Tail wheel on. 3 for 3. Ready to roll.

We got the tail wheel on yesterday.

Here is what the whole thing looks like.

Love those very authentic looking tail rotor blades, thank you Barry Gage.

John Pugh showed up again toay and started a big project.  The entire bottom of the tail section has been badly mauled by fork lifts over the years.  John is in the process of removing all the skin from our spare tail in preparation for re-skinning Charlie's existing tail bottom.  This is an enormous project.  John has lots of skill and more patience.

Note the two steel bars on the ground in front of the nose:  Today we fabricate the tow bar so we can tow the helicopter around. Richard Oliver of Quality says he will be our welder and metal fabricator.

I asked the local police chief what we need to do to keep the police department happy.  When I explained what we are planning to do he said:  "Just do it."

Then I went to the local sheriff office to see if they had any requirements form us to tow it on county roads. None!

Gotta just  love a small town in a rural area.   Lots of support for veterans.

A few days ago, when we went to a local paint shop to buy paint for touching up the red bits--the "Paint Bucket" propietor donated the paint and some brushes.  Nice folks!

It is beginning to look a lot like.......an H-34!

Roger King called today and said the main axel nuts were completed;  we met at the H-34 and here is a picture of Roger after installing the right main wheel assembly. It spins beautifully.  It reminds me of the 90 knot rolling take-offs and landings I used to do with H-34's in Viet Nam, sometimes by necessity.

(Note the helicopter is still up on blocks at this time.)

Here is a close-up of the finished axel nut product.  Beautiful work Roger!

...and he was sorry that he did not take the time to annodize it.

Here is Roger installing the left main wheel assembly.

Here is Charlie with both wheels attached.  It is beginning to look a lot like a real H-34!

Also see the tail rotor blades attached.  They are so very much like the real thing that only Igor Sikorsky could tell them from the real thing.  Thank you again Barry Gage!

Roger also completely re-worked the tail wheel assembly.  He had to improvise the top bearing; the tail wheel locking pin release is inside the struts and is completely manual, with a simple hook retainer to keep the pin extracted as needed.  You should have seen what a mess this machinery was before Roger got to it.

NICE WORK ROGER!

Roger says he put in about 16 hours in preparing and creating these works of art, and he refuses to take any payment other than to be reimbursed his out of pocket expenses.

Thank you Roger King, you are a wonderful fellow!

I  think there is a gift certificate for dinner for two at Trinity restaurant coming your way!

Here is the right side with the cargo door hung.

John at the riviting.  Got to love a guy who brings his own tool and work bench to the job.

                                          Barry and the Mrs.installing the new tail rotor blades.
Today and yesterday we got a lot of exciting work done on old "Charlie" the H-34 dawg.

Jim Locke put in an amazing feat of patience and perseverence by figuring out the multiple problems with the main cargo door and got it hung on its tracks.  It seems that some where in the past a heavy load had been dropped on the lower edge of the cargo hatch, deforming the lower track, making it almost impossible for the door to attach to and slide in its proper way.  Jim was able to correct the swerve in the track with a few careful whacks from a 5 pound sledge hammer.  This is delicate work here, folks. He was also able to puzzle out how to replace the ball bearings back into the upper track and get that reluctant track back into its groove. Then he installed two windows in the right side;  no easy task considering the old rubber seals were very inflexible and reluctant to cooperate.  Once again he showed amazing perseverance and patience.
Then he did a repair on the right side engine door and placed a new screen on one air intake. Jim is amazing! Thank you Jim!

John Pugh has put in two arduous days drilling out old rivets and putting sheet metal patches over the more serious spots of fork lift rash.  These old hulks were not treated well over the years, and no one cared if they got puncturted or bent up. He is is very talented with the sheet metal and will find lots more work here before we are done. We have been having some nice conversations while we work about places we both have both visited.  Marble Mountain being one. Thank you John!  John had some fascinating stories to tell about his recent trip back to Viet Nam as a tourist;  makes me want to go! His charming wife Candy assisted him for a while.

