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We are losing our shortcut! For those of you who have been in our hangar or visited us via the webcam, you know Champaign Lady has a four piece fuselage. These sections are: the bombardier station through the bomb bay; the aft intermediate fuselage; the aft fuselage, and the tail gun position. No section could be considered complete but they are individual pieces of our airplane. The forward fuselage and aft intermediate fuselage are divided by the space where the radio room will be. When we walk from the east side of the hangar to the west, we often mosey through the radio room area. Work has begun in earnest to drop the word “area” from that description! The aft intermediate fuselage has been rolled back and our shortcut is now filled with massive structural elements which will support the construction of the radio room itself. Our short cut is going away but we will be more than happy to walk around! Identical to the technique used in construction of the nose of Champaign Lady, a structural fixture has been erected and rings, the diameter of the fuselage, have been set in place. (You can see this on the webcam. Check out areas four, five, and six; high and low views.) Once these rings are fully and completely aligned (“X, Y, Z-ed”) the circumferentials will be installed, then the reinforcements will be riveted, then the skin, oodles of small brackets, then it‘s done! Piece of cake, huh? Needless to say, there’s a lot of work described within that last paragraph. And it will take a long time to complete. However, every operation seems to lessen the learning curve for the next. The nose is a good example of this. If memory serves, the nose of Champaign Lady had been forecast to take more than a year to build. The nose is a continuously changing radius and has a blunt flange for the bombardier bubble. And let’s not forget, this is a -G model, so there is a chin turret. This master’s level trigonometry course required your homework to be done in T3 aluminum. It took a lot of brainpower to figure out. True, the team has jumped through a lot of hoops to get to this point, but in the nose, all the hoops varied in size and tapered in (at least) two directions! Despite these difficulties, the team completed this major task in about seven months. Not to discount the complexity of this next big operation, but the radio room is a more constant radius and it is expected this will ease (very slightly) the overall construction. Clearly, the alignment of all sections is critical and will take a lot of time to verify. But upon completion, the forward fuselage will stretch from the bombardier station to the aft bulkhead of the radio room. Many of you know it is at this point where the forward and rear section of the plane bolt together. And no doubt, one day, this column will bring details of that join up! Keep an eye on us and watch how the team moves from radio room area to simply radio room! Best Recipe for 2010 Ingredients required: seventeen B25 Mitchell bombers, their pilots and crews; dozens of volunteers and planners; hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of spectators; a dozen golf carts. Combine with a love of aviation and history; bake in the sun, add two dashes of Mustang, a splash of water; allow to cool, let rise at dawn. The delicious result is the Grimes Gathering of B25s! On April 15, 16, and 17, our airspace and ramps were crowded with B-25 Mitchells medium bombers. The airplanes were in western Ohio in support of the Doolittle Raiders 68th Reunion, which was held at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Champaign Aviation Museum and Grimes Field hosted these wonderful airplanes for display, practice, and public rides. This exciting event was one of the largest, if not the largest, gatherings of B25s since the end of World War II. It was one of our most popular events in terms of crowds, as well! The first of the seventeen airplanes, Pacific Prowler, arrived Wednesday afternoon; others flew in Thursday and Friday afternoon.. Airplanes at our field are known by their November numbers but last week, we were talking about the names of the planes instead. The colorful monikers included Devil Dog, Pacific Prowler, Maid in the Shade, Miss Hap and thirteen other B-25 Mitchell bombers. It was an exciting three days! Yet, there are other names we would do well to recall. Names such as Doolittle, Cole, Lawson, Knobloch, Low, Miller, Eierman, Dieter, Fitzmaurice, and so many others ought to resonate within us as well. We appreciate the airframes but we should also reflect on the people whose sacrifice and efforts brought us together for this event. Hundreds of spectators came to the field to be a part of this event; the grass on the east side of the hangars was filled with cars from north to south. Visitors could walk the length of the cold ramp and inspect the airplanes from every angle. For a small fee, they could crawl through some of them and learn how cramped the spaces are inside a B-25. In addition to ramp inspections, several B25s were selling rides. Though we do not have a final tally on the number of rides sold, it was considerable. The airplanes would no sooner land, then it seemed they would take off again with another manifest of people learning what it is like to ride in a Mitchell. It was gratifying to see the support of so many people, because we all know the steep financial requirements to operate these flying history books. We were honored to have many veterans on hand as well as so many airplanes. Veterans from the 1940s to the present day joined with us and told their stories with visitors up and down the ramp. Tears and laughter were in equal supply. Many veterans met each other for the first time and shared their personal humor and heartbreak. Even those of us who work on the B 17 project heard some new tales! The Champaign Aviation Museum, Grimes Flying Lab, B17 Project, and Ohio High Point, and a few private hangars were open for inspection and they were filled with visitors throughout the event. Mid-afternoon Friday, a fast moving cold front ushered in a brief shower which made the hangars even more popular! But the rain was a fleeting thing and did not affect flight operations nor our high spirits. Aside from this, our Champaign County skies featured only widely scattered clouds…just