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05
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May/June A6M-2 Zero Update

July 5, 2017

Texas Flying Legends Museum
by Chuck Cravens

Texas Flying Legend’s Museum: Honoring Our Past–Inspiring the Future.

 

 

Stefan, of our Aeroscan division, scans inside the fuselage.

Update

This month marked the end of the repairs conducted at the AirCorps Aviation restoration shop.  The repaired Zero tail section was sent to Tri-State Aviation in Wahpeton, North Dakota, for reconnecting to the rest of the airframe and preparing all the systems for flight.  It will be flown to Custom Aircraft Refinishing in Casselton, North Dakota for a new paint job that will incorporate some enhanced historical accuracy.

The work this past month was finishing up the fuselage skin, forming empennage fairings, finishing and covering the elevators and rudder, and building a new tail cone.  In this case, tail cone refers to just the very aft portion of the fuselage behind the elevator hinge line.  Tail hook and tail wheel parts finished up the month.

Final Fuselage Skin Sections

Brent and Chad rivet one of the last fuselage skin sections on permanently.

 

Here we have a nice view from the front as the skinning nears completion.

 

Hunter works on a horizontal stabilizer tip skin.

 

Fitting the tip skin takes some time and trimming.

 

This image gives us a closer view of the tip skin.

 

The horizontal with the tip skin permanently in place sits ready for assembly.

 

Here we have an inside view of the completely skinned fuselage tail section.

Fairings

On the Zero, fairings between the fuselage and the horizontal and vertical stabilizers have some of the most complex, difficult to form curves of any metal aircraft.  They constitute a small percentage of the overall skin area, but take up a significantly larger percentage of the time required to finish the skinning task.

Ryan works at forming a fairing section.

 

This is a tighter view of Ryan working the aluminum.

 

Once the part has the proper curvature, trimming is in order.

 

Some of the rear fairing that aligns with the elevator when it is in neutral.

 

It is easy to see the complicated compound curves in this shot of nearly completed fairings.

 

A very close view of the fairings as they await installation.

 

Ryan drills holes for nutplates using an alignment jig to keep the bit at a perfect angle.

 

This longer view gives us a little perspective on where Ryan is working.

 

Hunter measures for the horizontal fairing.

 

The entire length of the horizontal fairing is fitted.

 

Ryan works at installing the horizontal fairing.

Elevator and Rudder

Robb clamps elevator parts as riveting progresses.

 

The Cleco tool helps squeeze the Cleco assembly fastener so it can be installed.

 

Robb is putting the finishing touches on the elevator framework.

 

The elevator is ready for the next step.

 

That next step is covering.

 

The rudder gets its Polyfiber cover as well.

 

Once covered, the surfaces get a coat of Polybrush. Normally Polybrush has a factory pinkish tint, but we get it untinted and color it reminiscent of coatings used in the 40s.

 

The elevators with their coat of Polybrush are drying in the paint booth in this shot.

 

Mark and Brent wet sand the covering after it had a coat of silver applied.

 

Marks wets a small area for sanding.

 

Here is one of the added historical details done on this repair. The elevators had a clear window that showed these sub-assembly placards. These placards were a detail previously missing from this Zero.

Tail Cone

On many warbirds, the tail cone refers to the whole rear section of the fuselage from a station ahead of the empennage to the rear of the airframe.   For the purposes of this update, we will be referring to just that last section behind the elevator hinge line.

Randy carefully aligns ribs for the tail cone.

 

A view from the rear as the ribs are set up for assembly.

 

The skin has been formed and the protective coating tinted to match the original aotake coating.

 

The outer tail cone skin, after riveting it on, shows as the tail cone sits with the bottom side upward on a bench.

 

Hunter with the nearly completed tail cone.

Some Final Parts

As in any restoration, there are a few final pieces that go on last.

Inspection covers and small parts get their aotake tinted protective coating.

 

The tail wheel assembly needed some attention.

 

Here the tail wheel assembly is being fitted to the mount that installs in the tail wheel well.

 

The tail hook is complete and painted, except that the underside will have the same tan color as the rest of the exterior fuselage.

 

This view shows the hook unlatched as it would be to release the arresting cable after landing on the carrier and coming to a stop.

 

Here we can see some of the operating linkage for the tail wheel.

 

Some of the AirCorps crew and Ryan Toews will head over to Casselton to consult on placement of the Japanese labeling, letteringand other paint scheme details when the painting begins. It won’t be too long until she is resplendent in a new paint job.

We hope to see her flying soon!

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