What's the latest on the P-59 at Chino?

[Cindy]

Actually, I don't recall who, but we did have sponsorship that paid for the overhaul of 3 engines. Yes, the plane only has two, but now we have a spare!
If your company is interested in a sponsorship, I'm sure the museum would be happy to speak with them!!!

[Stephan Wilkinson]

How it works...

Time & Budget:
The last 10% of the work takes 90% of the time allotted.
Twice as long for three times the cost of the original estimate, or two times the cost in three times the original time line. Take your pick

Those rules of thumb apply to amateurs--first-time aircraft homebuilders, kitbuilders, restorers. That doesn't include PoF, obviously.

Having built a fairly well-known Falco, I have Been There...

[51fixer]

Actually, I don't recall who, but we did have sponsorship that paid for the overhaul of 3 engines. Yes, the plane only has two, but now we have a spare!
If your company is interested in a sponsorship, I'm sure the museum would be happy to speak with them!!!

I believe it was Ryder or Aviall who did the engines.
That might have been in the 90s.
JB would know.

[flypa38]

Actually, I don't recall who, but we did have sponsorship that paid for the overhaul of 3 engines. Yes, the plane only has two, but now we have a spare!
If your company is interested in a sponsorship, I'm sure the museum would be happy to speak with them!!!

HAHA!!! My company barely sponsors it's employees enough to survive! Although they did make a donation recently to a nature type charity after one of our aircraft bird-struck a rather famous mama eagle.......

What I was referring to was a small display at a customer training center I was sent to for an engine manufacturer. They seemed pretty proud that their engine was used and perhaps they'd be interested in supporting their heritage.

Johnny

[ZRX61]

Those rules of thumb apply to amateurs--first-time aircraft homebuilders, kitbuilders, restorers. That doesn't include PoF, obviously.

Having built a fairly well-known Falco, I have Been There...

Sometimes things are just out of your control: the wait for a vital aircraft part that should have been here 6 months ago, the paint shop taking 4 frigging months to do a two week paint job & then blaming the upholstery shop (who were still fitting stuff into the project in the trailer on the way to SEMA) when the show aired (Rides on TLC several years ago, either the Hammer Plymouth or Kenny Wayne Shepherds *Extreme Lee* Charger) Can't remember which car it was, did the interior for both at the same time... Sometimes it's the part that works perfectly on the bench, then craps out when fitted to the aircraft (P51 Radiator door actuators anyone?) & then it takes 2 months to find/overhaul another one.
No Resto shop can survive on just one job, ya have to have something else to do while ya wait if you want to work a full week, every week... usually maint or annuals etc.

[Canso42]

Is that a centrifugal flow engine, like a Whittle?

[JDK]

Is that a centrifugal flow engine, like a Whittle?

Yes, basically it's the Whittle design on all the early Allied jets. The CT-133 is still powered by that centrifugal flow type engine, probably the last military service jet with that kind of engine (there's the Martin Baker Meteors too, of course, and multiple warbirds).

[agent86]

The work they have done looks great.I know,I was ALLOWED to sweep the floor around it.After joining the museum,my buddy and I tried to wrench on WARBIRDS.we have both turned wrenches all our lives(I now restore vintage ferrari's)We got up at 6:00 am ,drove 40 miles and were handed brooms.3rd time was the last.progress on the p-59 has been real slow

[ZRX61]

The work they have done looks great.I know,I was ALLOWED to sweep the floor around it.After joining the museum,my buddy and I tried to wrench on WARBIRDS.we have both turned wrenches all our lives(I now restore vintage ferrari's)We got up at 6:00 am ,drove 40 miles and were handed brooms.3rd time was the last.progress on the p-59 has been real slow

Could have been worse.... The CAF would have charged you for the privilege..

[Cindy]

I don't know when you tried to volunteer. I can tell you that we have over 100 active volunteers, and at some point in time, almost all of them express an interest in working on a restoration project. We don't have that many projects and many of them don't have the necessary experience. We have several criteria that we look at when determining whether someone works on a restoration project.
1 - Are they a licensed A&P?
2 - Do we have any open projects to assign them to?
3 - How long has this person been a volunteer?

Often times, unless there is a critical need and the person is a licensed A&P, we do not put them on a restoration project immediately. It is disruptive to a project to have someone start to volunteer and find that they have a lack of focus, don't have the time, don't want to make the commitment, other reasons, for not sticking with the project.

My typical volunteer orientation has 10 - 20 people attend. I usually have 1% drop the same day, 60% might return 1 time, 30% return up to 4 times and about 10% that volunteer for one or more years. That's a lot of time to invest in getting someone trained and up to speed on how we do things.

If you still have an interest, please feel free to come by on a Saturday and ask for me directly. I am happy to discuss our current volunteer program with you.

Cindy Novak-DeLaurell
Assistant Volunteer Coordinator
Planes of Fame Air Museum

[Obergrafeter]

The CAF would charge you for the privilage..................we have special dirt, plus we would stick a tramp stamp on your ass.

[Rick65]

Early generation jet engines weren't famous for their reliability, for their engine response or their service intervals.
Can anyone tell me what has been done to the engines on this plane to make them viable for flight status.

[51fixer]

Early generation jet engines weren't famous for their reliability, for their engine response or their service intervals.
Can anyone tell me what has been done to the engines on this plane to make them viable for flight status.

They were overhauled by a FAA Approved Turbine Engine Shop IAW the appropriate overhaul and maint manuals.
The Overhaul work on the 3 engines was donated.

IIRC at the time it was Ryder which was bought out by Aviall and then sold again since. Or maybe Aviall was a division of Ryder at that time.

Maybe Cindy can refresh my memory.

[JDK]

Early generation jet engines weren't famous for their reliability, for their engine response or their service intervals.
Can anyone tell me what has been done to the engines on this plane to make them viable for flight status.

Thanks to Rich for a specific answer. A more general one is that the experimental Whittle style centrifugal jets were pretty ratchety, but once into production, they were remarkably reliable, simple and robust. We have second generation engines of this type powering aircraft for half a century now. You may have taken on board the issues with the German axial-flow engines, which suffered from a range of issues, not least raw materials and losing the war stuff. Either way, they're chalk and cheese.

HTH,

PS - Any comment re- volunteering could be in a new, separate, thread.

[Brad]

Could have been worse.... The CAF would have charged you for the privilege..

That's true. But I've gotten more out of the CAF then they have gotten from me! I've worked for free at museums and collections and had a good time, learned a lot and had all sorts of opportunities because of it. On the other hand, I'm engineering on the only flying B-29 in the world and working on it all the time. All for the low price of membership. Different strokes for different folks I guess but it is easy to get a lot out of the CAF if you are willing to put a little into it.