Flak Bait at Udvar Hazy B-26

[CANicoll]

VERY interesting day at Udvar Hazy and spent more than a little bit of time in the restoration hangar.  Here are some of the pictures from the visit, but please visit the ImageShack link to see them all - so I don't end up posting 65 pictures here and boring you all to tears.  I have the high res versions of all of these if someone is looking for something in particular, just message me.

 

 

The stories from Pat, the gentleman who was talking about the restoration effort, were fantastic and I'll try and capture some of them here for your enjoyment and amusement ( as well as education ).

 

She got lots of attention from the tours, as you can imagine.  Hint for next year.  The facility stays open till 7 for the Open House.  BIG crowds for the restoration tours starting at noon.  BUT if you get there around 3, the crowds really thin out and you have LOTS of time to talk to the experts, which we did anyway.  We ran into Buz Carpenter (SR-71 pilot who came and did a program at our club meeting a couple of months ago) as well as the gentleman who painted the Uhu (by hand, he has a fascinating time-elapse video of him doing the wing - in a 100 degree paint booth.  Took him 8 hours!).

 

Flak Bait was a big draw with a constant crowd:

 

 

First, Flak Bait was over painted olive drab over gray after the war, and much of the restoration is focused on getting that post-war paint off.  Thus far most of the 'new' OD is gone, but what was left behind is not exactly what the aircraft looked like at the end of the war.  VERY poor storage has worn the paint even further than when she was found in a boneyard outside of Munich at the end of the war.

 

What is particularly interesting is that once she was 'discovered' she sat for more than a while, and in the meantime, air and crewmen would take pictures with her, and then sign, or scratch their names into the gray paint on her undersides.  Some was in ink, other names in pencil and at least one was via a knife and scratched in.  There are hundreds of names they are trying to preserve thus the gray undersides are taking forever to preserve.  There is some talk that since this really amounted to vandalism care should not be in preserving the signatures, but instead in preserving the original paint.  Not taking sides here.

 

 

The preservation will not put her back into any sort of 'fluid operation', just mechanical.  Her nose wheel, made of magnesium, was cleaned up and when the original tire was put back on the wheel, instead of the usual 32psi, they wanted to inflate it to 10psi.  It exploded at 5psi. 

 

 

Oh well!  The main gear was preserved 'as is' thus the dirt and grease is as original as they can make it.  Here is Pat doing his discussion.

 

 

Cockpit details are also the subject of preservation including the padding inside

 

 

Talked to the woman doing the preservation work and it is just fascinating to hear how painstaking the conservationists are in their work.

 

 

Here is a photo of the right side wing and I see more than few patches on the top of that surface!

 

 

And here are a few pics of all of the pieces

 

 

Top turret:

 

Hope you all enjoy the pictures. 

 

Chris

Edited March 28, 2018 by CANicoll

[robertmro]

These are great!

 

Thanks for sharing.

[Guest Smitty44]

Ok, bring on the 32nd scale 26 please!

[Bill Cross]

Love that place. I have to fly out of Dulles for Tokyo Sunday around noon, and I keep trying to come up with an excuse to spend an hour at the museum Sunday morning. :wub:

[Guest Maxim]

Great photos, thanks for sharing. Now can we have a 32 scale kit?

[CANicoll]

Thanks guys!  I didn't really work on the lighting levels very much for these pictures - just too many to do and as Bill pointed out, the lighting in the museum is generally terrible.  In the restoration lab its a different thing - much better lighting as you would expect.  And it rained today too.  

Chris

[LSP_Ron]

Very cool that they are striving to keep as much of the patina of the orginal as possible.  That's what makes it more than great. Too bad there was never an opportunity to do the same with Memphis Bell. The "resorted to factory fresh" kind of makes it just another airframe that has history associated with it.  Seeing the original scratches, dents, patches and overall wear is something very special. 

[Guest Smitty44]

Very cool that they are striving to keep as much of the patina of the orginal as possible.  That's what makes it more than great. Too bad there was never an opportunity to do the same with Memphis Bell. The "resorted to factory fresh" kind of makes it just another airframe that has history associated with it.  Seeing the original scratches, dents, patches and overall wear is something very special. 

 

They did keep the original nose art, etc on the Belle

Edited March 29, 2018 by Smitty44

[LSP_K2]

Real nice stuff.

[CANicoll]

It's amazing how with the supposed horrible reputation the B-26 had, it was by far the safest US bomber to serve a tour in. B-26 crews were most likely to live to return home and the B-26 had the lowest loss rate of all U.S. Bombers.

 

A truly beautiful airplane, too.

 

Agreed!  My Instagram feed suddenly has a lot of B-26 pictures that are coming up.  But what a sleek and great looking aircraft!  Now, will we get one in 1/32 scale?

[Guest Smitty44]

Agreed!  My Instagram feed suddenly has a lot of B-26 pictures that are coming up.  But what a sleek and great looking aircraft!  Now, will we get one in 1/32 scale?

 

It's buried in LSP somewhere. Should be done before too long. Resin2Detail

Edited March 29, 2018 by Smitty44

[marauderdriver]

It's amazing how with the supposed horrible reputation the B-26 had, it was by far the safest US bomber to serve a tour in. B-26 crews were most likely to live to return home and the B-26 had the lowest loss rate of all U.S. Bombers.

 

A truly beautiful airplane, too.

 

My dad was one of them....65 missions in the same 322nd Bomb Group as Flak-Bait.....Mom built them...Dad flew them.

[Troy Molitor]

I worked for Steve U-Hazy for many years in Los Angeles. I still work with his son Steve Jr on many ventures here in Asia. A great family and a fantastic company to have worked for. A little side side note for my LSP family.

 

We had a 35th year anniversary party for the entire company I worked at with Steve. The party was at his namesake museum a few years back. Black tie event. A thousand guest from airlines throughout the world. Donna Summers was one of the entertainers and all I wanted to do was sneak away from the dance floor and take snap shots of the Arado 234, He-219 fuselage and B-29, P-26 etc. I love that museum and resto facility. Certainly was a Fantastic venue for any avaiation geek for sure. The Sr-71 up close and personal is pretty special too. My good friend got to fly onboard the Air France Concord they donated to the museum to sign for the aircraft before it was donated. Where is -as is, deal for sure.

[Guest Maxim]

I bet the original crew never thought their aircraft would become a priceless museum exhibit. I'd build a B-26 just for these markings.

[Bomber_County]

Thanks for sharing Chris..........B26 in 32nd would be cool.......