WarbirdsNews has just received the latest report from Chuck Cravens on the restoration of Texas Flying Legends Museum’s P-47D Thunderbolt 42-27609 at AirCorps Aviation in Bemidji, Minnesota. We thought our readers would be very interested to see how the project has progressed since our last article on this important project. So without further ado, here it goes!
Texas Flying Legends P-47D-23RA – April/May 2018 Report
By Chuck Cravens
This month work continued on the tank bay and pilot floor areas we reported on in last month’s update. They are complicated and time-consuming parts of the P-47 fuselage, in large part because of the multiple corrugated parts that must be formed.
The work involves fitting, trimming, and trial assembly. Once the structure has been initially put together with clecos and everything is correct, much of it has to be disassembled and sent to paint for a zinc chromate coating.
This piece will have round head rivets and will be covered with a liner to protect the rubber self-sealing tank in a couple ways. It helps with chafing wear, but it also has an interesting name that leads to its other function: it is called anti-flowering covering. The flowering it refers to is the petal-shaped metal fingers surrounding shell hole damage. Those metal shards are sharp, of course, and would damage or even puncture the tank. The liner resists the “petals” coming in contact with the tank itself.
The anti-flowering tank bay liner was made by Firestone Tire and Rubber and is described in engineering drawings as having been constructed of “2 Ply Plasite”. Plasite was an early low-pressure laminate form of fiberglass.
fuel tank bay lower panel. (photo by John LaTourelle)
Aaron Prince: Technician Profile
Aaron Prince. (photo by John LaTourelle)
This month we profile Aaron Prince, who appears in the updates frequently. Aaron hails from Geigertown, PA, which is about an hour west of Philadelphia.
Aaron earned his A+P license at Pennsylvania College of Technology and comes to us from Mark Dinest’s MD Aero, where he also was restoring warbirds. There he worked on Ron Fagen’s award winning SNJ.
Aaron works on all facets of our restorations but he specializes in wiring and electronics installation.
And that’s all for this month. WarbirdsNews wishes to thank AirCorps Aviation, Chuck Cravens (for the words) and John LaTourelle (for the images) for making this report possible! We look forwards to bringing more restoration reports on progress with this rare machine in the coming months.
Richard Mallory Allnutt's aviation passion ignited at the 1974 Farnborough Airshow. Raised in 1970s Britain, he was immersed in WWII aviation lore. Moving to Washington DC, he frequented the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum, meeting aviation legends.
After grad school, Richard worked for Lockheed-Martin but stayed devoted to aviation, volunteering at museums and honing his photography skills. In 2013, he became the founding editor of Warbirds News, now Vintage Aviation News. With around 800 articles written, he focuses on supporting grassroots aviation groups.
Richard values the connections made in the aviation community and is proud to help grow Vintage Aviation News.
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