Recent Warbird Recovery (Sat, May 17th, 2014 UNK MFR CG-4A )

[Forgotten Field]

I was tipped off on this and moved quickly. That's another point in not looking for warbirds. Don't look for them, and if you do happen across them, don't move quickly. But I am a study in conflicting emotions, sobriety, and reality testing most days, so I launched as soon as I could. Here is what I found:

1. The end of the driveway. The old owner did live remotely. This was recovered near the Oswego River, north of Syracuse NY.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... oCG-4A.JPG

2. Driving down the driveway:
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Aa.JPG

3. The Oswego River in the background.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ab.JPG

4. Where this cockpit (and the rest of the glider) used to lay when the old owner was a kid.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ac.JPG

5. Loaded in my rental truck. The old owner standing next to it. It fit just perfectly in a Ram 1500. The rental place was going to give me another truck with a shorter bed. I would have had to ride with the tailgate open.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ad.JPG

6. The glider home, taken this evening. Right front 3/4 view.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ae.JPG

7. View standing where the main cabin section (where the troops or cargo went) looking into the cockpit.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Af.JPG

8. Looking over the Pilot's seat. The pilot was the only one with brakes. The large bar to the left is the spoiler bar; spoilers raise above the top of the wing and disrupt airflow to decrease lift, dropping the aircraft into a steeper glide when applied.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ag.JPG

9. Some of the tubing splitting from being filled with water and freezing.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ah.JPG

10. Some important items. The quadrant is for the control column elevator cable attach. The control column mounts here, and looks like an inverted V. The handle center left in the photo with the open end is the tow release handle. Pull that, and it's the moment of truth flying one of these things!
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ai.JPG

11. The co-pilot's seat area. Note lack of toe brake levers. He had access to the spoiler bar to assist landing.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Aj.JPG

12. The tow release jaws and fairing. The jaws are like a set of square-nose pliers. They split apart when pulled against. The release pulls back a spring-loaded collet which allows them to split and release the tow rope. This set-up is used on the glider and the tow aircraft.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ak.JPG

13. The cockpit electrical junction block. I believe this is an earlier glider, equipped with recognition lights, and cockpit and landing lamp only. I believe later ones had a pitot-tube heater and eliminated the recognition lights.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Al.JPG

14. Some of the clusters for tubes which were rotted or removed.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Am.JPG

15. Below was a piece from behind the cockpit in the main cabin section. It is the main landing gear brake master cylinder and the bracket which attaches it to the fuselage tubing. There is a bellcrank which is pulled, levering the master cylinder. There are two, one for each main landing gear. The master cylinder was made by the Warner Electric Brake Company.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4An.JPG
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ao.JPG

16. Some of the underside. The tabs are for attaching the wooden nose fairing.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ap.JPG

17. Placarding on the Spoiler Handle.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Aq.JPG

18. The main cabin section carry-through for the main landing gear. The ends are tabs which the strut attaches to. The long bolts on the end go through the main cabin section floor, which is also made of wood.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ar.JPG
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4As.JPG

19. Sections of the main cabin section tubing with piece of the floor spar.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4At.JPG
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Au.JPG
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Av.JPG

20. Some of the cockpit canopy enclosure framework.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Aw.JPG
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ax.JPG

21. Piece of the upper canopy plexiglass, which was shaded green.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Ay.JPG

22. The connector for the intercom system between the tow-plane and the glider. It's in pretty good shape.
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... CG-4Az.JPG
http://www.forgottenfield.com/amg/proje ... G-4Aaa.JPG

[Chris Brame]

Cool find, FF - now you have a use for that control column!
Did anyone contact you regarding the question I posted over at the Wreckchasing forum last year?
http://pacaeropress.websitetoolbox.com/ ... id-6215562
Looks like you have a few leads there.
That landing gear door (?) and control column/rudder pedal setup have been driving me nuts - I can tell you Tison Bros. wasn't in business until '43, if that's any help.

[Forgotten Field]

Thanks, Chris. Actually, with recent acquisitions, I need two more control columns....

I never heard anything but it's funny about that O-47 part. I live near Baltimore where the type was first built, and that piece came out of a place near Ithaca, NY (same place as the control column).

Yeah, that Tison piece has me wondering every time I walk past it. I'd imagine it is something big and West Coast-designed. I have never heard from anybody regarding it.

[RobC]

Gee FF, if that was a P-43, you'd practically have a whole project! If it was Spitfire, you could probably cut it in half and make two projects out of it.

your hydraulic pump handle is a T-6 part number, although it is quite possible the O-47 used the same part.

I wonder if the Tison control thingy is a helicopter part? I am just guessing on that one.

The main reason I logged in was just to thank you for sharing your cool find.

[Pooner]

Yeah, that Tison piece has me wondering every time I walk past it. I'd imagine it is something big and West Coast-designed. I have never heard from anybody regarding it.

