PV-2D Harpoon 84062 (Tanker 101) comes back to life

[Travisd80elcam]

Taigh, looks like you all had a great 11-11-11 Veterans Day. I was on youtube today and stumbled a crossed this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4GS1PND7pA . i am more than jealous. Live fire in a ball turret. so awesome. (hope it links)

[Taigh Ramey]

Bernie and I have been driving around the country for a few weeks picking up aircraft stuff and I didn't get a chance to post the latest progress before I departed.

We found some great Harpoon goodies on the trip but more about that later.

With the radar rack gear fabricated, removed and painted Ken and his Cousin Mike started to put it back in place. Here they are doing just that







Ricky poked his head up through from the bomb bay to see what the guys were up to



And he got the royal flush treatment. Poor Ricky!



The seat pedestal for the radar operator was fabricated and fitted





Joe Davis, who owns Eagle Field, was real nice to give us a seat for the radar operators position. Thanks Joe!



The seat was cleaned, stripped, repaired and painted and then off for upholstery



After the seat came back from upholstery it gets installed. Thanks again Joe for the wonderful seat!



So Ken has to try out the new seat. Okay, I did too!



The racks and fittings are secured



I found some of the original mounting plates for the APS-3 radar scope in our stash of parts. The part number stamps and factory pencil notations still in place. I also found an original, correct Globe Wernicke clip from an old clip board for the radar table.



Then the radar receiver and power unit are set in their racks





The radar station is coming along nicely





We have a great announcement coming up soon thanks to some amazing people here on WIX. More to come

[cco23i]

WOW! OUTFRICKENSTANDING!! What a GREAT job!

Scott

[GARY HILTON]

Taigh,

You and your crew rock....

Computer problems have kept me from harrasment procedures, but now back in business!

I know y'all have heard it more than once, so once again, your progress reports are very much appreciated, so please keep it up!

Can't wait to hear of your adventures in Poon Parts Gathering....we need a full report...who, what, where, when, etc...complete with 8X10 color glossy photos!!

I haven't got much for the Harpoon News section....haven't heard anything from Bruce as to what he is doing with his two Harpoons....I saw the article that was in Air Classics....whoever the dude or dude-ette was that wrote the article about moving the Harpoon from Rialto to Chino, last year, missed all the interesting facts of the movement, and left out any mention of the fat man who did the dirty deed.
The museum in Hawaii has title to a Harpoon to be floated to Pearl in the near future...

Career change has been in the wind for me, and with the new opertunity, I think that youse guys just might be getting a delivery of Harpoon ballast soon!

Cheers!
Gary

[Dan Johnson II]

Fantastic work as always!

Thanks for keeping us updated

[StangStung]

Lots of awesomeness going on in this thread! Keep up the good work! Looks fantastic!

[rwdfresno]

Taigh,

Looking good. Glad to see the seat in a Harpoon. I hope to have an opportunity to use it in flight someday lol.

Ryan

[cooper9411]

Long Live the "Poon"

[Taigh Ramey]

Thanks for the kind words you all. The gang here appreciates it more than you know.

Can't wait to hear of your adventures in Poon Parts Gathering....we need a full report...who, what, where, when, etc...complete with 8X10 color glossy photos!!

...I think that youse guys just might be getting a delivery of Harpoon ballast soon!

Hey Gary,

It was mostly a Beech parts gathering junket but I did find a few goodies for the Harpoon like a good seat for the radio operators position, an awesome set of connectors for the ARC-5 command set and some radio shock mounts. I also found some great radar gear that I am hoping the owner might donate.

Here is a shot of the aft fuselage of a UC-45J that I came across



Inside it still had a full compliment of ARC-5 gear including the hard to find connectors and shock mounts



I paid a good price as the family that owns it is in need but we now have most of the connectors for the ARC-5. Very cool!

As for your bringing poon parts to us...please do so. We can use 'em. Thanks Gary

Hey if any of your Harpoon customers needs someone to fix up, ferry, restore, build the interior or whatever please send them our way. We have run through a lot of the learning curve pretty quickly and are chock full of patterns and tooling to make all of this gear over again a lot quicker than the first time.

