# Re-used a/c parts



## Kingscoy (Nov 9, 2018)

Hi guys,

Perhaps an interesting topic. Few days back we received this stovepipe made out of the piping of the superharger/ exhaust system from B17G (43-37846/“Phoney Express”) of the 398st BG. This fortress made a force landing on the 26th of November 1944 approx 15 miles east of Arnhem, The Netherlands after being badly damaged by German FLAK. The pilot had to execute a wheels up landing in a Dutch field with several injured crewmembers and one 500lb bomb still hanging in its bomb bay. All went well and the complete crew was taken PoW.

The "stovepipe" was just recently removed from a farmhouse close to the site where the fortress came to rest in 1944.

Would be interested to see if other "inventions" from salvaged a/c parts are out there....

Cheers Sander

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## Shinpachi (Nov 9, 2018)

Interesting


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## vikingBerserker (Nov 9, 2018)

That is really interesting.


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## herman1rg (Nov 9, 2018)

Looks good


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## Wurger (Nov 9, 2018)




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## Gnomey (Nov 9, 2018)

Cool!


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## nuuumannn (Nov 10, 2018)

At one place I worked in a few years back there was a big access ladder stand that had P-51 Mustang tail wheels fitted to it. Mustangs were stored at the base until either scrapped or sold. I think the value of the wheels had been noted and they've been removed now.


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## Kingscoy (Nov 10, 2018)

Yes...very recognizable story. Many stories regarding tailwheels being used on wheelbarrows...but at one point thrown away. We do have a set of B24 main undercarriage wheels which were used on a piece of farm equipment. Took us quite a fair bit of work to get them off. There must be still a lot of re-used parts out there.

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## Airframes (Nov 10, 2018)

Good stuff.
Back in the late 1980's, one of my clients was opposite a small railway siding, where a trailer in use for hauling timber panels was fitted with four main wheels from a P-38, with what looked like original tyres !
How they got there (in west Yorkshire) I don't know !

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## Shinpachi (Nov 11, 2018)

The rear fuselage of a Mitsubishi G4M which was re-used as a core to form a concrete bunker during the Battle of Iwo-jima.









Source: 千鳥が原のトーチカ群

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## Wurger (Nov 11, 2018)



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## GrauGeist (Nov 11, 2018)

I used to know a guy who had a drop-tank modified into a salt flat racer.

There were actually quite a few of them in the late 40's through the 60's.

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## Kingscoy (Nov 11, 2018)

How cool...guess the weight/ power ratio made you almost fly again
I have a German 300L drop tank made into a boat...will post some pics of it later in the week.


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## herman1rg (Nov 11, 2018)

The Bristol Blenheim which flies here in the UK was rebuilt after it's crash with a MK1 nose which had been used as a chassis for an electric car.

Mk1 Bristol Blenheim

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## Kingscoy (Nov 11, 2018)

That's so cool...talk about a classic car


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## Kingscoy (Nov 11, 2018)

This fuselage section of a Short Stirling bomber was discovered only a few years ago near Arnhem, the Netherlands. It was used as storage room at a farm, completely overgrown with bushes and forgotten. It is now on display in a museum at the airbase Deelen also near Arnhem.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 11, 2018)

I do recall a while back, a discussion about the Angelpoise map light from the Lancaster and they can still be found, modified into desk lamps.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 11, 2018)

> This fuselage section of a Short Stirling bomber was discovered only a few years ago near Arnhem, the Netherlands.



Like the Halifax reproduction at Elvington; the rear fuselage is from a Halifax that was being used as a chicken coop.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 11, 2018)

After the war the RNZAF bought de Havilland Mosquitoes and on retirement these were bought by farmers for their useable equipment, such as their engines, various generators, hydraulic components, wheels and so forth, whereas the wooden fuelages were regularly burnt as they were of no use. To this day there are bits of Mosquito being found in rural locations. Same with Airspeed Oxfords. I stayed in a homestay at a farm outside a small town once and noticed some metal tubing stuck in a bush; turned out it was an intact engine mount for an Armstrong Whitworth Cheetah engine from an ex-RNZAF Oxford. I duly asked permission to recover it and gave it to a guy restoring an Avro Anson.

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## gumbyk (Nov 11, 2018)

nuuumannn said:


> After the war the RNZAF bought de Havilland Mosquitoes and on retirement these were bought by farmers for their useable equipment, such as their engines, various generators, hydraulic components, wheels and so forth, whereas the wooden fuelages were regularly burnt as they were of no use. To this day there are bits of Mosquito being found in rural locations. Same with Airspeed Oxfords. I stayed in a homestay at a farm outside a small town once and noticed some metal tubing stuck in a bush; turned out it was an intact engine mount for an Armstrong Whitworth Cheetah engine from an ex-RNZAF Oxford. I duly asked permission to recover it and gave it to a guy restoring an Avro Anson.


