B-17G "Chuckie" Update

[Second Air Force]

Just something random I spotted, following on from another thread regarding "The Best Years of our Lives" movie.

Isn't that an H2X scanner support frame in this still?

PB

It sure is. Also note that this appears to be an F or early G with the non-staggered sliding waist windows.

I've watched that movie many times and never noticed the radome trapeze. Good eye, Paul!!!

Scott

[Django]

I was digging in the Structural Repair T.O. while catching up on paperwork and stumbled onto this:



I didn't think Burt Rutan was old enough to have worked on wartime Fortresses!

Scott

Wow, what a find!! That will make the modelers collective heads' spin for sure!!

[K5DH]

Quick Saturday update:

Despite the heat, a team of several of us (Bill G., Bill A., Mike T., Leo C., James K., and Dean H./me) got the freshly-overhauled prop installed on #2 engine today (that was the last one!). Miguel did some more cleaning and detailing on #3 engine, and it's looking pretty good! Steve and I installed a couple more wing bolts. Andrew and I did a little cleaning inside the left main fuel tank bay.

A big THANKS goes out to our friends at Byam Propeller Service at KFTW for their help with our prop overhauls!

We're inching ever-closer to flight status. Wanna see Chuckie at Thunder Over Michigan? We could sure use some more manpower and financial help. . .

[Second Air Force]

Here's a meager update from the VFM hangar:

I've been working on '543 full time since Tuesday trying to get a lot of the smaller 'one-person-can-accomplish-this' discrepancies taken care of. The list is dwindling pretty nicely. We're waiting on a few parts right now that are holding up progress in getting the inboard fuel cells reinstalled. Hopefully we will be able to install one, or possibly both, tanks on Saturday. I even managed to reinstall and paint the battery tray I repaired last November.


As Dean mentioned in the previous post, it is toasty in the hangar, even for June in Fort Worth.......it feels like weather I experienced in Houston a couple of years ago!

Scott

[SPANNERmkV]

Quick Saturday update:


We're inching ever-closer to flight status. Wanna see Chuckie at Thunder Over Michigan? We could sure use some more manpower and financial help. . .

I wish there was two of me... Or should that be "were" two of me? Never could get myself to agree with my prepositions...

[CrewDawg]

Thanks Don, just come on up in all that spare time I'm sure you have!

[K5DH]

Quick Sunday update from the VFM hangar:

It was another hot one in Fort Worth today (102 deg F). Mike T. and I checked blade tracking on the recently installed #1 and #2 props. Tracking was very near perfect on all six blades! Rick R. assembled and installed a freshly overhauled main landing gear manual crank linkage assembly in the left wing. Doesn't sound like much, but it was an all-day job, with Rick working up inside the wing in that blistering heat. Lots of tour activity today, plenty of guests despite the high temp. We all drank a lot of water and took frequent breaks in the air conditioned ready room!

Hopefully Bill or Scott will post more from this weekend.

Cheers, y'all. . .
Dean

[Django]

Gloss black! The modelers will be after you for not painting it green...

[CrewDawg]

Our aplogies to the modelers. Scott painted the battery trays with battery box paint which is resistant to corrosion caused by battery acid. Hence the reason that he had to rebuild them in the first place. We'll take the criticizim from the modeling community over corrosion on our 65 year old piece of history any day! Besides, once the panels are on, nobody will ever see them.

[Jet Mech]

I think any guy who can knock off the small jobs is the big guy in the project. On our A-26 project, we have way more small one person jobs to do, and usually in the way of another person or project, you just have to do them when you can.

Keep up the good work and check out our A-26 project on this board.

Kurt

[Second Air Force]

Gloss black! The modelers will be after you for not painting it green...

Looky here, this is the stuff I have to use.


And for the modelers out there, the entire battery area in both leading edges is painted with black anti-fouling paint from the factory.

S

[CrewDawg]

ALL THE SPAR BOLTS ARE BACK IN!!! After what seemed like forever, we have finally completed compliance with the Dreaded B-17 Wing Spar A.D.!! This is a major milestone in our progress towards flying again. This weekend we will re-install the inboard fuel tanks, transfer fuel and do our leak checks. We will pressurize all 4 carbs to make sure that they are in good shape when we go to run engines in the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately they have sat dry for quite a spell.

We will be flying soon, exactly when is still too early to tell, but we'll get there.

Thanks to Mike and Hawkeye for coming out with me tonight and helping to put the last bolts in. And thanks to everyone else for all of the hard work that they've put in to get us this far, Scott, Pat, Steve, Mike, Rick, John, Miguel, Hawkeye,

[LadyO2Pilot]

YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

Was there when Mike brought the last of the bolts in......wish I had known y'all were going to come out to work...I would have stayed to cheer y'all on

Looking forward to see the old bird back in the air !!!!!

[K5DH]

Dino's Quick Saturday update:

Today's weather in Fort Worth was icky-humid, almost like being in the tropics, except with no beach, no crystal-blue water, no cold Coronas, and no beautiful chicks in teenie-weenie bikinis. All-righty then. . .

Despite the horrible working conditions, we did get some good work done around the Museum today, including some work on the B-17. I spent part of the day finishing up installing hardware in the nose compartment (navigator's desk, floorboards, step-up to bombardier's area, Norden bombsight, etc), assisted by new member Craig N. (thanks!). Steve S. installed a New Old Stock air intake duct for the #2 engine to replace the old corroded one. Several of us worked on getting the inboard main fuel tank bays in both wings ready to have the fuel tanks reinstalled. The tanks are sitting in position, ready to be manhandled into place and connected up. Bill B. and Joe S. were quite busy with tours for much of the day, always a good thing! The work teams had some interruptions, however. Our monthly Senior Staff and General Membership meetings happened today (all work stopped at 1530 hours), several of us spent a couple of hours shuffling some aircraft around in and out of our second hangar, and then Steve S. flew off with the Pacific Prowler crew to an air show in East Texas. So, despite our high hopes, we were not able to get either fuel tank installed in the B-17 today. But, there's always tomorrow and Monday. . .

[CrewDawg]

Ok, well you see that big black fuel tank sitting on the pallets in Dean's post above, yeah that's installed in the airplane now and has fuel in it!! We got the #3 fuel tank installed today and transferred some fuel in it to leak check it and no leaks, runs, drips or errors! We pressurized the fuel systems on #1, #3, and #4 to leack check them while we had power on and also to get fuel to carburetors to keep the diaphragms inside nice and pliable. It was great to see some big parts going back on and to see the old girl starting to come back to life and hearing boost pumps and the transfer pump running.

We have an air duct to repair (you can actually see it on the yellow workstand to the left in Dean's picture) and get installed before we can install the #2 tank, but we hope to have that done tomorrow. Since several of us have the day off for the holiday we're going to take advantage of it and try to get some more work done on the B-17. The fuel tanks were removed to gain access to the spar bolts. Each tank holds 213 gallons, and when empty, actually are not that heavy, they're just bulky and difficult to handle. We basically get about 4 guys and wrestle it up into position and install the cross members that support it on the bottom. Once that's done there are hoses, bonding straps, cannon plugs (boost pump and fuel qty sending unit) to be connected.

I didn't get any pictures of it, but I will take some tomorrow before we put the access door (aforementioned stress panel) on and post them.

Hopefully more pictures of more progress in the next week or two. Thanks for reading about us and keeping up with us.