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Like a Ship in a Bottle
The airplane you need is always at the back of the room—or at least that's the way it seems. With this year's Fly Day season underway, Flying Heritage Collection staffers are coming in early on sunny mornings to wrangle aircraft into new parking spaces in the hangar. It's a little like those sliding puzzles ... except each piece in this puzzle is very delicate and weighs a few tons. The Hawker Hurricane and P-51 Mustang get the spots front and center, nearest the hangar doors. They fly on June 27th. The Spitfire, with its newly-inspected propeller recently installed, now sits up front too, awaiting tests. The Jenny and Po-2, have been moved toward the back. They will require dry grass and hard ground seen in the summer months to take to the skies.
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Aotake
The Japanese counterpart to the Allies' Zinc Chromate anti-corrosion paint was called Aotake. Careful study of the FHC's Mitsubishi A6M3-22 Zero and Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar fighters, reveals the bright color pigment in the wheel wells, on interior panels, and spanning internal bulkheads. The covering is a semi-transparent varnish that looks like the blue green metallic sheen of a scarab beetle. The unusual color was added to help assure that the coat was applied thoroughly. Aotake drives restorers (and model airplane builders) crazy because its hue and shade seems to change depending on the number of coats, age of the paint, when and where the paint was applied, and surface it has been applied to. Currently, the Zero and Oscar sit side by side in the FHC's hangar, giving one the rare opportunity to compare their different shades of Aotake paint.
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Sto-Wing
To save space, FHC's Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat fighter sits with its wings folded. Of course, you can fit more flying machines into the cramped hangar deck of an aircraft carrier if their wings fold. Leroy Grumman started pondering ideas for folding wings while his company was making Wildcats for the Navy. He didn't like the way the wings folded upward on Vought's Corsair—it made the plane tall and raised its center of gravity. Why not have the wings fold like a bird; back and against the body? Grumman explained the idea to his engineers using an eraser with two paperclips poked in the sides. First, the Wildcat, then the Avenger, then the Hellcat carried Grumman's patented Sto-Wing design into combat in the Pacific.
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Spitfire Plexiglas
Spitfires, along with most other fighters of the era, had thick front windshields made from bullet-resistant glass. But the side windows and canopy were produced from clear plastic. The light plastic was often called by its trademark names—Plexiglas in the U.S. and Perspex in Europe. Its chemical name is polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA). During WWII, British surgeon Harold Ridley operated on many young Spitfire pilots who had splinters of PMMA in their eyes. The cockpit windows often shattered in crashes or were blasted apart during combat. He noted that the flyers' eyes tolerated the inert material surprisingly well. The strange find inspired Ridley, who later developed an artificial eye lens made from PMMA. He implanted his first lens in 1949. In the years after, millions more benefitted from the surgeon's unusual discovery.
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Hawker Posterior
Even at the outbreak of World War II, the Hawker Hurricane was a somewhat antiquated fighter. When designing the venerable "Hurry," Hawker Aircraft Ltd. unabashedly borrowed from its earlier creations, including the Fury—a fabric-covered bi-plane fighter of the early 1930s. When the Hurricane prototype took to the skies in 1935, it flew with fabric-covered aft fuselage and wings. Later versions, including the FHC's example, had improved metal-skinned wings but still retained the primitive steel tube tail and aft fuselage covered with yards of doped linen. Though nowhere near as high tech as the stressed aluminum skin of the Supermarine Spitfire, the Hurricane and its unusual rear end had a few advantages. Repair was decidedly quick and easy, requiring only basic skills. And sometimes, in combat, a German explosive cannon shell would pass right through the posterior of a Hurricane without detonating, leaving a pair of quarter-sized holes and one very relieved fighter pilot!
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Which Way Is Up?
