Hi N33,
Thanks for the kind words. I didn't know much about restoration when I started 16 years ago, and I now wish I had started volunteering 40 years sooner at a museum where they fly their airplanes. My intent was to acquire the skills necessary to build an airplane for myself. When I got there, I managed to get laid off 2 weeks before I was going to order a kit for a Van's RV-7, and still haven't yet ordered the kit. But I wish I had had the metal skills when I was playing with muscle cars back in the day. If so, my 1967 Plymouth GTX Hemi 4-speed would have looked a bit different. My 2019 Ford Mustang GT doesn't need any sheet metal work to look good, being "new."
Still, I'm not one of the "aluminum geniuses" that work at Fighter Rebuilders." Those guys really are wizards. The only thing that makes me wonder a bit is the fact that I'm basically a retired electrical engineer, and nobody has asked me to wire anything up for them in an airplane. If I had managed to build my kitplane, the wiring would have been first-class. All's well that ends well, I suppose.
I have a LOT of pics, but the museum has asked me not to post most of them that show the inside of any of their aircraft. The pic of the windscreen meets that criteria ... sort of ... it's a part outside of the airplane and it is not in finished state. Wish I could post other restoration pics, but I also pretty much have to follow their wishes since I am working on what is basically a private airplane when I'm doing any restoration. I suppose I don't HAVE to, but that would be breaking my word. There are only a very few pics of parts outside the airplane that would likely be OK to show.
One of the aircraft I work on restoring (or WAS) is an old North American O-47. Here is a pic of the starboard wing root stub leading edge I was working on in the not too distant past.
The ribs are original, but the skin and the stringers across the skin are all new. You can see some patches on the closer rib and I have circled some holes that someone has oversized when they did some work on it earlier. I had to cut off the edge around them and fabricate a patch and drill new holes of the correct size. If you put a rivet through a hole it doesn't fit in, you lost a LOT of strength since the rivet will then easily shear in turbulence. A rivet is strong only because it is rigid in the structure. If it starts to move, the structure is WAY heavier and will shear it right off. If it is captured and doesn't move, it is a very strong, hardened piece of metal. This piece is now complete and installed.
The next pic shows the starboard wing stub of the O-47 where the piece above fits. We put new skin on the upper wing stub, too. My partner John Petersen and I also made the vertical stiffeners that are on the wing rib showing behind the landing gear cutout. Those were fun to make on a hydraulic vertical press in Fighter Rebuilders. We riveted and bolted around the landing gear cutout, too, and had to fabricate and install the leading edge junction showing at the front of the wing. You can see a new leading edge skin on the fin. Lots of work to do here ...
Technically, I suppose I should not post this, but this will be all. My estimate is that this airplane is some 10 years away from flying again. That assumes someone is actually working on it, and I haven't in a couple of years after I lost my riveting partner. The O-47 is to the point where a LOT of rivets have to be done with someone setting the rivet and someone inside the structure bucking the rivet. After I lost my partner, everyone else to date was new to riveting and nobody "stuck" on the project ... and I had to drill out most of the rivets we set due to "new guy on a rivet gun mistakes." I determined not to work on the airplane again until I had someone who could rivet correctly the first time and would stay on the project. He or she hasn't made an appearance as yet.
Here's an O-47 in flight.
This is a very desirable warbird for any flying museum. Most fighters are single-seat. Many have a jump seat installed and can take two people. The O-47 is unique in that you can seat three in the cockpit and maybe 2 - 3 below in the observer seats ... note the windows under the wing. Also, it only has an R-1820 in it, but can cruise up near 200 mph, so you can take 3 - 5 helpers along with the pilot for the ride to the airshow, cruise with the fighters, and there are ... people to HELP you out during the airshow! That's rare!
O-47s did yeoman work in WWII flying U-boat patrol along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Caribbean coast. Many of the U-boats found off our coast in WWII were found by O-47s. The USAAF found that pigeons were better at finding things at sea from an airplane than people were. They'd train pigeons by dropping a corn kernel every time the pigeon pecked a button when it saw something in the water. There's more to it than that, but you get the idea. Then, they'd put 6 - 8 pigeons in the window on each side and 1 - 2 guys taking care of them. Pigeons have great eyes and didn't miss much! Who'd have thought?
Now, guys like FlyboyJ and other people who work on aircraft and get paid for it might have some pics they can share ... maybe not. Maybe we should start a thread on pics of working on warbirds?