Warbird Information Exchange

The Maytag Company built most of the hydraulics for the Martin B26 Marauder. I recently found a small stash of stuff from scrapped aircraft. This item is a main or nose gear down or up lock cylinder. It was hydraulically actuated but could be manually moved for takeoff or landing. It is spring loaded for the chromed pin to remain extended. Requires about 20 lbs of force to pull back.

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

It was the real flying machine charlie then right? Sorry for the pun.

Hi Forgotten Field

Intersting little device - not sure I would be wanting to manually operate this in the middle of an emergency but then again I suppose you will do anything if you have to!

After the sucess of installing the Bomb hoist from the B24 as my garage opener I think this little thingy would make a great hydraulic beer can opener - I think you could have a winner here - how many have WE got mate - I will start working on the Marketing campaign now.

Regards
John P

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Air Vice Marshall
Sunshine State Air Farce

Oh man, I thought you were into preserving this crap. When I want to take it down a notch, I bury it out by the Warbird Tree (since warbird parts fall off of trees) and let the coon dogs "weather" it.

Yeah, I can imagine that the sudden fact of life that you have a hydraulic failure in a B26 might tighten your primary boresight up a few cm, but as I understand it, everything on the airplane had manual back up for operation. In the days of HEAVY armatures on electric motors, the weight savings of hydraulics were like a God send to aircraft designers. Of course, the crew chiefs just loved spitting VV fluid out while looking up into tall airplanes to adjust fittings, relief valves, and don't forget the ever-loving sequencing valves- they are just the dream to fix and make work right...

I had a friend who worked on heavies in WWII and when he got out, he said he HATED the smell of hydraulics, and would walk away from even a TOW TRUCK to avoid smelling the stuff...

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

Hi

Yes I am definately into preserving this stuff - it's just that often the sort of things that get preserved are preserved because in the interim someone thought up a different purpose for them. I recovered some Beaufighter engine mounts once from a pannel beater who was using them as stands to sit car pannels on whilst they were painted - they had been in his shop for 25 years! Then there is the case of the Beaufighter outer wing pannels that were used as a chicken house roof and the wheel hubs were used to hold the feed!

So stuff like this comes up all the time and it is part of the Warbird magic.

Keep up the good work

Kindest regards
John P

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Air Vice Marshall
Sunshine State Air Farce

My friend here in Baltimore now has that one. And the B25 Nose on Michael Ryan's site was a cover for an oil well head. Not aircraft related, but the NOS power pack I have for my RAAF Indian 741 motorcycle was a door stop in somebody's basement until right before I got it.

I was thinking of using these hydraulic locking cylinders for anger management therapy for Rob Rohr- (hydraulic locking pressure on) "Rob, will you PLEASE pull the LOCKING CYLINDERS off!?"

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!