Hoping to find out the Identity of the Branson Harpoon

[bdk]

Gary, how did you determine the identity?

[GARY HILTON]

On one of the pictures I posted via the dad-blamed photobucket, you can see on an inner wing rib located at the production break between the center section and the outer wing panel, there is a painted on set of four numbers, that have appeared on every PV-2 that I have ever seen, when the wings are removed. These numbers are the last four of the Lockheed production number. My bird is Lockheed 15-1200, so the four numbers painted on the ribs are 1200...in this case 1468 which is 15-1468.

If you look back in some of my earlier posts, you can see these numbers on Pooners PV N7257C, and the two PV's that I took pictures of in Louisianna.

I have also heard of the path of this particular PV, as it made it's way from Wisconsin, to Borrego Spgs., Ca., to Branson. I just could not confirm, as all the console data plates were removed, and I couldn't find any trace of N-numbers beneath the paint, or any other means of identification.

This ole girl has been a brain strain for me for too long, and it's good to know my obsession has closure.

Now....next adventure...Hi Ho.

G

[GARY HILTON]

Pick-up load of what I brought back from Branson
http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t120 ... CF1073.jpg

[bdk]

I got a Photobucket error?

[Taigh Ramey]

I did get the ID for the old girl. She is 15-1468 37502 N7269C May you rest in peace

Gary, you and I talked about trying to wrap our heads around how it was possible for that storm/tornado to rip the spar apart in a Harpoon like that. and if it was indeed 37502 then it can be explained.

A little history on 1468-37502-N7269C: This was one of the few PV-2's that was never modified for tanker or other civil use. I first saw it in 1979 or so at Falcon Field when I worked at the Pima Air Museum. At that time it was sitting on its gear without outer wing panels and the nose was off at the production break just forward of the windshield. I remember crawling inside the fuselage through the original door and wondering why the door was so thick. Bob Johnson, the director of restoration at Pima, said it held a raft and emergency supplies. I was amazed that it was so complete inside with all of the crew stations and equipment still in place. This PV-2 and the one at Pima were very complete and pretty much the only surviving Harpoons that were untouched from when they left the service.

Probably not long after I was at Falcon Field, the CAF in Wisconsin decided to build a PV-2 and they chose an ex air tanker and made a deal with the what I think was Gene Packard's outfit (Globe?) to get it ferriable. The CAF also bought the fuselage of 37502 for its interior fittings.

The CAF had the wings cut off at at the fuselage and the horizontal was similarly cut. The remaining fuselage, sans nacelles, were transported to Wisconsin where they stripped the interior.







I was told by the CAF that the remains of the fuselage was scrapped a long time ago. I guess not but since the wings were cut off it would certainly explain why the aircraft came apart so readily in the storm.

The question arises as to where the wings, nacelles and tail came from and just how the wings were put back on the fuselage. This is why I question this bureau number because of all of the effort required to rebuild a full Harpoon from a fuselage that had the wings sawed off with a chop saw right through the spars. They must have had a steel structure to hold everything together and support it on the pylon. Gary, was it pretty clear that the spars were cut at the fuselage as the photos show? Did Carl get the wings etc from Globe or the CAF? He has some of the remnants of the last PV-2 built (84064) which is the first one that the CAF WI had wanted to rebuild but unfortunately it crashed on its test flight because the crew took off from Falcon Field with the superchargers in high blower. Incidentally we have the instrument panel for 1608-84064-N7415C at our museum.

I will have to ask Carl about this as I bet he picked up the remnants of 37502 and 84064 at Falcon Field way back when and then put them back together for the golf course.

I was sad that that 37502 was cut up to begin with since she was such a rare and essentially complete PV-2. I know the CAF had big problems with corrosion on the Harpoon that they ferried in. Willy engineered the repairs for the spar and other areas but I always wondered if it would have been better to use the flyable tanker's QEC's and other parts to restore 37502. It is pure speculation that 502 may have been in better shape corrosion wise and it was a mute point once the wings were cut but I was always sad to see such a complete and original airframe cut.

The CAF did a great job and it was too bad that they ended up selling the project. Tim Savage bought it for his Harpoon project since it had overhauled engines. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your point of view, the CAF's Harpoon and its components were mixed up when Tim's AT-6 factory was sold off at auction so the parts from 37502 went to many different areas of the Warbird world. I was able to track a lot of it down from many sources and buy or barter for the parts for our own 84062.

The door of 37502 that I mentioned going through as a youngster in 1979, pictured below, was one of the things I tracked down. It was a lot better than the original door on 062 so it has been fixed up and installed on 062. I know it sounds silly but it gives me a good feeling to have this door, that I have some personal old history with, flying again on 062. The other parts I have come across from 37502 are finding their way back on to flight status inside 062 so at least some of the old gal will continue on.

