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Author Topic: 2-2-V-1 - patch?  (Read 1117177 times)

Ric Gillespie

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #30 on: June 10, 2014, 09:23:18 AM »

I saw a picture of the plane under construction and the passenger exit was not there (Can't find where the picture is right now).

That's my recollection also. The omission of the passenger emergency exit was just like the omission of most of the cabin windows and the installation of the fuel filler ports on the port side of the fuselage - all part of the mods that made the airplane a "10E Special."
I don't think the structure of the passenger emergency exit or the rivet pattern in the place where it normally would be is relevant to the question of whether 2-2-V-1 is the Miami patch.

The special window was not there at that time either.

The big lav window was part of the modifications done in early 1937 in preparation for the first world flight attempt.

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JNev

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #31 on: June 10, 2014, 09:41:33 AM »

So, if the "passenger emergency exit" was standard on the Electra, we need to remember that Amelia's Electra was not standard. The two possibilities for dealing with the passenger emergency exit, as I see it, are:

1) It was not included at the outset of the construction of her Electra. If so, wouldn't there have to be some kind of drawing or notation or something on how to skin over that rather large opening hwile the aircraft was on the factory floor?

2) The passenger emergency exit was skinned over or otherwise covered during the construction process. That might account for both a) The orderly and evenly spaced lines of No. 3 rivets on the 1-inch pitch, because they could be drilled on some kind of jig on the factory floor, and b) The irregular line of heavier rivets along one edge, since it was a non-standard, one-off modification specifically for Amelia that was probably installed on the fly while the aircraft was still in the construction jig.

If the Windsor Locks Electra had the passenger emergency exit installed when it was built, we might be able to quickly qualify, or disqualify, 2-V-1-1, by going to that same area on the starboard fuselage of the Windsor Locks Electra.

LTM, who still finds paint more fascinating than rivets,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP

To be clear, it's not the emergency exit that we're looking at - it is the one-off unique large navigation window Earhart had cut into the Electra in the lavatory area.
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Quote from Ric -

Quote
The big lav window was part of the modifications done in early 1937 in preparation for the first world flight attempt.

Do we know where the window mod was done?  Was it by Lockheed, or Mantz' shop?  For some reason I have believed it was done by Mantz and not Lockheed.
- Jeff Neville

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Ric Gillespie

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #32 on: June 10, 2014, 10:04:01 AM »

Do we know where the window mod was done?  Was it by Lockheed, or Mantz' shop?  For some reason I have believed it was done by Mantz and not Lockheed.

Hard to say. Manta Air Service was on the same field with the Lockheed plant.  My guess would be that Mantz's shop did the work in consultation with Lockheed engineers.
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Monty Fowler

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #33 on: June 10, 2014, 10:46:26 AM »

I don't think the structure of the passenger emergency exit or the rivet pattern in the place where it normally would be is relevant to the question of whether 2-2-V-1 is the Miami patch.

I'll accept that. After all, If it doesn't fit, you must acquit!    ... wait, that was a glove. Sorry, wrong dramatic argument.

LTM, who still finds dry paint interesting,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
   
 
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Randy Conrad

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #34 on: June 10, 2014, 06:19:27 PM »

Ric....does anyone know why the patch on the plane looks cut and jagged down at the bottom. Having a hard time figuring out why anyone wouldn't cut a straight line in this scenario?
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Jay Burkett

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #35 on: June 11, 2014, 10:53:03 AM »

Randy,

That window, and the patch, are in an area of the fueslage where the curvature is changing in more than one plane at any given point.  If the patch was pallied at some sort of out-station the tooling and expertise to form a patch that would exactly replicate the window would probably not have been possible.  Unless the patch was stretched over a form that matched that section of the fuselage (or roll-formed with something like and "english wheel") there is basically no way to get a flat sheet of aluminum to wrap that kind of surface without creasing or bulging some place or the other.  The fact that the reflection you high-light is ragged and irregular supports this.   
Jay Burkett, N4RBY
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Monty Fowler

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #36 on: June 11, 2014, 11:33:49 AM »

Let's remember one thing about 2-V-1-1 - the experts at the National Museum of the USAF were unanimous that it was not field applied. The precision of the 1-inch rivet pitch meant, to them, that it had to have been applied in some sort of industrial-type setting, as opposed to a jungle airstrip or something similar.

Is there any way to get a feel for the level of industrial expertise at Mantz's shop? That might, or might not, indicate whether 2-V-1-1 was done at the Lockheed plant, and might help pin down a date range.

LTM, who finds dry paint and emergency exits really interesting,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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Greg Daspit

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #37 on: June 11, 2014, 11:38:51 AM »

Let's remember one thing about 2-V-1-1 - the experts at the National Museum of the USAF were unanimous that it was not field applied. The precision of the 1-inch rivet pitch meant, to them, that it had to have been applied in some sort of industrial-type setting, as opposed to a jungle airstrip or something similar.