Those familiar with the Spitfire's Merlin engine or the Allison in the nose of the Tomahawk might say that the Messerschmitt Bf 109's seems upside down. The plane's exhaust stacks and valve covers are at the bottom, while the crankshaft is located at the top of the block. Though an inverted V engine seems downright weird to anyone who has tinkered on a 1960s car, the arrangement had certain advantages in an airplane. It kept the engine's center of gravity low and allowed for better visibility over the nose. Seeing well was especially important during takeoffs and landings in the notoriously difficult to handle Messerschmitt.
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Achtung!
Next time you come to the Flying Heritage Collection, see if you can spot the warning label on the rear seat armor of the Focke-Wulf 190D-13. It is there to caution mechanics about the plane's high-explosive canopy bolts. Pilots of the sleek Focke-Wulfs knew that at speeds over 250 mph, the canopy was almost impossible to open due to air flow over the fuselage. The explosive bolts helped punch it loose. Very roughly, the label says, "Caution! Canopy release by explosive charge. Do not touch release lever. Check adjustment of the explosive bolts before testing."
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Here’s the Scoop
The inarguably beautiful Supermarine Spitfire Mk.VC carries a trio of unsightly scoops on its underside. Each one of the mismatched three serves its own purpose. Front and center, just aft of the plane’s Merlin engine, is a scoop to move air up to the carburetor. The big box under the starboard wing (to the left in this picture) holds the radiator for the fighter’s liquid-cooled engine. The long cylindrical scoop under the port wing (to the right in this photo) carries the Spitfire’s oil cooler. The scoops may not be pretty, but they are functional features that help keep the Spitfire buzzing through the skies!
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The Jenny
The FHC’s ,Curtiss JN-4D Jenny seems like the odd man out in a hangar of World War II workhorses. But when explaining the story of technology in aviation, the Jenny is all important. After World War I, these planes were everywhere. In 1919, you could buy a new one, still in its packing crate, for $500. With these airplanes all over, why make new ones? It’s one of the many reasons that America fell behind in the race to make improved aircraft in that critical interwar period. The Jenny was too good. By the time of the first flights of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Supermarine Spitfire in 1935 and 1936, historians argue that the United States was well behind in making comparable military aircraft.
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The Last Run-up
With a deep rumble and a puff of blue smoke, FHC mechanics completed the last annual inspection on the final aircraft in preparation for another flying season. Balmy weather allowed staffers to roll the Messerschmitt Bf 109 out onto the ramp and coax its newly-tuned Daimler Benz engine to life. The fighter ran well; straining at its chocks as if ready to leap into the air! This rare fighter, along with nine other vintage aircraft, is scheduled to fly in public exhibitions this summer and fall.
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Bullet Hole
A bullet punched through the oil tank is most likely brought down the FHC's Curtiss P-40C Tomahawk in 1942. But that certainly wasn't the only lead thrown at this veteran fighter during its combat career. Like a CSI investigator, if one looks closely, evidence of violence becomes visible. Nearly perfect round patches dotting the fuselage and ugly rectangular areas on the wings disclose many repairs. The plane took its worst beating from an assailant flying above, behind, and to the left—spattering our victim with small caliber bullets. Nearly all the wounds have been covered over, save one. Pierced through the forward former near the access door in the fuselage, one small bullet hole remains.
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Slybird Checkers
Careful study of the nose of the Flying Heritage Collection's P-51 Mustang tells a little about the plane's history. When the new plane arrived in England, ground crews gave the plane the distinctive artistic trappings of a "Slybird Group" (353rd Fighter Group) aircraft—a striped spinner and three rows of black and yellow checkers. Soon after, Captain Harrison "Bud" Tordoff had the name Upupa Epops applied to the Mustang.
In combat, 353rd flyers reported having trouble seeing one another. The Group's top brass decided that additional checkers—five more rows—would help the P-51s be more quickly identifiable in a dogfight. Some crew chiefs followed the order to the letter; obliterating nose art and personal names. Tordoff's men were much more artful in applying the additional checkers around his Mustang's nickname, leaving the nose art completely visible.
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