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boeing b-17 42-38206 Thundermug


gunpowder17

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Im currently build the airfix 1/72 B-17 from the ground support set. The markings are for B-17 boeing b-17 42-38206 Thundermug. The guide says that the port wing was a bare metal one salvaged from another plane. The photos i can find show an OD wing. Anyone have anymore info on this plane please?

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2 hours ago, gunpowder17 said:

Anyone?

I found several photos of Thundermug and visited the 8th AF site as well as the site for her squadron and group, but none showed a natural metal  wing or had any description of the original OD/grey wing being replaced by a bare metal one. The one good photo I found that showed the LH side showed an OD/neutral grey finish to the wing.  You might try contacting Airfix to enquire as to what source material they used to come up with those markings and finish for the kit. I would think such a major repair would be documented somewhere, the trick is to find the reference photo/s.  I'm surprised that it being so late in the war and replacement aircraft not being an issue that they would go to so much trouble to repair her and just strip her for useable parts. Sorry I couldn't be of much assistance!

Mike

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1 hour ago, 72modeler said:

I found several photos of Thundermug and visited the 8th AF site as well as the site for her squadron and group, but none showed a natural metal  wing or had any description of the original OD/grey wing being replaced by a bare metal one. The one good photo I found that showed the LH side showed an OD/neutral grey finish to the wing.  You might try contacting Airfix to enquire as to what source material they used to come up with those markings and finish for the kit. I would think such a major repair would be documented somewhere, the trick is to find the reference photo/s.  I'm surprised that it being so late in the war and replacement aircraft not being an issue that they would go to so much trouble to repair her and just strip her for useable parts. Sorry I couldn't be of much assistance!

Mike

 

Exactly what Mike said.  Seems this a/c was born january 44 and lost december 44 and I'd have thought by that point replacements (or even just additional machines) would have been making their way across the atlantic at a fair quantity.  I used to work with helicopters and know how much work was involved replacing a tail boom let alone a wing of a b17 ;)

 

when i read this post this afternoon it did get me thinking - all mods etc. would be recorded in the airframe log book.  Does anyone know if log books were kept after the airframe was lost/written off?  i know we had to keep them - even for machines that were no longer in existance.  Although slightly different between a fleet of 60 north sea helicopters and the god knows how many 1000's involved in this time frame

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If you look at the history of "A bit o'Lace", you will find it is similar, although her damage and subsequent wing change was done ~April 1945. 

Even if the US produced a lot of airplanes, this doesn't mean that you throw away the older ones like dirty socks. You repair and fix everything you can, when you can. 

http://www.447bg.com/42-97976.htm

 

I believe that Airfix likely have good reason for displaying the markings as they do. However usually they also indicate a time corresponding to the markings - does the instructions give any clues? 

 

 

 

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There's a note on the instructions that the port wing was a replacement "recorded in the contemporary notes of Derek Clarke".

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The main maintenance depot for B-17s was at Honington. They kept a stock of salvaged parts as well as new spares. Changing out an outer wing panel was commonplace. The wing splits at the transport joint.

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Bottom line is you can paint the kit with an OD/NG port wing or with a natural metal one...it all depends on which date you're trying to represent with your model (ie before or after the incident that caused the wing swap). 

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Derek Clarke was a schoolboy during the war who visited Chelveston regularly and made notes in notebooks regarding B-17's on base.

 

His Thundermug notes...sorry not the best resolution,but all i could find.

paste34

 

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13 minutes ago, gunpowder17 said:

Thanks guys. I'm sure read that it received a hit at the wing root. Could be wrong. I am surprised they swapped an entire wing.

 

I'm not surprised.  When generating sorties is your #1 priority, grafting a spare wing onto an otherwise functional airframe is the quickest way to get another airframe airtworthy and back on the line.  Makes perfect sense to me, I'm afraid. Then again, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. :)

Edited by mhaselden
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Wonder how long it would have taken to swap the wing. Im assuimg the undercarriage would have stayed with the wing. The engines were still the original one from Thundermug as they were olive drab.

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Interestingly, from what I've read on the salvaging of wrecked parts and swapping them on to operational aircraft to keep them airworthy, wing replacements were fine between Boeing and Vega built B-17s, but Douglas built airframes had a slightly different ducting system and thus wing swaps were not compatible between Douglas airframes and the other two.

 

The tail turret is likely a different shade of paint due to the Cheyenne turret being fitted at a later date as many of the 'stinger' turrets were replaced.

