Warbird Information Exchange

...... And while wrenching with one hand, Gary managed to write up a pretty good article on Centarus/R-3350/Sea Fury's in the latest issue of Warbirds International I just got in the mail, with the other. You keep a BUSY schedule Gary... I guess with both hands busy you must have to spray paint 927 with your................................foot?

Hi Garyfirst of all,great work over the last 81 pages!!!!I think this is the best example I've ever seen of an extreme makeover.You may be approaching burnout now but you will look back with pride on the end result.I'm wondering if the Boss who demanded the completion date has contributed his time at all in the 6 months to the project(guessing NOT!!)By the way,we need the Corsair here in Darwin painted in the next year or so,do your painters do overseas contracts?Its about 35 deg here so they probably won't need too much of a uniform!!!!!!.Best wishes on the progress,regards,Pete

_________________
Give me a Centaurus over a Merlin any day

Gary,

Realizing that you are an Experimental Category aircraft, is there any type of paperwork associated with these mods? I know we (With at Standard Transport) would have to submit a ton of engineering data and a Form 337 in order to even THINK about it.

What kind of paperwork is involved?

_________________
Kevin Kearney
Vice President
Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation


C-54D "Spirit of Freedom" 43-17228
C-97 "Angel of Deliverance" 52-2718 (painted as YC-97A 45-59595)
C-54E/R5D-4 "Spirit of Freedom" 44-9144 BuNo 90414 (wfu April/2020)
http://www.spiritoffreedom.org

Hi ya'll! It's Dave, from the great state of Texas. Got down here Friday with a fellow co-worker, Rich Mennel from Beaver, Pa. Shorty (Akron, Oh.)is also here and Scott from Tulsa. As you already have seen, Gary's got me on windows again! Not that that's a problem. The Ol Girl is really starting to look much better. We had a short meeting yesterday to go over the final 2 months timetable for completion. It is sure going to be hectic to get everything done in time for the unvailing. The prevailing deadline is causing Gary some stress but he'll get over that once it's complete! I ask all of you to see if there's any way for you to come and give him a hand over these next 8 weeks. Your help is greatly needed and will be greatly appreciated. Not only that, you may get a sneak peek at Top Secret information that would be worth the trip, in itself. Gotta Go! more windows to do!

Please pass on Big Hello from me to Shorty!

Hope to see you on the circuit, my friend!

Kevin

_________________
Kevin Kearney
Vice President
Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation


C-54D "Spirit of Freedom" 43-17228
C-97 "Angel of Deliverance" 52-2718 (painted as YC-97A 45-59595)
C-54E/R5D-4 "Spirit of Freedom" 44-9144 BuNo 90414 (wfu April/2020)
http://www.spiritoffreedom.org

I finally finished installing the last of the cowling nosebowls-won't miss them for a while!-and volunteered to investigate installing the bombracks. We looked at the options and decided to fabricate mounts that will not be exactly as original due to the extensive mods done during the cargo conversion. Whenever the bombays are redone in the original style and the bombay doors are installed, the racks can be mounted as they originally were. The installation I'm working on will give people a general idea of the bombay area and still allow passengers to move fore-and-aft in the airplane.

Come on down volunteers!!!
Scott

Sorry it's been a few days since I last updated. I had a minor little mishap early on Sunday morning, which pretty much made me useless for the next day or two. I'm back at work now and am actually working. I cannot thank Andy, Scott, Rich, Shorty and especially Dave Miller enough for keeping the amazing progress going while I was at the house. Dave stepped up and sort of took the reins while I was out and everyone else worked very well together. Perhaps I should stay at home more often.

Unfortunately, Dave and Rich had to go back home, but Scott is still here and is making amazing progress on the installation of our newly acquired bomb racks. Shorty is getting the cockpit put back together and is also starting on installation of the exhaust stacks. Andy has been doing a little bit of everything, from installing windows, to sanding, to making sheet metal parts and pieces.

Me? Well, I'm going to get out there and get some painting done this morning. I've got an appointment later this morning that will probably kill my momentum, but at least I know everyone else will be making great progress without me here.

Oh, and Airlift48 (Kevin)...Since the airplane is in Experimental Category, we normally wouldn't really need to do much of anything as far as additional paperwork is concerned, however, we are working with the FAA to get a whole new "updated" batch of paperwork in order to make things a little more current. Just figured this would be a good time to do that.

