A-26 in OK?

[Warbirdnerd]

WBN, thanks for setting the record straight and for the pictures. We had heard it was a loop by the time the story got to Texas.

Glad to help.
BTW The nose art was based on the owner...

[dj51d]

Is this photo from when they were disassembling it to move out to Anoka? I can recall seeing it at least once at the CAF show at Holman complete minus the props.

[Warbirdnerd]

Is this photo from when they were disassembling it to move out to Anoka? I can recall seeing it at least once at the CAF show at Holman complete minus the props.

I think the A-26 was in this condition for more than a year.

[Michel Lemieux]

The guys at Airspray where telling me that conversion ring spar or original straight spar does not really matter.

On all the cracked spars they had, "and they have more than one bird on the ramp that is grounded because of that" the majority of the cracks are one one of the wing bolt mounting hole on the rear wing spar of the wing section....not the attachement point on the fuselage.

They also told me of the Pop noise it makes when one goes under heavy loading. I was also told from another source ( Can't remeber where however ) that they actually have more airworthy fuselages than wings.

Now one thing I do find quite amazing about the sturdiness of the A26 is that they reported that the AC was quite safe to fly even with one wing bolt mounting hole cracked.....However unfit for duty under the heavy loads required by Airspray.

Makes me wonder if there is an easy fix for that issue.....Once they start to sell them off.

Any news on Oscar bird ?

[Alan Brooks]

I believe the CAF A-26 Group Sierra Hotel is offering their newly milled (spare) spar caps for sale. These are the lower rear caps.... They have one right cap and two left caps available....... Lots of rivet holes to be drilled and shot (over 500).... but hey, they have proved it can be done...... So the relative question is, how badly do you want your A-26 to fly? Would the cost ever be recouped, from a ground up rebuild on a A-26? Probably not.... but it is a lot more fun in the air than taxiing on the ground. Alan

[Michel Lemieux]

Wow...extensive work Alan.

Since most folks around here do know a lot more than I No wonder...

Is the spar cap or wing attachement area (like I was told) the main issue with the A26 ?

Tks for the pic. Do you have any more ? It gives a rare glance at the innards (spelling ?) of the bird.

[bdk]

The A-26 also has an AD out for spar cracking as I recall. I think that one was due to one of the fillet fairings chafing on the exposed spar cap and causing cracks. Nothing to do with the attach point however.

[Michel Lemieux]

Tks for the clarification BDK )

[RickH]

The A-26 got a bad rap for losing wings when it was in Viet Nam.

Most don't realize that the production line was shut down when the contracts were cancelled immediately following VJ day. Douglas only built 2500 airframes. The newest A-26s in Viet Nam were 20 years old and may have had WWII combat and Korean combat.

When the A-26 went to Viet Nam they were grossing out at about 45,000 lbs. Book gross was 35,000lbs. They were doing partial drops with high G pullouts and a few wings fell off. Same thing happened with T-28s over there.

It was these factors that had them rebuild 30 something of the original airframes into the K model. Reinforcing spar straps were a big part of the mod, of course they then hung additional hardpoints on the wings as well as the tip tanks.

Push the design, bad things happen, and then you blame the airframe,... typical !

[T J Johansen]

WBN, thanks for setting the record straight and for the pictures. We had heard it was a loop by the time the story got to Texas.

Glad to help.
BTW The nose art was based on the owner...

Bärbel Abela had several planes, all of which featured nose-art with her as cover-girl. Apart from the "Bar-Belle Bomber" you had the T-6 "Texan Belle", Beech 18 "Beech-Belle", and (I think) L-4 "Tinker-Belle"!

T J

[a26invader]

While on the subject of Invaders, I understant that Air Spray now has reduced the price to 100K for each of their flightworthy Invaders offered for sale... sounds like a bargain!

Nicolai

[a26invader]

Greetings all

I stumbled over this blog (scroll down a bit):

http://horusj.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html

So N7079G is really flying again? Since when? Other comments?
I looked up the CofA which was issued on 11/16/2006. Photos are from December 2006.

Thanks

[Saabmeister]

Greetings all

I stumbled over this blog (scroll down a bit):

http://horusj.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html

So N7079G is really flying again? Since when? Other comments?
I looked up the CofA which was issued on 11/16/2006. Photos are from December 2006.

Thanks

The pictures on that site almost look like Flight Sim screenshots to me.

[tulsaboy]

I looked at Airspray's website, specifically at the two A-26s offered for sale. One had about 4100 hours of total time, the other had 4900 or so. Is that short of long in the world of A-26 aircraft? Does anyone know if they have undergone the On-mark ring spar conversions?

kevin

[a26invader]

The pictures on that site almost look like Flight Sim screenshots to me.

Really? I don't agree. They look quite real to me... if it indeed is a FS screen-dump, I would very much like to have this model for my flightsim!!!