyone is interested, we'll be pulling the B-17 (and therefore ever other plane) out of the hangar on Saturday to give her a good bath before the hangar dance. Should be a good opportunity to take pictures, not to mention give a hand washing! The weather is supposed to be nice so it should be a good weekend for it.

[CrewDawg]

Here are the fruits of our labor this weekend. We pulled Chuckie out and gave her a long over due bath. Scott and some of the other guys put in some time during the week to get her all closed up and ready for washing. Unfortunately we will have to pull some panels off again after the dance to finish up the maintenance.

Left wing before - Right wing after


Steve (Pacific Prowler) and Larry washing the left wing.


Some "after" pictures






This one is my favorite. One of our members got up on the lift for this one.


We haven't even polished her yet! I figured I was overdue for some pictures so I tried to make up for it.

[APG85]

That last one is a great shot!

[Holedigger]

Pretty!

[Django]

Great pics!!! Good to see her outside.

[hawkeyepoole]

Yeah, that was me on the lift with the cool picture of Chuckie from the air. I need to start putting my name in the pics before they get spread around the net. Here are a couple of videos from this weekend and today actually, when I went to work on some hangar electrical items.

See Pat Mahaffey beginning to polish Chuckie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xRNMQidC2o

Also see an updated version of the September 26th Hangar Happenings. I added some additional footage from way up on the lift with the new lights on.
http://www.vimeo.com/6775878

[Second Air Force]

Just a quick reminder to anyone who would like to attend, the Vintage Flying Museum Hangar Dance is this Saturday evening, October 10th. We'd all love to see a WIX contingent if any of you can make it!

Scott

[seabee1526]

Beautiful! See you at Thunder Over Michigan 2010! (i hope)

[Second Air Force]

Beautiful! See you at Thunder Over Michigan 2010! (i hope)

If all the stars align......we are in the planning stage now.

Here is a radar installation-heavy update. Greg, one of our newest maintenance volunteers, removed the temporarily installed wing-to-body fairings so we can do some work in the wing root area. I removed a battery shelf and will do a little in-progress report on that project as I go.

This morning we removed the radome cover fairing to snoop around and do some dimensional checks for the radome and radome stanchion I'm going to start. The first photo is of the ball turret mounting intercostal in the ceiling of the forward waist.

This is the piece that always got pushed through the top of the fuselage in belly landings with the ball still attached. The aft fuselage was nearly always scrapped during the war if this was torn out. Notice that ours has some interesting holes drilled in it. I am thinking these are modifications that were done when the Mod Center installed the radome set-up.

The next photos are of the radome "hole" in the fuselage. This first one is looking directly down from the ceiling mount at the bottom of the airplane. The funky trusswork of aluminum was added after the H2X was removed from the airplane. It also makes for a nice floorboard mounting structure, so I won't be removing it until we have the parts fabricated for the radome. Notice, too, that there are two diameters of sheetmetal in the photo. The larger hole is the original mounting surface for the ball turret, and the smaller diameter area is the ring that fills the gap left by the smaller diameter radome.


Here is another view of the framework. Perhaps some form of sensor or air sampling equipment was hung from this deal. I'd like to find out for posterity, but I do know that it will be coming out as the H2X progresses.


This shot shows the business end of the truss with the interesting attaching points, five on each side:


This picture is of various holes that were drilled in the right side of the radio room where the H2X black boxes and operator were situated. The dark rectangle at floor level is apparently where the power was fed to the installation from the aircraft power bus.


Here is the outside-the-fuselage view of that hole and the plug that was later installed:


And this is another plugged access port in the same general area of the left fuselage:


Finally, here is a nice placard that is still in pretty good shape for being applied in 1944. Also, for those of us who were contributing to the B-17 interior discussion in the main hangar, note that the skin in this area was NMF and there is still some green primer hanging on to the stringers:


We'll update more when we get back to work on her,
Scott