XP-67 Blueprints and Flight Data: looking for anything that anyone has as well as the Boeing archive location for McDonnell Douglas

Good to see that you now have access to Boeing St Louis and I hope that gets you the information. If you run into problems with finding things in other cities related to this or other projects then try the local government and local historical groups as in some cities they are really into their ww2 heritage. Local historical groups and people like Aviation Historical may will have some ex employees photos.

If you've already hit up NARA and the Smithsonian, the next best ones are:

Air Force Historical Research Agency: Air Force Historical Research Agency Maxwell AFB in Alabama.
You can order stuff but IMHO it's better to go their yourself

NMUSAF: Research
Most of the material is actually at Wright Patterson AFB next door. That one is definitely better to visit. They have an aviation library second to none!

Good luck!

vikingBerserker said:

the next best ones are:

Air Force Historical Research Agency: Air Force Historical Research Agency Maxwell AFB in Alabama.

Good luck!

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Many (most??) AFHRA documents are catalogued at Air Force History Index though these catalogs are based on the index at the end of each microfilm and when the documents were digitized all the blank pages were omitted so the indexes end up out of wack because the pdf page number is different to the microfilm frame number. On some documents this is not a significant problem but on a roll where a significant number of pages were blank this becomes a problem.

To add to the problem occasionally the people who did the microfilming stuffed up and did not photograph in the order that the index required. On some rolls they did not bother photographing every document in the index. The General Kenny diaries suffered that fate unfortunately on roll 48944 where any resemblance between the index and what is on the roll is coincidental and whole volumes of the diary are missing.

I cannot fault of the index people for this as it would take countless man hours to review every single roll manually and correct these and other errors. These people are volunteers with limits on time. The people at airforcehistoryindex.org deserve a massive thanks for reducing the time it takes to find the information needed and minimizing the time needed at Maxwell. The staff at Maxwell are exceedingly helpful and professional but run off their feet due to under-staffing.

Another good source is the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC), 950 Soldiers Drive, Carlisle PA 17013-5021. Email: usarmy.carlisle.awc.mbx.usamhi@mail.mil

I doubt USAHEC will have anything you need but check out their website at USAHEC Home and/or throw them a question. I have been pleasantly surprised.

Good luck

Oh yeah. [St*ff] is getting spicy up in this [th*ng]. So here is the update.

I have been going back and forth with the Boeing Licensing team discussing and figuring out some stuff with getting documents. Basically the St. Louis archive has one single drawing which is inaccurate sadly. They have a few photos as well. I called the Smithsonian and learned that Boeing has moved a bunch of their stuff from the St. Louis archives to their Seattle archives. I was given the Seattle archive number as well as the number for the Museum of the USAF. I will be calling the Seattle number now to confirm the presence and existence of the XP-67 documents and I will have the Boeing licensing team connect me to some staff at the Seattle archives which won't be too fast but it will get stuff done. If nothing comes of it I will call the Museum of the USAF.

PickleJarOfDeath said:

Oh yeah. [St*ff] is getting spicy up in this [th*ng]. So here is the update.

I have been going back and forth with the Boeing Licensing team discussing and figuring out some stuff with getting documents. Basically the St. Louis archive has one single drawing which is inaccurate sadly. They have a few photos as well. I called the Smithsonian and learned that Boeing has moved a bunch of their stuff from the St. Louis archives to their Seattle archives. I was given the Seattle archive number as well as the number for the Museum of the USAF. I will be calling the Seattle number now to confirm the presence and existence of the XP-67 documents and I will have the Boeing licensing team connect me to some staff at the Seattle archives which won't be too fast but it will get stuff done. If nothing comes of it I will call the Museum of the USAF.

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I admire your tenacity -

Going back to my original posts - understand that Boeing (and it could be any manufacturer) may have some limited historical technical data, and even though it seems like good PR to maintain and share that data, at the end of the day the folks up the food chain see such activities as unnecessary overhead and it cuts into their bottom line. Many of the people running these companies do not share the passion for aviation as we do. The only reason why Lockheed maintained a library at Burbank during the 1980s was because it contained a lot of technical information that was used by active employees before the internet. All the historical stuff was just there for the ride as it was easy to maintain during that time.

Hope this explains a few things.

BTW - in some situations the customer (USAF or USN) may ultimately own the rights to this type of data.

Again, good luck!

FLYBOYJ said:

I admire your tenacity -

Going back to my original posts - understand that Boeing (and it could be any manufacturer) may have some limited historical technical data, and even though it seems like good PR to maintain and share that data, at the end of the day the folks up the food chain see such activities as unnecessary overhead and it cuts into their bottom line. Many of the people running these companies do not share the passion for aviation as we do. The only reason why Lockheed maintained a library at Burbank during the 1980s was because it contained a lot of technical information that was used by active employees before the internet. All the historical stuff was just there for the ride as it was easy to maintain during that time.

Hope this explains a few things.

BTW - in some situations the customer (USAF or USN) may ultimately own the rights to this type of data.

Again, good luck!

Click to expand...

Well, as it happens to be, there was a good collection of 8 photos of the gear, gear wells, and cockpit. Unfortunately I forgot to request some additional closeup photos of the top and bottom of the aircraft needed for the textures. That is what I am doing. I also requested that they check their Seattle archive location for some technical drawings. Things are going well.

Have you checked for the operations manual from NARA or the Smithsonian? They typically have great pics in them.

vikingBerserker said:

Have you checked for the operations manual from NARA or the Smithsonian? They typically have great pics in them.

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When I was at the National Archives there was a folder with the pages of the manual or something of the like which had photos but they were not in a good resolution. Having contacted the Smithsonian they don't have much.

I work for Boeing in St. Louis, and I would not even know where to look for this stuff...lol

I am now emailing the Museum of the US Air Force research contact. I have collected a nice selection of photos from Boeing though I think I have exhausted the resources they have available. They probably cannot provide technical drawings but I tried one more time by asking a more particular question that may get me closer to receiving technical drawings but nothing is guaranteed. So... Does anyone have any suggestions regarding contacting the Museum? I'm going to go about asking my questions as I naturally would but if there is anything that anyone would suggest that would be much appreciated.