[ARC5] Fwd: [Milsurplus] More Moron-ities. This Will Turn

[douglas10driver at aol.com]

Curious as to why this wasn't posted - granted it is a bit long but I thought it made valid contributions to the thread and wasn't antagonistic.



-----Original Message-----
From: douglas10driver <douglas10driver at aol.com>
To: ARC5 <ARC5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thu, Oct 20, 2011 4:06 pm
Subject: Re: [ARC5] [Milsurplus] More Moron-ities. This Will Turn


Okay,
 
An airplane guy will attempt to step up. I can't answer for the organizations cited in this thread, however I do come with over twenty years of active volunteering for the Yankee Air Museum. Please note the use of the term "volunteer". To a large extent flying museums exist because of volunteers. Now have any of you figured out how to reign in, manage, or fire a volunteer who while trying best to represent the group still manages to say something "bone-headed" to another person offering material or assistance for something that perhaps that volunteer hasn't perceived as a goal or priority of his group?
 
Restoring a large WW II aircraft to flying status is an enormous undertaking and often is done without the often imagined hugely well off benefactor. In our case we spent 9 years restoring a B-17. We have what I believe is a pre-eminent restoration. There is no area of the airframe or systems that has not been thoroughly restored or replaced, including every inch of wire. Economics dictate certain compromises be made to accommodate public tours and flight experience rides. Therefore not every turret is complete, there are extra seating arrangements. We never found a WW II Honey Bucket nor do we fly with every bomb position loaded in the bomb bay. So while we have an extremely airworthy airframe it is not a full WW II Combat Configured restoration, and no flying airplane ever will be. Just take that to the bank.
 
We do have a reasonably complete radio room with some cabling for a cosmetic restoration. That was accomplished very early on, but believe me it was not a priority. Could it be improved - yes. Will it be - maybe, again it depends on a dedicated volunteer coming forward push the project.
 
All the groups would love to be able to say they have the best restoration. Frankly when you are struggling to get the airplane back in the air reliably, installing a functional radio station is just not a priority. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be a goal. What I am seeing is that as the groups are maturing they are revisiting the levels of restoration they can support on board their airplanes.
 
I have undertaken the restoration of the radio and navigators stations in our C-47B. Some of you fine folks have been very helpful to me in acquiring the gear to accomplish this, and provided some technical advice. I have attempted to install the gear with as much realistic looking wire as possible, the correct connectors, insulators etc. Antennas are next and some of the crew is not so happy about the added drag that will add. But I argue its all part of the flying museum artifact premise. 
 
Part of what drove this project was that the Air Force gear in the airplane some of it from the 1950's  was becoming very difficult to maintain and was not compatible with the current ATC system, i.e. 720 channel VHF, finer frequency spacing for the ILS receivers etc. So with light weight panel mounted gear installed, I was able to move forward pulling out the 1950's boxes (and 100 pounds of wire) and replace with ARC 8, ARC 3, SCR 274 Command Transmitters etc fitting with the late war production version of our C-47. This winter should see some of the APN 2 and APN 9 gear going in. I have preserved some of the more important pieces and perhaps one day someone will choose to make them operational but again economics requires some of those boxes be empty shells or the dynamotors stripped. Sorry guys I hate to do it but it is part and parcel of trying to represent the equipment in its proper context available for the most families to view.
 
Grant Schwartz
Yankee Air Museum
Belleville Michigan