TIGHAR
Chatterbox => Extraneous exchanges => Topic started by: Ric Gillespie on October 12, 2018, 07:44:39 AM
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About once a week somebody in New Guinea finds a piece of Earhart's plane.
"A Engine part believed to be of Amelia Earhart's aircraft, have found ( location, Papua New Guinea.) The engine part No:325. Photographs attached below.
Please confirm it ,and hence need your response as soon as possible."
Anybody have an idea what his might actually be?
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Belly tank from P-38 or F-6F?
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Belly tank from P-38 or F-6F?
Too skinny and that fairing with lightening holes looks like a permanent installation. How about the radar pod from a P-38M night fighter? A few serve in the Pacific before the introduction of the P-63 Black Widow.
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Pics.
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The fairing on the Hellcat belly tank looks right.
The tank also appears to have a detachable nose cap that might be the open hole in the second photo.
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. . . and that tube coming out at 90 degrees at the bottom of the first picture could be the fuel line.
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. . . and that tube coming out at 90 degrees at the bottom of the first picture could be the fuel line.
Yep.
Good job Bill.
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The drop tank looks like it could be from a Zero.
Here are a couple of photos and the links where I found them.
https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/storypad-34zd2PBuWVWQ9ciyLLMkLXC/e59ad510-bb12-48ed-8883-2111401ef038.jpg/r0_0_3000_2000_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg
https://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/g4m/T-361/2008/zero-drop-tank-gondola.jpg
Jeff Christmas
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I do believe that it appears Jeff has hit the nail on the head!
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I think the fuel line tube is a clincher that the New Guinea object is a drop tank and the red primer is a strong indicator that it's Japanese (Americans used yellow/green zinc chromate), but the object is not an exact match to the linked photos - too skinny and the support fairing is wrong.
That said, there were undoubtedly many different external fuel tanks used by the Japanese.
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The engine part No:325.
Does this mean that there is a part number on the debris?
It doesn't seem anywhere near long enough to be a real military part number.
But if there is a number on the thing, it may help narrow down the possibilities.
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Does this mean that there is a part number on the debris?
Yes. He provided this photo. Not much use.
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Jeff's first picture sure looks at first glance like a match but:
In Jeff's picture there are three double rows of rivets. I don't see comparable rows in Ric's first picture, especially the furtherst double row which should be present in Ric's first picture.
Dare I say it: the rivet lines don't match. ;D
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Here is another zero drop tank. It too has double rivet rows.
http://www.pacificghosts.com/guadalcanal/picts/gifu/a6m2_zero_droptank.html
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Here's a better view of the Hellcat drop tank. It's post-war and the site I got it from didn't cite where or which museum this is.
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Does this mean that there is a part number on the debris?
Yes. He provided this photo. Not much use.
That doesn't look like a part number at all.
It looks to me like something done in the field with a hammer and some punches and with no concern for aesthetics.
Tank #325.
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The shape, location, and details of the pylon on the mystery drop tank was just too close to the ones attributed to the Japanese Zeros/Zekes for them to be easily dismissed; however, every single image I have been able to find of the latter had the same annoying double row of rivets on the cylindrical section of the tank midway along the cord of the pylon pointed out by Bill Mangus.
I just came across this image that seems to show a Japanese drop tank with a similar design as that originally posted by Ric. The double rivet row that had eliminated the other Zero drop tanks doesn’t seem to be there in this particular version.
http://www.warbirdphotographs.com/Harada/H-Zero-DropTank-36.jpg
Jeff Christmas
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That's pretty close to Ric's first picture.
A couple of things to look at though. Jeff's latest picture has a seam line forward of the fairing that, although hard to see through the paint, might be a line of flat head, flush-mounted machine screws. I don't see a similar line on the Hellcat tank.
I'm also looking at the curve of the fairing as it sweeps up to the point where the flange attaches to the belly of the aircraft. In Ric's first picture that curve seems very pronounced, almost U-shaped, although less so in my Hellcat pictures. (Wish I could rotate Ric's picture 45 degrees clockwise!). The curve of the fairing on the Zero tank seems to be more flat.
Absent a side-by-side hands-on inspection I don't know we'll be able to determine which aircraft the tank came from. They're too similar. In the end though it doesn't really matter if it came from a Zero or a Hellcat. We can definitively say it did not come from AE's Electra and that's what really matters.
A fun exercise though!
Got another project Ric?
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Got another project Ric?
You asked for it. Stand by.
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Got another project Ric?
New topic in Earhart General Discussion - Artifact evaluation.