need advice regarding airplane wing

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J

jarwha

Airman
25
19
Feb 6, 2018
Hi,
We found in the basement of our museum (in The Netherlands) an airplane wing.
Attached some photos. Length of the wing is appr. 454 cm and width is 170cm.
Any idea from which plane this wing could be?

regards
Jan
 

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jarwha said:
Hi,
We found in the basement of our museum (in The Netherlands) an airplane wing.
Attached some photos. Length of the wing is appr. 454 cm and width is 170cm.
Any idea from which plane this wing could be?

regards
Jan
Click to expand...

P 51 Mustang

Its from a P 51 Mustang
 
jarwha said:
Hi,
We found in the basement of our museum (in The Netherlands) an airplane wing.
Attached some photos. Length of the wing is appr. 454 cm and width is 170cm.
Any idea from which plane this wing could be?

regards
Jan
Click to expand...

Any pictures of the front of the wing, or/and underside?
 
It's not a P-51 wing, and might not even be American.
It's rather unusual that the 'Star and Bar' insignia is on the top of what appears to be a starboard wing, and it looks like either split flaps, or maybe the aileron has been cut or damaged. The 'anti slip' panel at the wing root looks vaguely familiar, but doesn't identify the type, or why it's painted that way
Possibly painted to represent a WW2 aircraft for some reason ?
As mentioned in the previous posts, photos from other angles, especially the underside if possible, may help in identifying it. Also any information from I.D. plates, stamps, stencilled lettering etc.
 
I agree with Airframe that we need just a few more shots of the wing. Only reason I can of why tge star & bar was painted on the starboard wing was because the image of the port wing might have been accidentally posted in reverse.
 
It's the lack of substantial attachment points that's got me confused. There is a broken lower fwd fitting shown in one of the photos, but no corresponding upper fitting. There's also nothing substantial enough to be a rear attach point.
Any chance it could be a movie prop/training aid or something like that?
 
I would say that's very likely. Also please notice the lack of rivet lines. Just a couple of them at the entire surface. I doubt the skin of the real wing would be attached in the way and more rivets couldn't be seen there. The flap has the skin consisted of two parts that is quite unusual. Each piece of the covering is riveted with raised head rivets with the interval that wouldn't be used for a wing of a such structure rather.The aileron looks like being pieced and what is more seems to be not able to move up and down.
 
Am I right is suspecting that the section laying on the floor mates to the end of the section standing upright against the pallet rack?

If it is a part of a real wing it will have part numbers and inspection stamps. If ww2 these will usually be punched into the metal whereas post war they started using ink stamps. Look for part numbers and stamps and those will narrow the manufacturer and series very quickly - look for multiple part numbers because using the P-51 as an example it contains multiple "standard" parts inherited from as early as the NA-16 trainer. Numbers stamped into ribs will be good. Numbers on the parts attached to the rib may be misleading. Stamps can be misleading - for example Curtiss built P-47s so their P-47s had Curtiss stamps on the all Curtiss made parts - but can identify the submodel of the aircraft.

I suspect it is a real wing that has been cut and one part painted to use as a movie prop, and that the wingwalk strip was part of the movie makeover. And it may not even be American.
 
MiTasol said:
I suspect it is a real wing that has been cut and one part painted to use as a movie prop, and that the wingwalk strip was part of the movie makeover. And it may not even be American.
Click to expand...
Looking at the inboard end of the flap, it obviously isn't original, or repaired to original.
It may even be from a 'repair to static' aircraft, if its been at a museum.
 
Interesting artifact! While I'm not certain it's "real," if it is I believe it served in the Mediterranean Theater. Early Ninth, Twelfth, and Fifteenth AF aircraft often carried insignia in all four wing positions. The national insignia was originally a simple white star and blue disc, but this has been modified by the addition of blue-bordered white bars - with no border around the original blue disc. There also appears to be the hint of an overpainted yellow theater stripe.

The wing itself seems to be fairly high aspect ratio, with pronounced dihedral, straight leading edge, and sharply pitched trailing edge. There are no indications of gun bays - all very similar to the outer wing panels of a P-38, but for the control surfaces.

I hope you get this one identified - I expect we'll all be surprised by the "obvious" answer once it's actually obvious!

Cheers,


Dana
 
Looks a little like the Norecrin - dunno why the American markings though. Be no need for a foreign machine to depict an American aircraft for the movies - would there?

 
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