 

Tom

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22 minutes ago, gunpowder17 said:

That is interesting as Thundermug was douglas built.

 

In her history it was noted that she was delivered to Cheyenne on 1/14/44, most likely to have the Cheyenne tail turret assembly installed-at the United Airlines Cheyenne WY modification center, I would assume, so that might account for the different shade of OD described. Not up on Forts enough to know which production lines sent finished airplanes to the center for the new tail turret and which installed it on the assembly line. I would imagine it was more expedient to send completed airplanes to be modified rather than disrupt production to incorporate the necessary changes on the assembly line and associated tooling.

Mike

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No B-17 had its tail turret swapped at the factory. They built what the Army Air Corps had paid for,so even late block B-17's left the assembly line with the early tail turret, small observation nose windows etc... Everything else was done at mod centres like Cheyenne, new 'pumpkin' tail,Larger cheek gun windows and the latest style of waist windows,these mods came from a different pot of money.

h305-3

 

Edited by mungo1974
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Probably the mix and match of large parts was fairly common to keep things going.  the new deliveries were required to replace the total losses and build up the fleet, so rebuilding 3 damaged returnees as two usable planes was a good idea.  There were whole organisations doing the same with other planes such as Lancasters.

"A Bit o' Lace" and "Thundermug" stand out because of being an NMF aircraft with one OD wing or vice versa, whereas there were probably hundreds of examples where the replacement wings matched, in fact all the B-17s repaired would have passed virtually unnoticed until NMF deliveries started.

Cheers

Will

 

Edit: just found this which gives an insight into how repairs were organised, it mentions changing an outer wing panel as if that were quite normal.  This was just on a single UK base of the 8thAF, the same was presumably going on at all the others.

 http://www.91stbombgroup.com/91st_tales/14_aircraft_repair_sheetmetal.pdf

Edited by malpaso
found a useful link
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1 hour ago, gunpowder17 said:

That is interesting as Thundermug was douglas built.

 

 

In that case, I imagine the replacement wing would have also come from a Douglas-built aircraft.

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If they could be repaired they would, panels were designed to be replaced in the field or at depot level...just because there were brand new B-17G's arriving at RAF Burtonwood everyday after flying the North Atlantic route via Greenland didn't mean you got a brand new one after a taxing/landing accident or if those bothersome Germans had put lots of holes in your aircraft.

There was lots of paperwork involved if any Fortress was written off or salvaged...not to mention the monetary value of costing the US taxpayer just over 200k US Dollars for each airframe built...although that seems cheap compared to what a airworthy Fortress is worth these days.

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At the practical level, it was probably faster to repair an existing airframe than to scrap it and get a new one.  A new airframe would have to be flight tested on receipt by the unit, equipped for operations, probably flight tested again, and the old airframe had to be dismantled for scrap.  And that's before we consider the paperwork and time required to get the new airframe delivered to the operational airfield.  Swapping a wing using on-base resources would be a no-brainer compared to the faff involved getting a new one (IMHO).

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This is an extract from a 2001 email from a guy, Sergeant Andy J Vangalis, who actually worked on the rebuild of an early B-17G, 42-37840 of the 306th BG, which had the rear fuselage & tail from one aircraft grafted onto the front end of another. The finished aircraft was stripped of paint (being an early B-17G it was supplied in Olive Drab)  and christened "Combined Operations". He explains why:

 

"I was one of the mechanics who worked on putting "Combined Operations" together.  It got that name because of all of us who worked on that plane.

     One half of the fuselage was built by Douglas and the other half  by Lockheed and everything fit like it came from the Boeing plant.  We put a lot of long hours in working on it in between repairing the planes damaged by enemy fire, but we all felt we had accomplished something worthwhile.  We hated to hear of any bomber being lost and the loss of the crews on them; even though we didn't know all of them, we still felt the loss just the same.

     "Combined Operations" always comes up at all of our reunions because parts weren't too readily available.  But, being good scroungers, we made some sense of how to put an airplane together."

 

His statement "We all felt we had accomplished something worthwhile" says a lot.

 

Combined Operations crashed here in the Isle of Man on 14th April 1945, killing all 11 on board. It's an interesting story which can be read here: http://www.sandylydon.com/adv_co2012.html  along with a picture of the aircraft.

 

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Of course, the 8AF crew chiefs considered it perfectly normal and swapped the wings more quickly than most Britmodellers could do a 1/72 B-17 wing change - I include myself!

Cheers 

Will 

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