Gary

Gary is right about losing Dave and Rich--they worked their tails off getting all the radio room windows installed so Gary could continue painting that area. In addition they cut and installed new cockpit sliding side windows and a myriad of other tasks. The @%#@@!% bombracks kept me from sleeping, I've been up since 0230 drawing up brackets, intercostals, etc. that I literally dreamed up during the night. I have to go back to my real job tomorrow morning and I may have bitten off a little more than I should have with these racks! This darn airplane kind of gets under your skin after a while and it will be kind of hard to bug out.

More later,
Scott

Yeah. I kind of figured that. Curiousity prompted me to ask.

I am interested in the vacuum pump. Is there an STC to use that in place of the originals? It would be worth investigating here.

Also, Love the close tolerance nuts. Good idea.

Keep up the good work. It really is shaping up!

_________________
Kevin Kearney
Vice President
Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation


C-54D "Spirit of Freedom" 43-17228
C-97 "Angel of Deliverance" 52-2718 (painted as YC-97A 45-59595)
C-54E/R5D-4 "Spirit of Freedom" 44-9144 BuNo 90414 (wfu April/2020)
http://www.spiritoffreedom.org

You'd have to get with either Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Company or SigmaTek to see if they have the STC stuff for it. I never inquired about it due to the Experimental status of our airplane.

Gary

The Sigma-Tek site shows that it is certified for a bunch of horizontally opposed engines. You could probably do a one time field approval though on something not already approved.

We think that we have finally stripped and cleaned the B-24 rudders and elevators well enough that they can now be primed and then recovered. Above, you see just some of the High Sky Wing members earlier this evening who have been working on this not so glamorous work for the last couple of weeks. Any resemblance of being behind "held captive" by these fascinating parts is entirely true! More later.

Randy

I'd like to thank the High Sky Wing personally for the great job they did on the elevator we repaired the other day--clean parts are sure easier to work on!

The airplane made steady progress today, Gary got some more painting completed around the new radio room windows. Andy continued with paint prep in addition to his other jobs. Shorty is moving forward fast with exhaust collector ring installations, and I was able to locate and fabricate mounting brackets for three of the new bomb racks.

I'll be heading back to Oklahoma in the morning and the guys would sure like some new help to arrive soon-hint hint.

Scott

Let me tell you that Scott is a worker bee! He did a huge amount of work while he was here and not once asked for any help. He is going to be missed as well Our crew in Midland needs your help. Please find a way to get there and lend a hand. To work with the likes of Gary is an honor in it's self. Remember, this is the oldest, flyable WWII warbird in the world. If you come here, I promise you, you will never forget the experience. This is history in the making

So how long do you reckon it's been since Ol' 927 had a bomb hanging inside of it?




Excellent work was done by Scott (Second Air Force) to get three of our four bomb racks in place. Now, there is still plenty of work to be done, as we still need to permanently attach the bracketry, clean up the racks, and so on, but y'all get the idea. The racks were all in amazing condition, except for one (which is the one not in the airplane right now). It has some cancer on one of it's uprights that must be replaced. However, we've gotten lucky and I found another B-24 bomb rack out on our pile-o-parts, and we're going to just swap out uprights. You know, take two bad racks to make one good one.

Anyway, here are a couple more views of what Scott was able to accomplish.......

From the front, looking aft.....






Another shot from the back, looking forward......




And naturally, Mosquito had to give it his approval........




So, as you can see, we ARE making forward progress. It is simply amazing how just a few extra bodies can make this project move forward and give some positive energy to it. It's no secret that I've been a basketcase here lately, and I'll probably continue to be one until this pig is done. However, I cannot say enough how important the skilled and unskilled volunteers alike have been appreciated by me. Their contributions to this project so far have been extremely helpful and hopefully something they'll be proud of for years to come.

I'm probably not going to be giving quite as many detailed updates during the remainder of the project, for two reasons. One, I'm likely not going to be able to take the time required to make some of those lengthy updates. And two, I want to keep some of the details of this project somewhat clandestine until it's unveiling in May.

So y'all just hang in there with me. It's starting to get exciting!

Gary