[Milsurplus] Enola Gay HF antenna bits

[Mike Hanz]

Some of you may know I've been putting in some time on the comms and ECM 
installations on the Smithsonian's Enola Gay B-29.  Fascinating work, 
complicated by its poor storage and security conditions prior to 1960, 
spotty change records after the war, and huge bewildering stacks of 
documentation on B-29s at various stages of development.  The Enola is 
now out at the new Udvar-Hazy museum near Dulles airport, and we are 
looking at finishing it for a December 17th opening date the end of the 
year.  Some of you have kindly donated parts for this grand old lady 
(thanks, Taigh and others), but we need a couple more items that may be 
floating around in a junkbox somewhere.

Earlier in the war, the command set antenna was shunted to the starboard 
inboard engine nacelle of the B-29 to use the wing as part of the 
antenna (similar to the approach with the B-17,) but by the time the 
Enola Gay was delivered in June 1945, a more conventional fixed antenna 
was being run from the insulator just aft of the radio compartment to 
the right horizontal stabilizer (left hand on some of the series, but 
Enola's ran to the right.)  It was restrained at the tail by a spring 
loaded tension unit similar to the one on the liaison antenna that 
terminated at the tip of the tail.  Naturally, Murphy decrees that the 
two tensioners are different.  :-(  We have an original for the liaison 
antenna, but need the ~8" long by 11/16" diameter tensioner for the 
command antenna.

Secondly, it appears that over the years the two porcelain insulators 
which feed these two HF antennas through the hull were replaced - 
neither one of them matches the drawings.  The type needed is a teardrop 
streamlined shape on the upper insulator, which is all we need.

I have put up a .gif clip from a couple of the original drawings at 
http://members.cox.net/mymhh/Enola_Antenna_1.GIF in hopes someone may 
recognize either the tensioner or the insulators.  Otherwise I'll have 
to unlimber the lathe and start on replicas.  Be forwarned the file is 
about 330kB and will probably need to be resized for your particular 
viewer.  Probably best to file it off to a folder and then open it up 
from there, unless you have Opera or a similar web browser with a size 
reduction capability.

Best 73,
Mike  KC4TOS