Is that on Bill's aircraft?

Apparently there were also a lot of Tiger Moth rear fuselage frames that were used as stands for various uses. I remember being told about someone finding a dozen or so used as umpire seat stands for tennis.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 11, 2018)

Yep, He obviously didn't use it on the Anson, but kept it anyways. I gave it to Don McKenzie, who rebuilt Bill's engines. Bill's promised me a ride in the Anson for it. I've yet to collect.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 11, 2018)

This is half a Rolls-Royce Kestrel modified for powerboat use. It's in a local motor museum.





Powerboat engine

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## gumbyk (Nov 11, 2018)

nuuumannn said:


> Yep, He obviously didn't use it on the Anson, but kept it anyways. I gave it to Don McKenzie, who rebuilt Bill's engines. Bill's promised me a ride in the Anson for it. I've yet to collect.


They may have used it as a template. That's one piece that you need 100% confidence in the condition of.


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## Kingscoy (Nov 12, 2018)

Here is another one...discovered by a Belgium Recovery Group (www.Luchtvaartgeschiedenis.be) I do like these finds, proving there is still a lot to be discovered again. This group found a part of B17 Tailfin used as a chicken shed and a large wing part still in use as a fence. They ID'd the a/c with the full story on their website.

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## Wurger (Nov 12, 2018)




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## Shinpachi (Nov 12, 2018)

The past is alive.

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## Kingscoy (Nov 12, 2018)

One from our own collection. Shown on the photo the sadly very corroded tail end part of a Me109G-6. Hope it is visible but if you look at the tailwheel tyre you can see that the running surface was cut away. Local people have used that for repairing their shoe soles after the war and dumped the a/c parts in a ditch afterwards.

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## daveT (Nov 22, 2018)

Consolidated PBY Catalina Houseboat

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## Kingscoy (Nov 23, 2018)

Brilliant!


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## Wurger (Nov 23, 2018)




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## Kingscoy (Nov 27, 2018)



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## Wurger (Nov 27, 2018)




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## vikingBerserker (Nov 29, 2018)

That awesome!


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## Kingscoy (Dec 5, 2018)

Currently on sale on Ebay...a bench saw with aircraft wheels.

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 5, 2018)

Odd tread for Aircraft tires...


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## Kingscoy (Dec 13, 2018)

300L German drop tank cano conversion. Doubt if you will be able to stay upright. The man I got it from years ago found it in September 1944 and didn't turn it in as ordered by the Germans back then. He told me that he made a cano of it after the war and had great fun with it.

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## vikingBerserker (Dec 13, 2018)

That's pretty cleaver


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## seesul (Dec 14, 2018)

Our villagers who lived close to the B-17Gs crash sites re-used the parts very often. Aluminium sheets for a roof covering or for producing wash machine propellers, rubber from the tyres for the shoe heels, machine guns and even one 20 mm cannon (from a field modification of the tail) as a building foundation reinforcement and I remember the case when an oxygen tank was used as a boiler for burning slivovice (plum brandy). Most practical re-use I guess 
And that shirt in a background was made of parachute of one of the crew members of B-17G 42-38096 "Big Time"....

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## Kingscoy (Dec 14, 2018)

Great info
In Holland during and shortly after the war many pretty girls married in a dress made from a parachute.


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## seesul (Dec 15, 2018)

Correct, also here.


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## daveT (Dec 19, 2018)

A Dutch Navy C-47A made an emergency landing in Australia in March 1947 c/n 13210. Most of the plane was wrecked, but 
the most important part was saved with a little modification. I wonder if he knows the Catalina boat owner? 
They could start a club, "Warbird Conversions".

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## GrauGeist (Dec 19, 2018)

There's a DC-3 down in Los Angeles that's been converted into a food truck.
There's some guy who turned a 727 into an RV and there's also some guy that took a 1956 Cessna 310 (N3693D still turns up in the FAA database, too) and turned it into a street legal car.

And then, there's this...

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## Kingscoy (Dec 21, 2018)

Luftwaffe drop tank cabinet.

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## CATCH 22 (Dec 21, 2018)

Timber boats and house boats from Catalina-fuselages, Australia:








But my favorite one is this Martin Mariner:




More about these amazing re-builds here: GEOFF GOODALL'S AVIATION HISTORY SITE

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## Gnomey (Dec 21, 2018)

Good stuff guys!


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## FluxCapacitance (Jan 14, 2019)

I've seen that dataplate.

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## Kingscoy (Jan 15, 2019)

Cool


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