Warbird Information Exchange

As some of you may know we are restoring the Sikorsky S-60. It seems that there was a live 700psi charge on the fire bottle. Maybe this is why you need to have people who know what they are doing working around you.

See the Video...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cherrybomb13/5287031010/

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Andrew King
Air Museum Director with no Museum to Direct
Open to Suggestions

Drew;
Thanks for posting that.
It really shows how important it is to tread lightly around old aircraft!
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

Yea well being there and hearing it and smelling the compressed air from the 1950's was a real "Blast".

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Andrew King
Air Museum Director with no Museum to Direct
Open to Suggestions

Reminds me of when Dornier was restoring the NASM's Do335; after Lufthansa flew it home to Germany in 747 freighter, Dornier discovered that the explosive bolts for the ventral fin and rear prop were all still installed and still quite "live".

Dan

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Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.

When they started the Me262 replica project, didn't they discover that no one had ever cleared the guns?
I seem to recall reading that somewhere, but it could be apocryphal

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

Couple I recall.

When they restored the Fw190F-8 at the NASM they found out the 20mm shell used for the canopy emergency release was still in place. The one on the Fw190A-5 was corroded through and was not an issue.

As for compressed oxygen/air - the bottle in the recently recovered F4U-1 was still pressurised after 67 years.

regards

MS

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'Coups De Foudre'
(511FS, 405FG watering hole), St Dizier, France 1944/45

The one on the A-5 is now quite live, I can assure you!

I remember reading that Paul Allen's Fw 190 was discovered to have live shells still in the breaches of the guns after it was disassembled and shipped to the UK. Supposedly they tested the firing circuits and if there had been a live battery in the aircraft before disassembly the guns could have been fired.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

I received a one man WW2 life raft that has passed many hands, including being shipped Fed-EX, that still has the loaded CO-2 bottle in it.

same scenario with me x 2. bought via ebay a few years ago. bought a 4.7 lb c02 life raft tank, didn't know it was fully charged. 1945 dated. also bought a ww 2 japanese aircraft fire extinguisher. it still had a quarter of the retardant still in it. i shot the remainder in the street & it left a marring stain in the asphalt of my street for a few years. these ups / fedex people deliver plenty of dangerous stuff with no knowledge of their packages more frequently than you think.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Guys, I would be careful what you post as this could restrict future shipping of any items, however mundane, by the homegrown stupidity crowd if this gets out.

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Hang The Expense

Many years ago we took the bang seat out of an F-104. It was disarmed, pinned, rusted, disconnected and every thing that could be pulled on it had been pulled at different times over the years. We lowered it out the bottom of the plane and laid it up in the back of my truck. After putting the belly plate back on the plane and picking up our tools we prepared to drive the seat up to the storage hanger. Me and two other guys pushed the seat up farther into the bed of the truck so it didn't fall out on the taxiway. As we pushed it, something exploded and it sounded just like a gun had been fired. One of the initiators was still live and had been caught on the edge of the bedliner. The tubes were all disconnected so everything that was blown out of the initiator hit me right in the face. By pure luck I blinked right as it happened. I didn't open my eyes for a few seconds because I honestly thought I was dead or at least one of the other guys was. I reached up and felt my face, nothing was missing so I looked around. Nobody was hurt but needless to say all of us left right then to change pants! I later pulled all the initiators off the seat and attempted to fire them but none of them worked. The entire episode was funny after we figured out nobody was hurt but it reminded me how dangerous this stuff can be.

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Brad

I'll say this. Bill and Charlie are former Sikorsky mechanics and have real experience working on these kinds of birds everyday for a living. We are also lucky enough to have an engineer working with us going over the prints etc. There are no 2 better men around the CASC that I would trust my body, eyes, limbs etc to then these guys. Hence My comment in the video. If your gonna play with the big boy toys make sure you have some training or someone to help you.

The bottle needed to be dumped and it was under extreme pressure (700 psi) and the fittings were heavily rusted and corroded. We tried 12/24 volts to pop the solenoid, then it was decided to hit it with 110 and whammy it released. No further work on the center section could be performed until it was safe.

I would not recommend doing this without some prior knowledge of the system and how it works.

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Andrew King
Air Museum Director with no Museum to Direct
Open to Suggestions

Would it be possible to start a restoration thread about the S-60?

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Magister Aviation
It's all in my book

Yep, 110 will do it every time and its the EASY of the methods. We would time change bottles all the time as mechanics and you cant ship them loaded so we would discharge them. 2 short leads to the squib and hook it to a extension cord and wala, plug it in. But the mounting method would vary. Usually just lay it in a trash can and put some tires on top of it was the quick and easy way.

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005