Is there any way to get a feel for the level of industrial expertise at Mantz's shop? That might, or might not, indicate whether 2-V-1-1 was done at the Lockheed plant, and might help pin down a date range.

LTM, who finds dry paint and emergency exits really interesting,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
The window was possibly done in Mantz's shop or the Lockheed plant, but the patch was done in Miami by Pan Am.
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« Last Edit: June 11, 2014, 11:57:36 AM by Greg Daspit »
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Greg Daspit

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #38 on: June 11, 2014, 11:46:29 AM »

Randy,

That window, and the patch, are in an area of the fueslage where the curvature is changing in more than one plane at any given point. 

It looks more curved in the vertical plane, and much less so in the horizontal plane. So wouldn't it make sense to put possible reinforcement, that you would not have to bend and could use cut pieces of stock straight stuff, in a horizontal configuration?
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Randy Conrad

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #39 on: June 11, 2014, 06:06:13 PM »

That would make sense to me as well! Even if there is curvature or not...Also if you were to put any kind of a patch on any kind of a structure, you would most likely wanna have a good support behind it to hold it in place. As I was looking at several of the Lockheed Electra pics with the so-called patch over the window, and the window by itself opened at the landing accident in Hawaii, I kinda got the feeling that the purpose of this patch was not to cover the window in its entirety, but maybe to make it look smaller and more useable than a normal huge window. As I closely looked again at the patch pictures, I sensed that the bottom portion of these pictures is some type of device to open the patch like a window. Kinda of like a sliding window of the sorts. It would make sense when it would come time to take air and temperature readings from the back of the plane. I know someone made the comment that the metal may have been rolled per say, but the bottom of this patch doesn't quite go hand in hand with the device at the bottom of the picture. Plus, does anyone know why this "teardrop" hole is beneath the patch? What is it? Up for answers?
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Greg Daspit

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #40 on: June 11, 2014, 07:08:24 PM »

This is another view
rear view

Pre window?
Edit: In some of these pictures the lower vertical part of the newer metal appears to be reflecting the earth and the upper more curved part is reflecting the sky.
What may appear to be deformed areas seen in the lower part might be vehicles, mountains, buildings or trees being reflected.
There are two vertical lines in this picture that I thought might be seams but could be something like utility poles being reflected.
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« Last Edit: June 12, 2014, 08:33:04 AM by Greg Daspit »
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Jay Burkett

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #41 on: June 12, 2014, 10:58:36 AM »

I have noted that even though this aircraft is mostly "bare aluminum" it is not neccessarily "highly polished".  The "patch" could be "like new" and "highly polished".  If this is the case what we are seeing could very well be reflections.  I could easily be talked into that!

I was at an airshow a few years back and was trying to take a photo of a striking P-51D that was highly polished.  The autofocus in my camera could not lock onto the highly polished surfaces.  I guess it was due to all of the reflections of the surrounding area.

The light part on top of the "patch" couold be the sky and the dark part at the bottom could be a car or something similiar.   
Jay Burkett, N4RBY
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Monty Fowler

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #42 on: June 12, 2014, 11:22:35 AM »

The light part on top of the "patch" couold be the sky and the dark part at the bottom could be a car or something similiar.

I have it on impeccable authority that the "dark part" is Bigfoot. And don't ask me how I know that.

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189ECSP
Ex-TIGHAR member No. 2189 E C R SP, 1998-2016
 
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Jeff Palshook

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #43 on: June 12, 2014, 03:21:43 PM »

Greg,

The photo you posted with Earhart standing on the tail of the Electra ... I think the photo is of a very early version of Earhart's Electra, before the lavatory window was installed.  Clues for this are:  (1) the cockpit hatch in the photo certainly does not look like it is hinged along the centerline of the fuselage.  If it's hinged at all, it looks like the hinge would be on the outboard edge of the hatch, above the port side cockpit windows.  (2) There are no radio antenna components visibile on the top of the fuselage.  No dome for the Hooven radiocompass, no forward mast for the dorsal V-antenna, no wires of the dorsal V-antenna or its feed line from the fuselage interior, no RDF loop.

I think you are seeing a window in the starboard side of the fuselage, but it is the starboard side cabin/navigation window, not the lavatory window.  I think the low angle of the camera shot makes the (later) location of the lavatory window hidden by the horizontal tail in this photo.  The forward end of the cabin window was a little bit aft longitudinally of the most aft air vent fairing on the top of the fuselage.  This looks about right in the photo.


Jeff P.
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Tim Mellon

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Re: 2-2-V-1 - patch?
« Reply #44 on: June 12, 2014, 05:05:14 PM »

The light part on top of the "patch" couold be the sky and the dark part at the bottom could be a car or something similiar.

I have it on impeccable authority that the "dark part" is Bigfoot. And don't ask me how I know that.

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189ECSP

Monty. Haven't you heard? Bigfoot is out of bounds. Just your reference may be enough to have this thread locked.

Tim
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PanAm Systems

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