[Milsurplus] Real radios in surplus airplanes B 24, PV 2 Harpoon

[boeing377 at aol.com]

I had the privilege of riding in the Collings B 24 a few years ago at a 
skydive meet in Quincy Illinois. I exited out the bomb bay at about 
6000 ft and fell back to earth for a few seconds watching the beautiful 
plane "recede" as I fell away. On the ride up, I spent most of my time 
looking at the radio gear. They had a BC 375, BC 348 and some command 
gear as I recall, none hooked up to anything, no cables, no plugs. Not 
functional, but still nice to look at. There was also something else 
nice to look at on this plane. The B 24 co pilot, believe it or not, 
was a beautiful blonde Swedish model wearing shorts and a t shirt. Not 
authentic B 24 combat flight gear but who would complain. She later 
married the B 24 pilot who is one of the Collings family members.

  The all time greatest WW 2 flying radio setup I have ever seen was 
Doug Laceys Lockheed PV 2 Harpoon. Doug had everything and it all 
worked, ART 13, BC 348, ARN 7, many others and also some jamming xmtrs 
that he reportedly used over Sacramento to prove to a friend that he 
could drown out a local TV station. Doug was very resourceful, when he 
couldnt find an affordable ART 13 mount he hacked up some common mounts 
and heliarced them into a very passable ART 13 piece. I helped him get 
his ARN 7 running and gave him an I 82 indicator for the nav/radio op 
position. Doug and a plane full of friends died when he stalled it 
showing off with sharp pull-ups over Clear Lake CA. His next project 
was going to be buying a Neptune and converting it to a stock PV2-5 
configuration with ex RCAF Neptune turret nose sections he showed me in 
a warehouse in Oakland CA. He had all sorts of plans for stuffing it 
with authentic radio gear.

When I was a seven year old kid playing with my B 17 model, a woman 
friend of my Mom's commented that she had flown them during WW 2 on 
delivery flights. I was naively sexist and totally disregarded her 
comment as impossible, only men flew B 17s. Too bad I didnt engage her 
in more conversation. Decades later, after she had passed away, I 
learned that she did have hundreds of hours in B 17s flying from the 
factory to Maine.

 Mark