Taigh,

Looking good. Glad to see the seat in a Harpoon. I hope to have an opportunity to use it in flight someday lol.

Ryan

You bet Ryan. I will get you and your Dad up on a ride. We hope to bring the Harpoon to Eagle Field next June. Please thank you Dad again for me. He was kind enough to donate a seat a while ago to Gary Austin and 'Ol 927 so you have a generous Pop indeed.

More coming...

[steve dickey]

Hi Taigh, seeing your picture with the radio's an such reminded me of a similar setup in an SNB-5 that is currently at Cochise College. Perhaps there is something there you could use and contact the college? Cochise College A&P school, Douglas Az. They have three hulks down there that I highly doubt they have any use for. But then again they probably would say "we want to keep them for future use!"
These were taken in 08.

[GARY HILTON]

Steve....WOW! That looks like another adventure in Douglas!

No problem Taigh....I have removed my passenger seat in my tractor, as it makes it easier to load Ham-Standard props for the Poon. I have moved a few 4X8 sheets of marine grade plywood in the cab as well! I still can't get the verticle fin to fit though...those things can be a problem at times.....

There's a guy in S.W. Missouri that used to have a lot of radar/radio parts for Navy aircraft.....This guy had the Corsair in the barn, that I had been searching forever for...turned out that there were two of them...just ask Al Stix!!!!

G.

[Taigh Ramey]

There's a guy in S.W. Missouri that used to have a lot of radar/radio parts for Navy aircraft.....This guy had the Corsair in the barn, that I had been searching forever for...turned out that there were two of them...just ask Al Stix!!!!

G.

Oooh, radar stuff in a barn. How cool is that? Second only to two corsairs in a barn. Now if the two corsair's in the barn had radar...hmmm...

[gary1954]

Imagine, back in that period, this was State of the Art equipment, can you imagine telling the crews of these planes that in the year 2011 the pilot will have a visor he can flip down and see the landing environment in Zero Zero conditions with a thing called FLIR.
Great Great job guys, fantastic.

[Taigh Ramey]

I would like to tell you all about the incredible generosity of a couple of WIX individuals who have decided to help the Harpoon project in a big way. First PinecastleAAF said he would like to donate one of the 10 guns needed for the Harpoon. Thank you, thank you THANK YOU!

Then another WIX member said that his family's foundation would like to give the Harpoon a grant toward the guns. He suggested a matching funds program whereas the foundation will donate one gun for every one we can raise funding for!

When I and the gang here heard about this we all about fell over. Wow, we were touched at the kindness and generosity. We can't thank you enough. We have gone from thinking it will be years until we can even think of the Harpoon having guns to wow its now going to happen, almost.

With PinecastleAAF starting it off we now have one gun. With our anonymous WIX members family foundation we now have two with the potential for all ten! So we are short eight guns to make this a reality:



Actually we are only short four guns as we have a promise to match gun for gun up to the ten needed. Now we need to raise funds for the remaining four guns.

We have found a good gun builder who has offered us a very reasonable price for a set of steel guns that from the photos I have seen look great. He will custom build them to our needs for the top turret and the 8 gun nose. With the gun mounts, posts, chargers etc the price will be about $2000 per gun. Aluminum replicas sell for about this amount alone so getting them in steel meeting our custom specifications is real good. Now we need to try and raise the funding for the last four guns or $8000.

If you know anyone or any organization that might be willing to help us raise the funds for this please tell them what we are trying to do. I am beyond excited about giving this Warbird turned air tanker her teeth back. She had ten 50 cal guns installed at the factory as can be seen by this log book entry



Now we are real close to getting all the guns back in place. What an impressive display of firepower at the show with the nose lowered and a nice tight V formation of eight 50's, ammo boxes, feed chutes, chargers and accessories all just the way it was. Please help us find the funds for the last few guns and finish off what two wonderful WIX folks have started. Even if its a dollar or 20 it all helps us to receive the matching funds that will make this warbird more complete.

Thank you in advance for your help and support with this worthy project. Spread the word.

[cco23i]

MMMM, Murph and I may have to take a road trip to the A&P school in Douglas. (As long as it's not on a reservation ) inside joke.

Scott