Barry Gage, who got his experience in Viet Nam repairing and crewing on Hiller H-23's, ( I had no idea these little things were even in Viet Nam, much less going out armed as gun ships!)  took three of the tail rotor hubs back to his shop and pressed out the bolts so he could then install the beautiful rotor blade replicas that he hand crafted out of traffic barricade plastic, and painted to look very much like the real thing.  This was a real challenge.  At first we tried to simply back out the old tail rotor blade retaining bolts, but they would not budge.  Then we tried to heat up the blade retaining hubs with propane to allow the bolts to come out.  After a hard hours work on ladders we got two bolts out;  that just was not working.  So Barry took the entire tail rotor assemble apart and took the remaining three hubs home to his shop where he used a hydraulic press to press out the bolts.  he said it took 6000 pounds of pressure to get those bolts out!  No wonder we had problems trying to do it by hand. These things are all built to very close tolerances, and sitting in the desert for decades did them no good whatsoever.

Last, but far from least, Roger King  (Shouldn't  we be calling him "SKY KING"?) stopped by a coupla days ago with a finished main axel nut;  we should have the wheels on very soon!  Roger made five, count'em: five, prototypes with his magical computer controlled milling machine before getting the magic combination of threads and diameter right.  What a challenge for Roger. And what a great help to the project.  Roger is also working on the tail wheel assembly.  Love these guys with so much mechanical talent.  My job has always been to take the machines out to the field, work them hard until broken and bring them back to the base for repairs.  I never had to worry about the repair bit.  After I wrote up the problems, I went to the bar!

Mike Kazar stopped Thursday by to get aquainted and to confirm that he is willing to pull Charlie thru town for the 4th of July parade with his Korean War vintage JEEP.  YEA  Mike!

With a bit of luck we will have Charlie in the standown at our local fairgrounds next Saturday. the 18th.

Next post:  "What's in them black boxes, anyway?"

AND, Just because I must:

If anybody would like to make a donation to this great cause, it will be tax deductible.
Send a check made out to V.V.A. chapter 890
send to:

bill collier
402 Sandpoint ave. 
No. 224
Sandpoint, Idaho, 83864

all donations will be used carefully and will be greatly appreciated.

thanks

basic Army helicopter flying video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8E285FJenA

Navy Night Carrier landings, pitching deck!

Here are the links to Navy F-18's landing on the carrier Nimitz.  I referred to these a few posts ago, but coud not find them on youtube.
Hang on to your seats!
Thank you to Gene Hamner, another former Air Force vet who found these for us.
Gene was also a Raven flying an O-1 Bird-dog in Laos as an F.A.C.  Balls!

Carrier Landing on a pitching deck, Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gGMI8d3vLs
Carrier Landing on a pitching deck, Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0yj70QbBzg&feature=related

This is the kind of flying that Carson did in the Navy.  There is nothing more challenging in aviation.

Charlie looking GOOD!

Charlie has a bit of a split personalilty, as we have decided to paint one half in Army drab, and the other half in Marine Corps green.

We have had an incredible week! Charlie is coming along great! We have a few people who have taken charge of critical projects, and WE HAVE PAINT on the fuselage!

My brother Cal Collier, U.S. Air Force veteran, has been visiting and he has taken control of the painting of Charlie, and the old dawg is looking good!

Here is the Army side of Charlie, complete with banner about the project.  It says, in part:
"To help or donate, call Bill Collier, 208-597-0622"   see another picture for a better view of the banner.
Speaking of which, we could stand to have a few more donations.  As with any project, there are always lots of little unexpected things that eat into the budget,  we are over budget a bit on this project.  Help, please.
 
If you would like to donate a few bucks, please send tax deductible donations made out to:
V.V.A. chapter 890, Sandpoint, ID 
Send to:  Bill Collier, 402 Sandpoint Ave. No. 224, Sandpoint, ID 83864. 
All help will be greatly appreciated.

Here is Cal standing in front of the USMC side of Charlie.

Cal was an Air Force  missile guidance technician in Korea during the cold war; 

he guided missiles that would have nuked No. Korea if need had come up.

We missed our goal of having Charlie in the "Lost in 50's" parade because we did not get wheel axel nuts made up in time;  since then, Roger King (another Air Force vet) has made a supreme effort to create new nuts for us.  After five tries with his magical and mechanical computerized milling machine, he has matched the diameter and threads of the axel.  We should have axel nets very soon, and ....wheels on!. Everett Wood, Commandant of out local Marine Corps League, took charge of the tires and rims last week and got tubes into the tires, got the split rims back together, and got the wheels ready to install on the axels.  

Roger also took the entire tail wheel assembly and bracket home to work on!  What a great guy!

see an earlier post where Roger took WW2 vet Marilyn Hales for an airplane ride in his 1946 Aronce Chief.

Former USMC H-34 crew chief John Pugh (No relation to Jess Pugh, he says) has taken charge of the sheet metal work, as Charlie received a bit of "fork lift rash" during her decades in captivity.  We are hoping John will make those wounds disappear.

Another former USMC crew chief, Bob Morely stopped by today to offer his assistance and expertise. It looks like we may be putting together a crew for the old beastie.

Last week I got assurance that we are covered by out V.V. A. insurance, so it looks good for having Charlie at our local Veterans Standown on Saturday June 18th. After that....the 4th of July parade!

Army veteran Barry Gage appeared to help today and has taken charge of replicating tail rotor blades for this project.  He is an former U. S. Army helicopter crew chief who grew up to be an aeronautical engineer;  welcome aboard Barry.  He also is talking about how he thinks we can free up the frozen gear boxes after decades of their sitting in the desert without oil in them.  We can use all the help we can get.

Today we mhad a very military moment.  I was standing talking to former Master Sergeant Bob Moreley and his visiting friend.  Three of us shooting the bull bside the helicopter, and one fellow (Cal) actually doing any work.  seems like old times.

I neglected to add to the previous post, but in our last work party last Wednesday former Army soldier Russ Fankell did a superb job on installing one of the fuel cell filler caps.  it was a tricky job with lots of bolts that needed three hands to hold and twist from both sides.

Things have been a little quiet on the H-34 rebuild project. Right after "Charlie" arrived we have had an unseasonal period of colder and wetter than usual weather for this time of year.Every time we announced a work party for a certain day, that day turned out cold and wet, and windy sometimes. So progress on the rebuild has been a bit slow.

We did get the nose doors on, the main cargo door installed, and all but one of the windows in. see picture.

Finally last Saturday the weather cooperated and we had five men show up to help.  Rich Faletto re-installed the axel nuts that had been removed in preparation for axel work;  Everett Wood made great progress in repairing our cyclone fence surrounding the enclosure, and Russ Fankell and I managed to get both main tires back together with tubes in them and actually got them inflated.  Not in stalled yet, but inflated and almost ready to install.  Roger King was the big help of the day.  He took the old tail wheel assembly that had the retaining nut frozen in place and unmovebable, home to his personal shop, heated the nut and managed to remove it.  Not only did he salvage it, but brought it back looking like a brand new one.  Thank you Roger!

The biggest problem we are running into is the absolute dearth of old H-34 parts.  We desperately need the large nuts that retain the main wheels onto the axels.  I called the Evergreen museum in McMinnville, OR, as I know they have two H-34's.  They referred me to someone who referred me to a business called Jack's truck sales in AZ.  Turns out Jack is in business with Tim, the fellow we bought the H-34 from.  Of course Tim and Carson are looking for said nuts, also.

  BTW, I neglected to mention earlier, that when Carson delivered the old H-34 and was so helpful in helping us put some major pieces on, he then turned around and handed me a check for $100 to help us with the project.  Thank you Carson!  Every donation helps.

So I spent the better part of a day looking for a machine shop to have the nuts custom made.  that turned out to be a minor quest.  After visiiting about 5-6 places, I was referred to Selkirk C&C, a very competent shop in Ponderay.  Marty said he could make the nuts for us, but he needed the axel to work with.. That precipitated trying to remove the axel, which did not work, and required Rich to later reinstall the axel bolts.  We then tried to remove the entire srut from the helicopter, but that did not work either.  DRAT!  We could have had axel nuts the next day could we have delivered the axel to Selkirk. Marty could not send a machinest to measure the axel in place, even though we offered to pay for his time, for fear of getting it wrong.
Next I went to a machine shop called Royal Precision Machining.  Roy (do you suppose his partner is Al?) Roy said he could do it, and would visit the helicopter to measure it, but he is very busy and could not get to it right away.

DRAT!  It looks like we are thwarted from getting "Charlie into the "Lost in 50's" parade Friday.

We also are still seeking liability insurance for the helciopter in case someone should be injured in or around it.  That also is another reason that we will not make the parade.

more soon