Strange civilian uses of warbird parts

[retroaviation]

I'm using the two upper sections of a C-97 cowling as a dog house right now. It's plenty big......but my dogs, Merlin & Cleco prefer to stay inside, with me.

Gary

[mlenoch]

Not sure if I posted this previously, a former aircraft glass factory in Ottawa, Illinois used P-47 windshields as cemented-in-place windows for their 5 story brick building. Jay Wisler found a Helldiver canopy in the building rafters a few years back.
VL

[Wheels up]

This is said to be a former bomb casing......

[BigGrey]

Back in the early 80's the Red Baron Restaurant at Riverside Airport, RAL, in So Cal had a canopy as a sneeze shield over the salad bar. It may have been a T-33 canopy.

Les

[Canso42]

Earllier this year on another thread there was mention of a C-97 greenhouse attached to the back of a house as a home office.

[Airplanejunkie]

My mother's neighbor when she was growing up bought a CG4 troop glider. He used the wood from the crates to frame an addition on his house. He assembled the glider, sold the instruments, wheels, etc and left the airframe in the backyard for the local kids to play on. It was gone before my time (but the addition still stands.)

[Augsburgeagle]

Messerschmitt 109 spinners make excellent chicken houses when the inner web is removed, 109 Belly panels were also used to make small sheds, there are many cut down examples of these today. I seem to recall there being a panther tank barrel used to prop up a shed in the Ardennes aswell.

I also remember seing a casa He111 being used one a control tower in Spain.

[Wheels up]

There are several engine parts on the Gunderson Do-All Machine

[Versatile]

I have seen a F101 Voodoo canopy as a greenhouse and a P-47 Prop hub on a merry go round.

47sc tires for B-25 etc used on grain carts as well as 56sc and 56-16's.

[DoraNineFan]

Pics of a few Radials alternatively used

http://www.chez.com/pullinghue/rdphotos.html

To borrow a thought from a well-known engine builder expressing his opinion of the tractor pullers. "They only went to turbines after they screwed up all the Allisons they could find."

I guess we get to watch them trash all the surplus radials too.

[Myles]

There was this old guy in my neighborhood that had two PT-17's in his garage. I discovered this one day about 25 years ago while riding my bicycle home from the airport. I rode up this street as I had done many times before, only this time I saw a garage door open with the two fuselages sitting on their gear. I turned around and introduced myself to this guy. Long story longer, I saw, laying on the garage floor an Avenger rear ball turret greenhouse (with glass). I asked him where he got it. He said he bought from an old Army-Navy surplus store up the highway in the early 1960's. I asked him,"What did you pay for it? About a $100?" He said, "No, more like about $15!" I asked him what he was going to do with it. He said he would give it to someone that needed it. I told him that I needed it. He said, "Yeah! I know you do." He then told me a story about his brother-in-law that decided he liked it better and took it without Walt knowing this. Months later when Walt was at the brother-in-laws house he saw the turret upside down in the ground. It was being used as a flower pot! Walt tore it out of the ground and took it home. Walt had been a pilot before WWII. He did not want to part with any of this stuff. He died a couple of years ago. Don't know what happened to any of his stuff.

[Ken]

This section of skin from a B-17 tail is on display at NMUSAF. Apparently discovered in Germany in the mid-90's being used as part of a shed.

[Canso42]

In the early nineties I saw a car magazine with a feature on one of Jay Leno's bizarre collector cars. It was a huge long Hispano-Suiza roadster with a WWI SPAD engine, a big Hisso V-8. I wish I had a copy of it now, it was pretty cool.

[bootlegger]

My name is Dave and Im new to this forum. There was a truck/ camper conversion here in Australia also with a DC3 fuselage incorporated into it.
It was sold recently in one of our classic cars mags.

Im a bit of a collector and I bought off this old carnival guy 9 old bumper cars from the 30's and 10 pinball machines. When I went to his place amongst 10 acres of junk was an old drop tank. He said it was used to ferry the Spitfires from New Guinea to Australia. Its steel not alloy. I brought it home and made it into a downhill racer. I race my "Billy Cart" every year at this hot rod event. It always pulls a crowd and has even won a trophy for the hairieast ride as I run it with no brakes (the windy track is around 1km long).

I have a fair few other old aircraft parts lying around my place (nothing any good).

There is also a guy here who has a huge stash of old aircraft parts and he has made several sculptures out of them ( mainly household items).

Im also one of those terrible guys that has a Merlin in a Hydroplane. Ive recently finished a full resto on it and ran it for the first time in march and again in August.

Im figuring now you all want to point the bone at me but consider this if these guys didnt find another use for these motors a lot more would have ended up being melted down for scrap. Lets not forget that air racing also contributed to a lot of destroyed motors. The motor in my boat has no history in an aircraft but became one of the greatest race boats in Aussie history.

I dont know how to post pics but I can email them to someone to put them up if you are interested.

Im passionate about old warbirds but Im figuring this is as close as Ill get to owning one.

Im hunting some small parts to keep my motor running. A spray nozzle diaphram, accellerator pump diaphram and maybe a starter bendix drive.
If you have any of these parts that are out of hours but still servicable let me know.

I still have to pull the motor down to see what has gone wrong with the starter drive.

I probably should post this somewhere else but can you get to the bendix from behind the supercharger or do you also need to pull down the wheelcase?

Dave Pagano davehotboats@hotmail.com

[John Dupre]

I remember seeing in FlyPast some time ago that a half dozen or so Brewster Buffalo canopy sections were recovered in the UK after being used as green houses. The great photographer and writer Budd Davisson is restoring a hot rod he originally built when he was 16 and it has cut down BT-13 seats in it.