PV-2 Harpoon

[ghilt]

Hi all! Has been a bit since the last post....A lot has happened in the last 16 months....Got the wings pulled from Annie last May, and have moved them to Missouri. Aquired a Lockheed Lodestar/C-60A last fall as well...This bird is in pretty sad shape, and like Annie, is less firewall forward...Have to truck her out as well...Since March of this year, we have removed the Lodestar's tail feathers, ailerons, and flaps. Got a chance to get back to work on her this week, and have taken a step closer to getting the stubborn rusted wing pins out...There is a second Lodestar there that we are going to truck out too, that will probably go to Mississippi.
If anyone is interested in pictures, please email me at [email protected] I'll be happy to converse and send pics.
Since getting the PV-2, I have taken a keen interest in the type, and I'm on a mission to attempt to personally visit the surviving Harpoons...at least the one's in the lower 48 states...There is only 9 out of the 32 left that I haven't seen yet...I have loads of pics of these birds too.
Gary

 

[Wildcat]

Great stuff Gary! I wish you all success in these restorations!!

 

[N4521U]

6 KILLED IN CRASH DURING AEROBATICS AP
Published: Monday, October 1, 1990
At least six people were killed Saturday when an World War II-era airplane crashed into a lake after its pilot gave an impromptu aerobatics display before hundreds of spectators at a pilots' convention.
Divers on Saturday night removed six bodies from the wreckage of the plane, which broke apart after hitting Clear Lake. The divers continued searching today for a seventh person believed to have been on board.
Just before the crash, the bulky twin-engined Lockheed P2V Harpoon, which was designed as a Navy patrol plane, made four low passes over the crowd and the floating seaplanes at the lake for the annual ''Seaplane Fly-In.'' Clear Lake is about 100 miles north of San Francisco.
''When it would go by, he would put a cloud of smoke and then go away and straight up through the sky,'' said Debbie Fields, owner of a boat rental company on the lake. ''This guy we were sitting with said, 'He can't do that in that kind of plane.' ''
On its last pass the plane ''did something similar to a barrel roll,'' Ms. Fields said. ''There was no hope for him then. He went straight down.''
The plane crashed nose first into six feet of water about 50 yards from the lake's west shore, said Walt Smith of the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plane took off from the Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa, an F.A.A. investigator told The Los Angeles Times. The names of the dead were not disclosed, but officials told the newspaper that the pilot was from Santa Rosa.
The plane, believed to date from 1945, was not part of the convention, said Walter Windus, vice president of the Seaplane Pilots Association. ''He was strictly an intruder,'' Mr. Windus said.
''He saw an opportunity to show off and he took advantage of it,'' Mr. Windus said. ''He was doing air maneuvers that were not appropriate to that type of aircraft.''
Mr. Windus added that convention organizers tried desperately to contact the pilot by radio to tell him to leave, but could not reach him.
''His behavior was so obnoxious,'' Mr. Windus said, ''I was going to tell him to go away or I was going to report him to the F.A.A.''
Scott Landis, a Long Beach man who flies amphibious planes and was attending the convention, said it appeared that the pilot of the Harpoon may have pulled the nose of the plane too high on the final pass, causing a stall.
He said the plane ''turned over and the nose fell back toward the lake'' and there was not enough room for the pilot to pull it out of the dive.
Mr. Landis estimated the plane was at an altitude of 1,500 to 2,000 feet when the nose dropped.
''He hit the water at between 150 and 200 miles per hour probably,'' Mr. Landis said. ''The plane disintegrated.''
A version of this article appeared in print on Monday, October 1, 1990, on section B page 10 of the New York edition.

 

[N4521U]

Did this in two posts cuz I got a story. Years ago when I was sign painting in the states I was at an air show at the North end of S.F. bay. I drove to the field in my little '65 El Camino sign truck which always had my kit in it. When I got there, early, as I was ground crewing a P-51D, Bernies' Bo, there was an unfinished PV-2 at one of the far hangars, the one in the above article. It was bare metal. Got to talking with the owner who spent several years almost single handedly rebuilding the plane, he was an A&P. I volunteered to do some artwork on the side near the hatch. Did a big cartooned sailor "ready for duty sir". Got to sit in the top turret and swing the buggar around, made a hellish racket as it was electric. It was the most fantastic plane inside, he built by hand what he couldn't find as replacements. It was said to be the most perfectly rebuilt PV-2 Harpoon around. It was featured in an airplane magazine before the "crash". It is thought that the passengers may not have been seated and belted in and on the last pull up they might have all fallen into the aft part of the plane and just couldn't get the nose over again. Just a tragic loss. Bill

 

[N4521U]

This a photo I found on the web of the plane.