Lockheed Engineering Drawings needed

[Ric Gillespie]

Over the years we have, in attempting to identify artifacts found on Nikumaroro, accessed the microfilmed engineering drawings for the Lockheed Model 10 in the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum (NASM) archive.  It's a cumbersome, time-consuming process to find the right drawing (the LIST of drawings is 38 pages long) and often the quality of the microfilm is poor, but the results can be rewarding.  The engineering drawing for Part Number 40552 proved that the material, color, thickness and subtle compound curvature of a piece of plexiglas we found in the abandoned village (Artifact 2-3-V-2) matches the cabin windows of a Lockheed Electra.  Proof that the plexi came from Earhart's plane?  Of course not.  An interesting match?  You betcha.

Now we find ourselves poring over high-definition video of an underwater debris field of man-made objects and trying to figure out whether they may be debris from a Lockheed Model 10E Piñata that broke up 75 years ago.  As we continue our review of the video lots of interesting shapes are turning up but nothing that is obviously airplane (or obviously anything else) so far, but that's not surprising.  I remember seeing the New England Air Museum's Electra during its re-build and marveling at the amount of junk littering the hangar floor that you'd never imagine came from an airplane.

What we need is a complete set of engineering drawings for the Model 10 in digital format.  We know about the microfilm set at NASM.  We could probably make arrangements to scan and digitize it - a mammoth job but one that needs doing.  But we don't want to reinvent that wheel if someone else has already done it.  Or maybe there's a better set of microfilm drawings somewhere that we don't know about. Over the past decades at least four Electras have undergone extensive rebuilds - New England Air Museum's c/n 1052; Navy Pensacola's c/n 1130; the Kammerer estate's (formerly Linda Finch's) c/n 1015; and Grace McGuire's c/n 1042.
There are probably more.  Can anybody help?

[Jeff Scott]

Since Lockheed Martin is listed as a TIGHAR sponsor, do they have such information?  Are they willing to do the grunt work to process the microfilm?

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/features/2012/earhart.html

[Tom Swearengen]

Hum----this is interesting. If not Lockheed, then possibly somewhere in military archives. Werent some versions of the 10 used as light transports?
Tom

[Ric Gillespie]

Sadly, modern corporations rarely keep any kind of historical archive.  What old Lockheed records still exist are said to be in un-cataloged storage mixed in with proprietary and classified documents.

The Lockheed was used as a light transport and the microfilm files at the Smithsonian came from the Army Air Corps. 

[Jay Burkett]

Ric,

Microfilm served the industry for a very long time.  Why is a digital copy needed?  I do agree finding and keeping readers functioning is a problem.  There could not be that many Lockheed drawings for the 10E (at least as what is generated for modern aircraft).  Many of the piece-parts that you are looking for would be "vendor" parts or parts built to "standard" drawings.  What I am trying to say is that if you had all of the prints Lockheed Model 10E drawings you would still have only a small fraction of the overall drawings that build every part used in the aircraft.  A lot of the sheet metal parts were lofted (i.e. lofted full size).  Many parts could be made from a single loft drawing.  Frames and skins are good example.  Many other parts may have been detailed on the assembly or installation drawings.

The small nit-noy parts that are likely to litter a crash site would be defined by some sort of standard drawings (think switches, clips, brackets, connectors, even radios).  These will not be on drawings labeled "Model 10E" (or what ever the internal numbering scheme was being used at the time ---example:  The military C-130 was L382 where as the civilian model was the L-100).  They would be likely to have been used on other aircraft.

What I am saying is that you could have every "Model 10E" drawing and not have any drawing that defines recognizable parts that you are likely to find in one piece.  You need to try to fined the "standard" part drawings as well.

[Ric Gillespie]

Thanks Jay.  Sheesh, this might be even tougher than we thought.

[John Joseph Barrett]

Jay brings up a good point. Would Lockheed have maintained a listing of their outside parts suppliers that contributed parts used in the construction of the 10E? Obviously Pratt and Whitney supplied the engine, but who else would have provided instruments, hydraulic assemblies, etc? Even then, I would bet that Pratt and Whitney outsourced items such as carburetors and starters. My feeling is that there would have been such a list if for no other reason than to point buyers to a source for future maintenance and repair. Finding a copy of that list would allow you to track any potentially identifying part(s) back to the manufacturer. At that point documentation would be needed showing the part went to Lockheed, then back to Lockheed to search for any documentation that might show what model(s) the part was used on, and then, with luck, an exact airframe. All of this is presuming that the part(s) were serialized and that the numbers are still legible. Were items such as instruments serialized or just the larger components like engines, landing gear assemblies, etc? As Jay pointed out, I don't think this will be as simple as scanning the Lockheed microfilm.   LTM, who was never very good with numbers. -John

[Ric Gillespie]

We have a list of vendors who provided parts for the Model 10.  It's a long one and many of the companies no longer exist.
We're not looking for a way to track identifiable parts back to the manufacturer. I can pretty much guarantee that any identifiable airplane part on that reef is from NR16020.  We're looking for a way to help us tell if the objects we're seeing in the HD underwater video are identifiable airplane parts.  We need to be able  answer the question, "Was there anything on a Lockheed 10 that looked like this?"

[Alan Harris]

I strongly agree with Jay.  There were likely not that many drawings in the 10E-specific package, and what there were might not be particularly useful from a visual identification standpoint.  Many smaller parts would have appeared only as entries on the Bills of Material and not been drawn.

This is probably something you thought of 20 years ago and have already checked out, but: for your purposes a military-style Maintenance Manual and, especially, Illustrated Parts Breakdown would be more helpful.  Do we know if Lockheed furnished any of this sort of support data with the military Electra models such as the XR20, XR30, C-36 or C-37?

[richie conroy]

Maybe nothing but just found this site second picture down

http://www.stuffinder.com/comman.html

Not sure were the email address is, But it's possible evidence there was a parts catalog available 

[Alan Harris]

Maybe nothing but just found this site second picture down

Certainly appears to be on the right track!  It would depend on how many illustrations there are, and how detailed.  The caution that "this is not an IPB" (Illustrated Parts Breakdown) suggests it may not be the whole 9 yards.  If it's just a bare text listing of part numbers and nomenclature it would only be marginally useful. 

[richie conroy]

Here is one that was sold in 2011

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/orig-lockheed-model-10-electra-parts-165789215

[Alan Harris]

Here is one that was sold in 2011

Sigh.  The ad shows everything except what we need to see, which is what the inside pages look like.

[Ric Gillespie]

We already have the Maintenance Parts Catalog and it's just a bare-bones listing of parts.  Very few illustrations.  Illustrated parts catalogs came about with the explosion of aircraft production in 1939.

[Alan Harris]

We already have the Maintenance Parts Catalog and it's just a bare-bones listing of parts.  Very few illustrations.  Illustrated parts catalogs came about with the explosion of aircraft production in 1939.

The MPC is a civilian publication, as for airlines.  No hope that the Navy or Air Corps/Force got something better with their Electras?