[Wildchild]

Here is Gary's picture:


Lmao

[GARY HILTON]

Taigh,
Thanks for another angle on this PV's shady past! The Pics are very cool also. There were several Harpoons that went hither and yon over the years. I have heard that John Hirth had bought a couple of PV-2's and had them trucked around the states. I have heard of one from Louisiana, and another one or two from Arizona. The one from La. went to Columbus, Nebraska and has since disappeared ...

Kurt "Grasso" told me that 1468's wings were cut by Carl, where Grasso had it hauled to Branson, where he engineered the spar patch to attach the wings back on as well as the steel structure inside the bomb/torpedo bay.
The cut was made in between the fuselage and the engine nacelle, approx. 20" wide. The top and bottom "C" caps were braced with steel straps bolted on each side of the cut...straps were about 40" wide. The aluminum web between the spar caps was constructed out of two thicker aluminum plates...one to the front and one on the back, approx. 20"X24", and bolts ran thru both plates as well as what was left of the original spar web....a very sound connection.

I can see where different wings could have been added. As you can see from one of my pictures, the starboard wing has the auger tube still installed...none in the port wing. The stbd wing also had patches where there used to be three vertical tubes that dropped from the bottom of the wing. The tube was patched where the 3 tubes used to be by flattened coffee cans held on by water hose clamps.

As for the wing, you can tell how much force the winds of a tornado can have...I have kept the bottom spar section where it was sheared off. Grasso did a great job engineering his internal and external structure for the PV. No part of the steel structure broke. The break occurred just behind the co-pilots seat, where it literally snapped in two. There is no trace of corrosion in the lower spar...that is a hot spot for it in the bottom "C" cap...usually where chemicals in the sprayers would accumulate...But there would or shouldn't be any there if she was never used as a sprayer or tanker.
The Stbd wing was angled upward when she was mounted at the mini golf course....the tornado, by the way...a year ago tomorrow when it hit Branson....was hit full force under this uplifted wing with a severe updraft, that snapped the spar, and flipped the wing, engine, and half the fuselage completely over the rest of the airframe and port wing.

G

[Pooner]

Gary;

I checked the library here this evening, and I was correct - somehow we ended up with the original aircraft log book for 37502. If there's any interest I'll post some scans and pictures this weekend of the log book, but when opening the cover I see that she'd been accepted by USN on 12 May 1945 at NLSC Van Nuys.

The log book entries indeed make me smile - "your airplane" - and I'll call it "yours" because you have been hunting the identity for so long - sure did have a habit of sitting about wasting precious time. While the Navy may have formally accepted her at NLSC in May, she sat about for a bit. I see the Navy crossed out in the log book a command assignment marking to San Pedro. I'm not sure why. By 10-5-45, it looks as if she was "back" at Lockheed Aircraft Corp. in Burbank. Another mystery, indeed. By 21 November 1945 she was finally "Delivered By Supply Department NAS. Roosevelt Base, Terminal Island, Calif."Looks like her combat duty in WWII, sir, was dodging bird droppings on a ramp in the California sunshine. Seems kind of interesting to me - May to November - sitting ready and prepared, but nonetheless idle.

By 20 February 1946, she'd become a California transplant to Naval Air Facility Litchfield Park, Goodyear, AZ.

Lots of little flights and time on her in military service, mostly heading here and there to the Navy "beauty parlors" in various states for OH and mods.

Looks like she officially ended her service career in January 1953 with a whopping 404.7 hours on her airframe, TT. I think it's safe to say after reviewing her log book she spent most of her duty time hanging out in the desert storage facility at Litchfield NAF providing shade for jackrabbits.

Like I mentioned before, I thought I had the logs to this airplane and I'd suspected you'd narrowed down her pedigree a few years back. This particular log book was one of a pile of them given to me by the late Ed Packard of Air Response/Globe Air/Aviation Specialties who tended to these airframes for many, many years. If Eddie was still with us, he'd probably remember this very airplane and what quirks it had and could fill in the blanks as to what happened, and why.

If anyone is interested, I'll post some scans and pictures of this log book. Seems to me a lot of Navy aircraftsmen spent an awful lot of time modifying and improving this airframe in the post war years.

BTW, I see NO CAA or FAA paperwork in this airplane log whatsoever - not even data re. a ferry flight from Litchfield to Sky Harbor in PHX, which would have been the civil owner's Base Of Operations when she was purchased from the military. Normally these old mil log books included a lot of the initial data from their very early civil careers, but this one is a dead end in that department.

Strange, and interesting.

The saga continues, eh? Good hunt, sir. Thank you for what you have done.

- Robert in PHX

Edit to the post... the original log book does show both reference points for #1468 and 37502 in the log book. It's good to see that both correspond in the original military records. I have some photos and a magazine article in my files that will FURTHER complicate your mystery - and that being a reference that the remains of the airframe when acquired by Wisconsin Wing CAF wasn't scrapped after the parts were removed, but sold. The "buyer" was reported to have been a group on the eastern seaboard rebuilding a PV-1. I'll find that and end up sharing the text verbatim.

