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

[David Bock]

Grant,

The original donation to the Yankee Air Force of over a hundred radios and
control components came from me maybe some twenty-seven years ago. I hope
most survived the fire.

Dave W8OHS

-----Original Message-----
From: arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of
douglas10driver at aol.com
Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2011 5:10 PM
To: ARC5 at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [ARC5] Fwd: [Milsurplus] More Moron-ities. This Will Turn


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

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