Tenacious1
Recruit
- 2
- Jun 20, 2022
I am looking for information on the early Dilbert Dunkers. From the few images and bits of information I have found in Google searches. The first ones were made from T-6/SNJ fuselage sections. I have not been able to find any in any museums anywhere. Later "Dilbert Dunkers" were made from different aircraft components and some were just fabricated structures to serve the purpose.
I believe my son and I have found two, T-6/SNJ based Dilbert Dunkers. Here is what has brought us to this:
About three years ago, my son and I found a couple T-6 cockpit sections behind a shed up in Homosassa Florida. Both were mostly just rusty front cockpit tubular sections with only a few internal cockpit parts attached. After we wrestled with the weeds and got them out where we could see them, we realized there were 1/2 inch solid stainless steel rods running along the bottom with pivots and levers. Not aircraft grade at all.
We hauled them home and noticed brackets, professionally made with part numbers on them. There were steel caps on the tubular front and rear with rusty bolts holding on rotted plywood front and back.
A bit of research and we found these were both T-6Gs by the side panels, one of which had a silkscreened date of 1 March 1950. One of them even had an original North American Aviation manufacturers plate on it that had never had any information stamped onto it. Looks like N.A.A. had regenerated older war weary T-6s/SNJs up to the T-6G configuration. We researched what kind of ground trainers were made from T-6 cockpits and the only ground trainer we could find information on were "Dilbert Dunkers". The heavy mechanical rod in linkage made sense then.
We were unable to find any Dilbert Dunkers in museums anywhere. These things must have saved numerous Navy and AAF pilots lives! We wanted to save them, as rough as they were. We decided the only practical way to save them, to tell the "Dilbert Dunker" story was to regenerate them into flight simulators.
So that's what we did, we regenerated them using actual North American parts where possible to be portable Flight Simulators. We even had a T-6 (Harvord) pilot who flies at Argentenian Air Shows use the T-6G to train his people.
I believe my son and I have found two, T-6/SNJ based Dilbert Dunkers. Here is what has brought us to this:
About three years ago, my son and I found a couple T-6 cockpit sections behind a shed up in Homosassa Florida. Both were mostly just rusty front cockpit tubular sections with only a few internal cockpit parts attached. After we wrestled with the weeds and got them out where we could see them, we realized there were 1/2 inch solid stainless steel rods running along the bottom with pivots and levers. Not aircraft grade at all.
We hauled them home and noticed brackets, professionally made with part numbers on them. There were steel caps on the tubular front and rear with rusty bolts holding on rotted plywood front and back.
A bit of research and we found these were both T-6Gs by the side panels, one of which had a silkscreened date of 1 March 1950. One of them even had an original North American Aviation manufacturers plate on it that had never had any information stamped onto it. Looks like N.A.A. had regenerated older war weary T-6s/SNJs up to the T-6G configuration. We researched what kind of ground trainers were made from T-6 cockpits and the only ground trainer we could find information on were "Dilbert Dunkers". The heavy mechanical rod in linkage made sense then.
We were unable to find any Dilbert Dunkers in museums anywhere. These things must have saved numerous Navy and AAF pilots lives! We wanted to save them, as rough as they were. We decided the only practical way to save them, to tell the "Dilbert Dunker" story was to regenerate them into flight simulators.
So that's what we did, we regenerated them using actual North American parts where possible to be portable Flight Simulators. We even had a T-6 (Harvord) pilot who flies at Argentenian Air Shows use the T-6G to train his people.