Warbird Information Exchange

It would be to protect the interior from high temps.

To answer the questions that have come up:

Painting the glass does several things. It helps keep the temps inside the airplane down, it protects the interior from fading in the sunlight, and it keeps the plexiglas from fogging over. It also discourages people from climbing up on airplanes to look in cockpits. If the airplane moves indoors then the material we use can be removed fairly easily.

The planes are painted because the paint helps protect the underlying surface. On the B-36 the magnesium skins are particularly sensitive to water so we have no choice about this one. The primer isn't designed to be left exposed and it will actually fade and flake faster than the top coat will. The paint we are using now should hold up longer than some of the stuff we were using in the past. We are hoping for 13-15 years from all of our recent paint jobs. We'll find out in 10 years when the first ones we did with this system hit the 13 year mark.

I don't know right off hand what was wrong with the hatch. It wasn't that we couldn't fix it. We decided that it wasn't worth the effort since we have no intention of opening the cockpit for tours and there is another way in if we have to get inside. If the decision about tours changes at some distant future point then we'll fix it.

James

Thanks for answering the questions. The plane looks great!

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

I at least like it when a museum places big glossy photos of the interior on an adjacent easel so you get a taste of what the interior looks like. Maybe you could petition for that to be added somewhere in the museum in some appropriate fashion - and that goes for all the planes that are presentable.

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"Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

I expect they will be closed to prevent occupation by wildlife.
James

Having lived and worked on planes in Tucson...closed is best.

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

May 15th the museum is having another open cockpit night. 6-10P.M.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Hmmmm...my birthday is on May 18th, and my wife was asking what I wanted.....

I didn't know NMUSAF was still doing any open cockpit events. Is this for "freinds" and vets only, or open to the general public?

SN

Everyone is welcome.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Cool! I may have to check into it. The IPMS National Convention is in Columbus this summer. I know they've got a trip to the NMUSAF planned..I wonder if there might be an open cockpit event then as well. The Museum to do those for model shows on a fairly regular basis..I got a chance to crawl through several of the warbirds back in the early '90s, including the B-36, 17, 29, and my favorite, the -24. Of course back then I was shooting film, so I had to pick my shots carefully. I'd love to go back and reshoot everything in digital.

SN

I'm curious as to what happened to the engines? I know when it was still here in Texas it had all of the engines since my great uncle was one of the folks that worked on her to get her ready for the flight from Greater Southwest airport that never happened. Were they distributed to other museums when the plane was being restored in Ft. Worth, or was it after it was sent to Pima?

I thought the plane was complete...the engines are gone?

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

I think the plane has only one engine left. The USAF was upset that the Ft. Worth group was going to try and fly her so they stepped in. I'm not sure where the other 5 engines went.

I'm sure someone else here knows the entire story.

Once the decision was made that it would never fly, the engines were removed from the power pods to save weight. This was in the late 70s when the aircraft was being diassembled at GSW in preparation for the move to Carswell. I remember seeing piles of parts - jugs the size of my head, a four-foot-long crankshaft... No idea what happened to them.

Thats a shame. Hopefully they were saved...

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."