FE Power Forums
FE Power Forums => FE Technical Forum => Topic started by: Heo on July 24, 2016, 07:32:49 PM
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I think it was you that have some thoughts about 4 valve
SOHC heads with stock cams. And i told you about "fork"
rockers i had seen
Here they are
(https://www.warhistoryonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/8073754202_b58772bd8c_k.jpg)
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Allison's.
And why are they still there?
Looks a tad tropical.
Where are these? I want them. ;)
I'd work all week to dig them out. :P
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The pacifics, Peilelu i think it was
Wrong, Papau New guinea is it
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/pacific-plane_wrecks.html/2
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Looks like a Lockheed P-38 Lightning twin engine fighter.
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Looks like a Lockheed P-38 Lightning twin engine fighter.
I think you're right, with the back half ripped off! Very cool plane. Notice the gear drive cams.
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Yep, definitely a P-38. I am surprised at how far those rockers fork apart at the springs; thanks for the pic Heo!
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Well i think the valves is mighty big with the 5,5 inch bore ;D
so they had to spread them
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My father crash landed a p38 in New guinea in 1944. He of course survived. I wonder if this is it?
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you can't help but wonder about the stories that plane could tell.
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My father crash landed a p38 in New guinea in 1944. He of course survived. I wonder if this is it?
Now that's a story.
Not sure if you have seen this site.
There might even be pic of your Dad there?
http://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/usa/aircrafts-2-3/p-38-lightning/
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My father crash landed a p38 in New guinea in 1944. He of course survived. I wonder if this is it?
My father was a control tower operator at the base in Papua. He says he's sorry he guided your dad into the trees instead of the landing strip, but he was having lunch and didn't bother looking out the window. His bad.
He told me some interesting things about that place, if and when he would talk about it at all.
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Guys I work in aviation and in my younger days worked in PNG for a few years. And scuba dived a fair bit of the region with war wrecks being a favourite. Amongst other military aviators in the family a relative was KIA in a P40M in the nearby Solomons in 1943, so I've been into SW Pacific WW2 history & warbirds nut pretty much my whole adult life.
I regularly went searching for and looked over wrecks in both countries and there are plenty of them, including a few P38's. With the forestry, mining and palm oil business and the road building going on they are discovering wrecks from time to time and there are hundreds still missing...
I love the Alison V12's and have spent many hours reading books and manuals in them and drooling over them at collectors and museums. Guys I knew who maintained them in modern day warbird collections seemed to prefer them to RR merlins too. Being less cluttered, holding tune longer and basically being a nicer design from an engineering standpoint. My late P40 relative's wingman told me the guys trusted the Allison's to get them home on their long overwater / jungle patrols. Easy to fly and didn't break, were the words he used from memory. I'd do allot to have one in my barn!
The best P38 I saw in PNG was sitting on gas drums at Kiunga Aviation at Nadzab (the "new" Lae airport), owned by local pilot Richard Leahy. All complete, definitely rebuildable airframe with not too much corrosion, couple of bullet holes in the nose and you could still read the writing etc. He collected a bunch of P39's and a few P38's & P40's in the 1970's, when few people seemed to care, and many got sold overseas. You do find the odd engine around too. There were a few Alison's V1710's in a dump in the central Solomon's when I was last there, mostly F3R variants from P40's from memory although I think there was a P39 motor too. The easily accessible wrecks were pretty much all either taken by scrap dealers post war, or by collectors up until the mid 1970's. A couple went to museums. What's left is either too far gone or undiscovered. Plenty of it lying around though if you want to visit. The Solomons is like a rubbish dump of war in some places. Rusting bits and pieces just lying in the grass etc and plenty of wreckage decaying in lagoons. The only sad thing for me is that many are just rotting in open air "museums" and soon will be completely gone. There have been grand plans for western style storage facilities but like many things in these places, it all comes to naught. The best result seems to be when an interested country's national museum does a 1 for 1 deal, taking 2 out to restore and giving one back to the PNG government to display etc. They just can't manage it in their own...
But if you are thinking of doing an Indiana Jones and going to grab one you'll probably be disappointed. If you're are lucky (and rich) enough to find something, beware - local laws prevent removal without government approval and the resident tribal big men always want big $$ too. Mostly the ones found are completely rotten, but there are still some missing in the highlands where conditions aren't so humid or salty. However as many of you probably know, they are like rare sports / muscle cars these days, you can build one from scratch for less than they sell for so all most want is a good build plate and engine tag etc...
And there's still some Alison parts being made today! The Reno races and restorers keep the demand going... :-) Ooops, I have gone on a bit.. Apologies.
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You know, just to be cruel, I remember hearing about a few P51-D's being berried somewhere in the Pacific during WW2. It was done to prevent them from falling into enemy hands, shortly after they arrived at the air base. Maybe one of your guys knows the story.
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There was this story all over the internet a couple of years about some burried
Spitfires in burma that was just a hoax
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That must have been what I was remembering. Bummer it's just a hoax.
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Yes there have been a few stories like that...
Some were true, like a bunch of new RAAF spitfires being dumped off a carrier off the Queensland coast at wars end etc. A fisherman did actually pull up some bits at one stage but it was all completely rotten etc. But from memory he couldn't find them again! Another one which was actually verified by wartime colour footage, was a bunch of F4U Corsairs being pushed overboard etc.
The burying stories have some basis in fact. On Bougainville they discovered US arms caches buried in the sand amongst the coconuts. Left for a retreat that never came, as they advanced towards Rabaul. Covered over by planks and sand they had fuel drums full of 30-06 ammo, 30 cal MG's, Thompsons, 45 ACP ammo, grenades, mortar rounds etc. Sadly the local kids often find these things first and sometimes blow off an arm or get blinded, by wacking them to see if they work... They still have UXB teams disarming this stuff, trained by NZ or OZ military. WW2 weapons like that were used in the Bougainville rebellion in the 1990's and are still being used in West Papua by the OPM against the Indonesian occupation force. The allies just moved on and left it all behind. There wasn't much of a clean up effort after 45'...
There are many missing WW2 pacific aircraft wrecks still out there, hundreds in fact. But if you know that part of the world you know that the ocean is very deep and the jungle very dense, with steep mountainous terrain. You can be almost of top of something and not see it. Proof of this was in PNG a decade or so back when they were widening a road for trucks etc. They discovered a USMC fighter upside down, buried up to the cockpit in the ground with the pilots skeleton still hanging in the straps, even had his rusty 45 colt still hanging from his waist in his webbing belt. He was only about 20 yards off the road and had sat there undiscovered since 1943...
Who knows one day they may even find my missing relative (mothers cousin) who was shot down in 1943 over Munda.
But to give you an idea I dived and trekked around there several times in the early 1990's , as there are a bunch of aircraft wrecks in the Roviana lagoon, and piles of wreckage on land. Whilst there I spoke to old locals who back in the day were teenage members of the coast-watchers network, actively searching for and retrieving downed allied air crew etc. They recalled being told an RNZAF P40 had gone done there but never saw any sign of it. As they said, diving at high speed and out of control, they could miss the islands and wind up in 3,000' of water in a few seconds. And if they hit the hills the aircraft often just disintegrated and got overgrown within a year or 2.
But every year or so another one gets found...
The place to find really decent wrecks these days is North Africa and Russia etc. The permafrost or desert keeps things pretty well and the areas are so remote. Like that RAF P40E that popped up in Egypt a couple of years ago. Once again there are so many of these things missing... All it takes is time and $$$ and often a change in the weather to shift the sand or warm the frosted ground. Expect more to surface as the locals have cottoned on to the value of such stuff. Often again its oil workers etc, who stumble upon these things.
The shame is they are often idiots and it becomes a scavenging "free for all" until a bonafide recovery team gets involved. In Vanuatu a few years ago (never invaded but regularly probed by the Japs and a huge allied FOB) a villager found a crashed US WW2 bomber of some description (I think maybe a Mitchell or B26 or similar) in the hills. They did tell the US embassy in Vila but by the time they got there (only a day or so later) the bones had been piled up outside (not exactly CSI) and the instruments and guns stolen. You aren't exactly dealing with rocket scientists I'm afraid, although it is touching that even to this day, the locals have great respect for the allies who gave their lives to set them free from Japanese occupation, they sure as hell didn't like them much!