Gene Packard had told me years ago that 37502 was purchased directly from the military and of course, never converted for spray work. He'd told me they'd taken apart this airplane at Sky Harbor and had pulled it on down the road to Falcon Field to their storage yard by plopping the tailwheel into the back of a pickup truck and doing the road work at night. I'd always assumed they'd ferried it out of Litchfield to Sky Harbor, but it very well could be that the "N" number of this airframe was applied sometime later and long after it had been pulled apart for trucking purposes. Gene was pretty specific about having "un-bolted the outer wing panels" as he suggested I do the same thing to 57C when trying to get that one off the GRIC reservation airfield back in 2007!

I suspect if the wing spar had been cut and modded, it might have been done as Taigh suggested by the CAF folks to ease the transport for their "spare parts ship."

I'll have to do some more research to find that magazine article that referenced the stripped PV-2 fuselage heading off to the east coast to provide sheet metal, stringer and bulkhead parts for a PV-1 restoration....

Just when you think you've put it all behind you, there's nothing like more questions, eh?

Last edited by Pooner on Thu Feb 28, 2013 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[GARY HILTON]

Hey Pooner, and Taigh...did you get a good look of the pictures of the nose cone? No provisions for any type of armament....the radio racks inside have found a home. No provision for the three gun pac on the lower section of the nose, although there is a smaller aluminum panel for access to radios/electronics/hydrolic accumulator, and nose latch.

G

[Taigh Ramey]

Good stuff Robert. I for one would like to see any log entries especially those referring to mods. Do you have any change orders or mod drawings in your stash of log book info? The good folks of Hot Stuff Shared some with me that detail some of the various mods and they are a wealth of information especially for our late aircraft.

[Pooner]

Gary - the log book has about 50 pages of supplemental mods as performed to the ship at NAS Alameda in the late 1940s.

She began as a standard gunship nose - the bore sighting and gun test dates are in the initial acceptance form on the first page or two of the log book.

Other mods to the nose are referenced, including one for nose cone repair referring to data as supplied in "Serv. Bulletin 186." I have no clue what "186" might have called for.

Perhaps, and I am just suggesting this, is that Grasso ended up with a mixed lot of oddball bits and pieces what ended up comprising the "Golf Course Airplane."

I think that's why it's such a strange mutt. I'll offer this... you found the nose cone to be an odd one. And that the rear entry door seemed to have a strange mod to it. I suspect that if this fuselage DID survive and had gone to the mystery "PV-1 restoration project" on the east coast that I'd heard about, when the concept came about to put together a "Golf Course Airplane" it was built of all kinds of mixed cast-offs and damaged bits and pieces from all kinds of different projects and tortured parts. What's the word - "amalgam?"

I just find it a little odd that it could have gone via truck back and forth across the country a couple of times, but hey, stranger things have happened at the hands of buyers, sellers, project builders and truck drivers, eh?

Taigh, I have all kinds of crazy paperwork re. the mods, bulletins and even more mystery PV-2 log books. As always, sir, you are welcome to anything here that will assist you. Thank goodness for access to wonderful scanners at work. Willing to share all. I was just thrilled to get all of this stuff years ago and have found it interesting reading.

Hope to see you at Yuma or El Centro next month, that is if they made the fuel offer to you. We will attempt to bring "Leaking Beast" out that way, in spite of not having flown her for a couple of months now and I wonder what surprises will be in store for us. I'll find out tomorrow in Casa Grande, I guess. If you are heading out for the airshow engagements, I'll throw a box or two in my B-4 bag and we'll enjoy in person at the O club or wherever they'll herd us.

[Rick65]

Fascinating discussion about the Harpoon possible being a bitsa put together for display purposes.
It reminds me of going into Kosmic Sounds, a local (Perth Western Aust) musical shop and being surprised to find a T-6/Wirraway thing hanging from the ceiling.
I queried on warbirdz and the answer was that it was a composite airframe based on a (spare?) Wirrawaway frame that had been put together for a display in Melbourne and had survived and found it's way to Western Australia. The number on the plane is 758 and the last Wirraway build was A20-757. I haven't seen it in years but it used to have a US scheme complete with D Day stripes and six imitation gun ports. A photo is hopefully included in this link.
https://plus.google.com/100004111509175 ... otos?hl=en

[andyman64]

spent some time at the canadian airforce museum restoration shop today they are looking for a second engine for static display as well as two engine mounts the one engine they have is from a dc 3 and has a completly different engine mount!

[Chris Brame]

Hi Gary,

Looking at the photos of the plane being stripped, is it possible that the Navy paint and markings are still intact under the yellow paint? Second question - do you have that little access panel under the starboard horizontal that says "502" as seen in that second photo, and is it available? Please PM me...

[hercrat]

Gary:

Any luck with those undercarriage pieces?

Thanks!