January/February Dakota Territory Air Museum P-47 Update

Aaron works at system installation in the P-47 cockpit.

Update

Wing work and fuselage systems installation again took center stage in the restoration effort this month. Much of the fitting of wing parts has been completed and in the coming weeks, the wing will be broken down for internal painting, final riveting, and assembly.

Fuselage Systems

Work on installing various systems in the fuselage continues. A few of the areas worked on in the fuselage were hydraulic lines, tail wheel lock system, and the fuel selector.

In a look through one of the fuselage access panels, we can see the hydraulic lines that have been installed.
More hydraulic lines, the two routed to the left are for the main landing gear retract system, those routed
to the right are the tail wheel retract lines. The lowest assembly is the flap relief valve.
The tail wheel lock control lever is mounted on the cockpit floor, just to the right side of the pilot’s seat.
Installed on the floor just ahead and to the left of the pilot seat is the fuel selector valve.
Here is a detailed shot of the fuel selector.
The three trim controls shown in close up, the tall one is the rudder trim, the knob to the right
is the aileron trim, and the wheel at the bottom controls elevator trim.
These are the chains and cables running rearward from the trim console.
The trim console’s relative position in the cockpit is nicely clarified by this image.
This view shows some of the plumbing lines exiting the fuselage. The two larger ones are hydraulic
main landing gear retract lines, the smaller ones are pitot static lines.

Wings

As wing assembly continues, parts are still being fabricated. Fitting various reinforcement plates related to the gun installation was part of this month’s restoration progress. Skin fitting for the leading edge has also been started.

Jacob sands a form for the inner wing trailing edge skin to remove any tooling marks.
The CDC router is being used to create REN plastic forms for pressing the trailing edge and flap ribs.
The shapes being machined are easy to see in this view.

Wing Gun Installation parts

The reinforcing plate for the case ejection openings
has been fabricated and fitted in place.
Here is how the case ejection openings look from
the top side of the wing structure.
Another component of the armament equipment is the ammunition boxes.
A closer look from below the wing shows the rows of ammunition box chutes that feed the four .50 caliber guns in each wing.
The ammunition boxes are more complete in this shot from the top side of the wing.
The part covered in blue protective plastic is a reinforcement plate.
Here is a closer look at the reinforcement plate. Its purpose is to strengthen the area around the
inspection plate openings and the larger circular opening that will hold the landing light assembly (left wing only).
The landing gear mount box and the reinforcing plate are visible from the top side of the wing.
Randy is mugging a little between the two wing fixtures.
Robb works on wing parts at a bench.
We can see what was on the bench in this shot. The curved aluminum parts are leading edge skin sections that go in the gun bay area.

Southwest Pacific P-47 Combat Tactics

This month I thought it might be interesting to include some pages from an aerial combat tactics manual published by the Fifth Air Force in August of 1945. Margo Prudente, Major Bill Dunham’s daughter, generously allowed us to scan this official Army Air Force manual.

The portion of the manual written by Colonel Edwin Doss, Commander of the 35th Fighter Group is reproduced here.

The 35th Fighter Group was the only Fifth Air Force group flying P-47D-23s in combat before very late August/early September according to what is legible in the 5th Air Force squadron history records.

That timeline makes it the most probable group for 42-27609’s assignment because this D-23 arrived in Australia on May 8, 1944 and was taken out of service on September 18, 1944. It is one of the earlier Thunderbolts in the first production run of 800 P-47D-23RAs. The first D-23 is serial number 42-27389, making 42-27609 the 221st P-47D-23RA of that production run.

This booklet has been republished (ISBN-10: 1576380645) and also appears to have been used as a source for both Tony Holmes’ Twelve to One’ V Fighter Command Aces of the Pacific¹ and in the book Fighter Combat Tactics in the Southwest Pacific Area by Ray Merriam².

^{1 Tony Holmes’ Twelve to One’ V Fighter Command Aces of the Pacific, Aircraft of the Aces (Book 61), Osprey Publishing; First Edition (April 27, 2004)}

^{2 Ray Merriam Fighter Combat Tactics in the Southwest Pacific Area, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform}