Vintage Flying Museum is saving another one!

[B17news]

cool project, wish I was closer to Tx!

[spinner]

Fantastic!

Huge effort by a top notch crew.

[K5DH]

Here is a quick update from today, with some photos. It was insanely hot and humid in the hangar today. At least there was a breeze blowing (mainly blowing the dust around so that it would stick to our sweaty skin). Bill, Will, and I worked on Shaky much of the day. Bill spent his time removing windows from the left side of the fuselage. Some were plexi and some were sheet metal. Some were screwed in and some were riveted in. All were spray-painted black. All looked terribly ugly and had to go! Bill spent hours drilling out rivets and rusted screws. Will and I spent our time removing interior trimmings, including the huge ductwork that ran down the center of the fuselage ceiling and supplied heat to the cabin. It was chock full of bird nests. We also removed the cover over the cabin heater, the cockpit headliner, and some of the vinyl covers over the radio rack and part of the left front of the cabin. We filled a plastic trash can with bird nests (as you'll see in one of the photos). But, 42 years of bird nests are finally gone!

Left side of fuselage with most of the windows removed:


Cabin area with overhead ductwork, cabin heater cover, radio rack covers, and right side wall covers removed:


Closeup of right side wall with cover removed, showing original paint and stenciling:


Cabin heater and emergency rescue winch controls:


Radio rack with original ARC-27 UHF radio at the bottom:


Trash can full of bird nests from inside the cabin heat ductwork:


The crew chief hard at work:

[Cherrybomber13]

So whats been happening with this restoration?

[peter]

Is the long term goal to get her running once again?

[K5DH]

Is the long term goal to get her running once again?

No (sadly). She belongs to the US Government, and they don't allow their assets to be operated, only displayed.

[K5DH]

So whats been happening with this restoration?

Sorry no updates in a while. Sheila (our CH-21B Crew Chief) is basically working on it by herself. She is slowly disassembling, cleaning, and documenting the airframe. There isn't much obvious visual progress to photograph at this stage of the game. We are in need of some major parts: vertical tails for both sides, a set of fuselage panels for the spine (these are the covers over the tail rotor drive shaft), a set of display-grade rotor blades, and a lower left-hand windscreen bubble. Any leads appreciated. Donations welcomed with open arms and a tax receipt! (We are 501(c)(3) non-profit).

[Sheila]

Things have been progressing, the aircraft slowly turning from tan to green and yellow. I am currently removing dirt from the bottom of the avionics rack (the stack of shelves behind the cockpit). The radio takes up that whole shelf. There is a small panel in the middle of the shelf that I will take a peek into soon.

Sheila

[A26 Special K]

Hey Sheila, be careful when you peek in there. Strange critters love to inhabit places like that! Bull snakes have a nasty temper when disturbed as do crew chiefs. Happy hiding! JR

[Sheila]

I opened the panel today.
Sorry, no snakes and no crew chiefs.

[Fouga23]

Nice work, Sheila!

[Sheila]

He has his name back!

Thanks to Leo for painting this part.
Does anyone has a picture of his actual in-service pylon art?

[Sheila]

[JohnB]

Quick question...
I might finally get around to building a model of a H-21.
What color is the bulkhead behind the pilot's seats and floor?
I've seen both green and gray.

Thanks...



About tires:
I see that CH-47s and Apaches (not to mention a bunch of FW aircraft you could find in civil boneyards: some Queen Airs, MU-2s, etc) have 8.5 x 10....could you adapt the wheels and tires from a later aircraft? If it's easier to "stretch" a tire (and I have no idea, I'm just putting out suggestions) there are plenty of 6.5 X 10 tires...in old 310s and S-61s/H-3s.

http://www.aerosuppliesinc.com (then look for tires, I can't past the link to the entire catalog pdf here...they have a handy chart for Specialty tires) )


Otherwise, you're looking at trailer tires which would work but look a bit off...unless a tire shop could shave the tread off them.

[K5DH]

Hi JohnB,

The interior of our CH-21B is green. Scroll back up this page of the thread and have a look at the various interior photos. In the cargo bay, the paint is OD green. In the flight deck, radio rack area, and cabin heater area, it's darker "interior" green over yellow zinc chromate primer.

We got some new tires quite a while back. We got them free from an outfit that sells used aviation tires to farmers. We only had to pay the cost of shipping ($35.00). Not a bad deal!