I'd found three of those in various stages of damage and decay years ago in the wonderful aero scrapyard that was Macon Scrap and Iron in Macon, GA. That yard had all kinds of wonderful treasures from WWII bomber and fighter aircraft, and oddly enough there was some German aircraft engines and airframe items back there, too. I was told that much of the inventory had come from warehouses in and around Warner Robins AFB, and that would've explained the captured Axis airframe items that ended up in the junk piles once the testing and evaluation programs were concluded.

Anyway, those dreadful Tison control columns confounded and perplexed me, too over a period of years - so much so that I finally had to give them to Greg Menton of Oregon for his collection. I could never positively identify them and it rattled me to the core! I suspect Greg's still trying to ID them, too. I could never just accept them as "History's Mysteries" and it about drove me nuts.

Great recovery effort on your part to save the glider tube frame and associated parts, John! Reminds me so much of our haphazard collection of Vultee BT-13 tube frames as plucked from abandoned hangars and airfield junk piles. At one point we ended up with about 21 of those darn things, but I could find something interesting and unique with each one of them.

- Robert in PHX

[Forgotten Field]

Robert,
Funny you should mention Macon. I just found an antique shop which has photos shot at Macon at the end of the war, including CG-4A's and Naval Aircraft. I'm trying to get copies.
I know an owner of one of the Jumo 004's that came out of Macon. Both my Martin 250 and MPC A-6 Turrets came out of Macon. I heard it is all gone now.

[Pooner]

Old Macon Scrap and Iron was a fun place back in the day, and I can only imagine what it must've been like for some of the guys who'd worked it pretty hard in the 1980s getting some real goodies out of there. By the time I was there in the late 1990s I was told it'd been pretty well farmed of the "good stuff" but I found plenty of neat things to spend money on. I never did see the Jumo engines back there, but it's possible I walked right by them and didn't know what they were. I regret passing up an Allison V-12 that'd been pulled from a P-38 and rolled around in the Georgia dirt for a decade or two. But I sure did grab some great turret items out of there and discovered I could load the back end of a U-Haul up quite properly and bought some great warbird parts for 50 cents per pound. For this Arizona boy it was quite an adventure, and I'd wished I'd been closer or had opportunity for more trips.

You are correct it is all gone now. I have a family member living not too far away, and last year he'd mentioned doing some business in Macon. I asked my brother-in-law to stop on in to pay a visit on my behalf. He called back to tell me the scrap yard and been bladed clear, and that new buildings and concrete pads were now in the spots of the nasty old sheds and heaps of treasure covered with kudzu had stood. It appears that not too long ago new owners bought the place and gave it a complete overhaul, and all of the history in the weeds probably went to China or India. Sad, but that's progress, I suppose. Nothing lasts forever but the payments, eh?

- Robert in PHX

[marine air]

Congrats on the recovery. A friend and I have been looking locally, but to no avail. THey used CG-4s in training in middle Tennessee as well as CG-15's post war.

[Forgotten Field]

Thanks,
Stuff's still out there. Next week, I'm pulling another wing of unknown origin out of a barn. You just need to hit everywhere there might be something. Scrap yards have yielded some treasures. But the best things I have found were just sitting next to the road. This WWII Converto Dump Trailer was next to the road and it took a year, but I made a deal with the owner. These were equipment specially designed to be used with the Gliders in WWII. And yes, that is more Glider and WWII stuff behind the trailer. But don't look for things like this- it's a waste of time....

[Chris Brame]

Yeah, that Tison piece has me wondering every time I walk past it. I'd imagine it is something big and West Coast-designed. I have never heard from anybody regarding it.

I'd found three of those in various stages of damage and decay years ago in the wonderful aero scrapyard that was Macon Scrap and Iron in Macon, GA. That yard had all kinds of wonderful treasures from WWII bomber and fighter aircraft, and oddly enough there was some German aircraft engines and airframe items back there, too. I was told that much of the inventory had come from warehouses in and around Warner Robins AFB, and that would've explained the captured Axis airframe items that ended up in the junk piles once the testing and evaluation programs were concluded.

Anyway, those dreadful Tison control columns confounded and perplexed me, too over a period of years - so much so that I finally had to give them to Greg Menton of Oregon for his collection. I could never positively identify them and it rattled me to the core! I suspect Greg's still trying to ID them, too. I could never just accept them as "History's Mysteries" and it about drove me nuts.

- Robert in PHX

I think I may have an ID on this thing!!!

Inset photo is of a Northrop YC-125 cockpit from Flight Manuals on CD - the only such photo I turned up online. Sure looks close to it - what do you think?
Does anyone have a better shot of the cockpit, say from the one at Pima or at the NMUSAF?

Edit: Found one on an eBay auction: