Warbird Information Exchange

Clay,
Thanks for the offer but the museum folks are in the process of rebuilding display cases and they tell me they have more models then they need already. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you but I guess my 34th wedding anniversary last weekend got in the way. Oh that reminds me. Sorry about your ex taking both the cars and leaving you to walk the streets of Hollywood. Bummer! Must be tough taking the bus to school and work. Well at least she left you the computer! LOL! Good luck in Chico.

Best,

D

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Here are some great shots from Midland this year!



http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/ ... index.html

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Thanks for replying, Dan. I just wanted to be sure before I offered them to the other geezers here. Somebody will take them off my hands As for Rie and the Cars, well, I have walked before. That's why god made boots. And School isn't such a big deal. I use the subway to Union Station and jog the rest. Burning my gut, wakes me up, and the pain gives me something to think about besides her lol! You guys are doing beautiful work up tehre. I'll keep watching

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

We continued removing upper skins from the C-46 on Monday. The good news is that the underlying structure so far looks good with light surface corrosion. We are about half way in the skin removal process. We have started laying out and cutting the first three skins. Things are going to slow down due to Christmas and I won’t be going down for a couple of weeks.

Dan

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Hello gang,

It has been about a month since my last visit to CMA. Holidays, bad weather, flight schedules and several other events kept us from getting together. Thankfully, Marc and Ken have been able to keep their hands in to keep things moving forward.

The first thing I want to say is the scaffolding really made a huge difference! I want to thank John and anybody else that helped get it installed. It was also great news to hear that it was FREE!!!!!

Yesterday we removed three large skins and a fourth smaller skin. There were areas on some of the skins that you could poke your fingers through. We pulled back some of the skins like pealing an orange. Corrosion doesn’t get any worse. I’m talking POWDER. What amazes me is that so far, the underlying stringers and formers are exceptionally clean. China Doll’s roof now resembles an atrium. I think folks can see now why we were so anxious to get the plane into the hangar. It would have been impossible to do this outside in the winter. I think people now see that patching the corroded areas won’t get the job done. Our work over the next few weeks will be focused on the underlying structure. Ken has already made significant progress in buffing out and patching some of the stringers. As this work progresses we will start to install the new skins. That means more riveting kids! The skins are lapped like shingles on a roof so they will be replace bottom to top and aft to forward.

That is all for now. Jeff and I and maybe Marc and Al will be down on Monday next week.

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Oh Dan.....Querstion??......
Will this Work of Art you guys are doing on the PBJ, Will she have individual exhaust stacks for each Cylinder? or will she be forced to have the "Hayes" collector for noise.....Personnally, I love to hear ALL them cycliners a barkin'.........

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.

If it were up to me we would go to the S-stacks and the low profile intakes. To be honest with you our goal is to get her flying as soon as we can. She came in with the Hayes modifications so initially she will fly that way. It all gets down to money my friend and we have to make the bucks stretch as far as we can. The first and foremost thing is to have a SAFE and airworthy aircraft. Over the years we will polish the apple and add as much authentic equipment as we can afford. If we only had Paul Allen’s money!

Thanks for the interest. By the way the engines are PLENTY loud as is and noise abatement is a concern at CMA.

Dan

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noise abatement .... Cry babies they are...that old airplane is hurting my ears, cry me a river build me a bridge, and get over it...I am at work right now, but I believe that when I photographed that Aircraft back in 1982, she had the flat Holley intakes on her....will look when I get home.

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.

Love to see any shots you have of her Gary!!!!

Dan

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Thank you Gary! We have never seen these! This is what WIX is all about.

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Work continues on the C-46 and we are making great progress. Hopefully we will get her done by late March until then work on the PBJ is suspended. We don’t have enough manpower to do it all. Air Show season in California has already started and most of our birds are still down for maintenance and repair. I’m thinking of putting up a large sign on the hangar. “Looking for a few good men”. I think somebody else uses that line!

Dan

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Work continues on the C-46 but it looks like we might get finished and back to the PBJ by early spring. I heard a rumor that Gary would be visiting soon. Hope to see him.

Dan

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I was going to come out following the National Warbird Operator's Conference next week, but the price to change my airline ticket around prohibited that idea. I will likely make a visit shorty after the CAF's Winter Staff Conference in March.

I look forward to meeting all of you during my visit.

Gary

I will not be adding to this thread any longer. It looks like I started this in the wrong forum to begin with. If I do any more follow ups it will be in the Maintenance forum.

I can't belive I have over 36.000 hits!

D

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Dan, just keep posting! Alan

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Just call me Al.