enough to give some background and sparkle to hundreds of terrific photos of flying bombers. In itself, the snarl of air cooled, radial engines was a powerful and constant symphony but Friday morning, a pair of liquid cooled Merlins driving four blade props provided a perfect counterpoint. Big Friends need Little Friends and Old Crow and Gentleman Jim were on hand to hold up their end of the bargain. Hundreds of spectators saw three B25s in the air in formation with their fighter escorts for well over an hour. The topside passes and overhead breaks were tremendous. The bombers were scheduled to fly out for Dayton on a clear and brisk Saturday morning. At 0630, the north wind took on a different note, joined by the sounds of the Pratt and Whitney engines cranking over and coughing into life. This was way too early for spectators, except for the hundreds of people who braved the cold and filled the fence lines three, four and five deep wanting to see these airplanes depart to the south for the reunion. Safety concerns kept the ramps closed but every available spot on the perimeter was occupied! It was a special sight to see a taxiway crowded with these aggressively attractive airplanes. One by one, the bombers turned onto runway 22, ran their engines up, and lifted in to the air, the rising sun gleaming off the polished skins. With a little imagination, you could put yourself on the pitching flight deck of USS Hornet as Colonel Doolittle led his squadron to the west. We watched as the bombers few south over the horizon, secure in the knowledge that as they left our airspace, there was a similar crowd of people in Dayton waiting to welcome them to The National Museum of The United States Air Force. And then there were none. The ramp was deserted. The roar of 34 Pratt and Whitney engines was far away, replaced only by the rush of the north wind. The hard work was done, the people headed home, the golf carts were corralled, and the Grimes Gathering of B-25s settled into our memories as a very special three days. A Tour of The Hangar Via the High Route If you use the webcam feature of the site, you might wonder what transpires in the various slices of our pie. The camera is mounted high on the east wall section that divides the north and south areas of the construction hangar. So, with those views in mind, I would like to take you on a tour of the high route. In coming weeks, we will run around the hangar using the low view. Area 1 High This area of the hangar is the southeast corner of the building. You can see part of the mural of Champaign Lady as she appears (and one day will be) in flight…this was painted by Frank Drain and his son, Kevin. It is always inspiring to us…Frank and his son will paint a new mural in the reception area of our new hangar…he tells us this will probably be done during the coming winter days. You can also see a small rack with white prints hanging on it. This is one of the drawing racks. Whenever parts are made, we print them out on these sheets and then build the parts from those engineering drawings. Surely you notice the plywood shack in the corner. This is our “B 17 Bed and Breakfast”! Very cozy and it lets visitors stay close to the action. We have competitive rates but please call for reservations. No, I’m just kidding. This small structure houses the air compressor. It is very well soundproofed and the noise from the compressor does not intrude into the operations. Area 2 High In this section, which is looking about dead south, we can see the nose of Champaign Lady. It looks pretty darn good, due to the efforts of Randy Kemp, Dave Cook, and others. As you can see, the skin is built out to the nose of the airplane and the navigator windows are cut into the left forward skin of the airplane. The doors are the entrance to the parts storage area. This is an area where we paint small parts, keep aluminum, and lots of other parts for our project. You can also see what appears to be a tall cylinder. This is parts of the original skin of the airplane. We keep it here because it bears an epigraph, “The Three Trimmers”, some people who built the airplane. Area 3 High Here we have a good view of the left forward section of the Flying Fortress. You can see the space where the top turret will be and also the left door to the life raft compartment. There are also sheets hung on the plane which are general engineering drawings. These illustrate the layout of the airplane. When Walt Gillam takes people on tours, he uses these to explain to visitors what the finished plane will also look like. Area 4 High We are now looking west/southwest and you can see the aft end of the bomb bay. The front of the plane stops here and this is about an eight foot gap between the two sections of the fuselage. This is the next big area to be built. When completed, this area will join the nose to the aft intermediate fuselage. This is the next big project and it is my understanding this will be completed before the airplane is moved to the museum hangar. Area 4 and 5 are somewhat overlapped at this time. Area 6 High. This view is looking dead west and is on the meridian between two big sections of the construction hangar. You can see the tail fin of a 500 pound bomb. This is one of four replica bombs that are suspended in the work area. Area 7 High The camera is pointed northwest and the lighted area is the office in the corner of our hangar. There is a desk, computer, reference books and other books on the B17 and other airplanes. This is also where we discuss our salary increases with Tom Printz and Jack Bailey, two of the program managers. These are very short discussions! Area 8 High In this area we can view the left side of the aft intermediate fuselage and the left waist gun window. There is also a black vertical fixture on which the engine nacelles are to be built. Area 9 High Here we are looking to the north. The structure coming in to view from the right is one of the inner wing sections. Area 10 High This is looking north/northeast. This area of the hangar is relatively quiet, as it is where we have stored the other pieces of this wing and sections of the other wing. So, there you have it, once around the high route. We are glad to be a part of this effort and we invite you to come to Grimes Field in Urbana, Ohio, to see it up close and personal! We’ll talk again, soon! |
