Dedication ... Bringing a Stude Back From The Dead? A Comparison.

[DEEPNHOCK]

So.... You think your Stude is too far gone to rebuild?
So.... You think that Stude out in a field in nowhere land is too far away?
So... You think working outside in the yard is too hard?
So... You think parts are hard to find?

Think about the dedication and logistics of this repair....and the fact that it has to ALL function...

Pretty incredible group of dedicated people. (We have it easy...)

[Guido]

Much better outcome than when the B-29 went up in flames trying to get it airborn in Greenland back in 1995.

[52-fan]

If you had that much help and that much money to spend you could put lots of abandoned Studebakers back on the road. Not so sure about the cost versus value part.

[DEEPNHOCK]

Yeah... That was tough to watch...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/b29-frozen.html

Much better outcome than when the B-29 went up in flames trying to get it airborn in Greenland back in 1995.

[DEEPNHOCK]

True enough.
This was a business venture with a return on investment expected.
The people involved were employees.
But that does not take away from the dedications, logistics, and extraordinary effort put forth.

If you had that much help and that much money to spend you could put lots of abandoned Studebakers back on the road. Not so sure about the cost versus value part.

[jclary]

ROI or not...amazing. I should be ashamed that it took me more than a year to get up enough nerve to tackle the job of repairing a snapped off valve cover bolt on my '48 Business Coupe engine. (I was the culprit) The dread and fear of getting metal shavings in the engine parallelized me into inaction. I went so far as to remove the right fender, inner fender, etc. for ease of access before doing the actual work. Dreading, sweating, almost crying...over a job that ended up taking only a couple of hours.

Regardless of motivation, money spent, and deep pockets, these folks deserve a hearty thumbs up!

[Dick Steinkamp]

Very neat story. Thanks, Jeff.

(Those big turbine engines are a nice upgrade to a DC3)

[52-fan]

Very neat story. Thanks, Jeff.

(Those big turbine engines are a nice upgrade to a DC3)

I noticed it didn't sound like a WWII version. That explains the difference. I did notice that the props looked different.

[hausdok]

Made a nighttime full combat equipment jump out of one of those into Camp McCall once. It was supposed to be an old CIA bird and was being retired. We were told we'd be the last paratroops to ever jump out of that plane.

We "lucky" few that got chosen didn't realize until we climbed into her that everything had been stripped out of the interior and it had been lined with stainless steel with flush-mounted screws. No comfortable sling seats so that we could sit there in four rows of two sticks facing each other. Since there was absolutely nothing to hang onto except the static line, they packed us in facing the tail like four rows of sardines in a tin. Each stick anchor (me in my stick) climbed up to the back(front) of the cabin, turned around, allowed the jump master to do our safety and equipment checks and then the jumpmaster had us hook up to the static line, turn around, lean against that bulkhead and then slide down into a sitting position and spread our legs. The anchors were the only ones who hooked up prior to jump commands because we wouldn't be able to turn around to allow the guy in front do our equipment checks. Everyone else hooked up on 'hook-up!' command. Then the next guy pulled himself up along the static line, turned around and plunked down into place between my legs knocking the wind out of me, slapping me in the face with his chute and trapping my hands where I was protecting my reserve handle. And so it went; all the way to the other end of the cabin.

It's a tail dragger; so when they started taxiing and hitting little bumps each stick wentl sliding toward the tail and the poor schmuck at the bottom of the stick had both feet up against the cabin wall and was seearing and straining like hell to keep his legs from collapsing or slumping forward with all that weight behind him. I couldn't do anything to prevent myself from sliding. There was nothing to grab that was within reach except the guy in the next stick and the cabin wall was slick as the alley of a bar's pinball bowling machine.

By the time the JM started shouting commands we were all just about ready to kill anyone that got in our way and prevented us from getting out of that damned tube. There was some initial bitching as the first few guys in the stick, who were downhill from the door, struggled uphill to get ready to stand in the door, and the rest of us had to wait for them to clear away before we could start shuffling, but no lack of adrenaline when I finally got to that undersized waist door and leaped out into tuck.

I'd been worrying that with all of that combat gear I might not get out far enough and I'd end up counting the rivets on the fuselage like in the stories I'd heard from WWII para vets but it was a breeze. Up and out, count to four, untuck my chin, look up and check to ensure I've got a full canopy and then got down to the business of untying my crap and the tie on the bottom of the weapon carrier, so I could drop the equipment bag on it's line when I got close to the ground.

Eyes on the horizon, released the bag when I thought I was close enough, and prepared for the touch of the balls of my feet so I could do a PLF and......wham, I hit the top of a damned pine tree, hung up for a split second, and then the top six feet of the tree bent and snapped off and I went down through those limbs like a pachinko ball, bounce, bounce, bounce and finally hung up about six feet clear of the ground with that top six feet of pine tree all wrapped up in my suspension lines above my head.

Had a pretty good gash under my left eye that was getting me a little bloody but other than some bumps and bruises I was pretty happy it hadn't been worse. Off in the distance I could hear someone bellowing for a medic....turns out one of my team mates had his shoulder dislocated and had an open fracture in his lower leg. He too hit a tree but wasn't fortunate enough to get hung up before he plowed into the ground at about twice normal descent rate. He couldn't complete the field problem so they medevac'd him, he was dropped and then he recycled the course months later.

So ended my one and only gooney bird trip. Can't really say I enjoyed it very much.

[jclary]

...No comfortable sling seats...

Great story! But...it was the edited quote above that caught my attention.

Only you crazy jumpers would consider those sling seats comfortable!

[hausdok]

Great story! But...it was the edited quote above that caught my attention.

Only you crazy jumpers would consider those sling seats comfortable!

Sitting there on a hard metal floor, trussed up like a turkey with those crotch straps digging into me, with a hundred pound bag of crap between my legs and the chute and back of that guys helmet in front and on top of me to look at, one of those sling seats was just about all I wanted at that particular moment.

Didn't someone say not too long ago that there used to be a whole fleet of Stude trucks down in Antarctica? Wonder what they do with their old iron when it's worn out down there? Don't suppose there are some old automobile graveyards sitting down there somewhere under fifty years of snow and ice?

[Dick Steinkamp]

Puff the Magic Dragon...



3 7.62 miniguns per side. Quite a sight, especially at night, to see one roll up on one wing and let loose.

"...providing suppressing fire over an elliptical area approximately 52 yd (47.5 m) in diameter, placing a round every 2.4 yd (2.2 m) during a three-second burst. "

[Guido]

Speaking of B-29's, Fifi passed over my house a couple of weeks ago.

[clonelark]

Great story but i was hoping to hear the beautiful.sound of those radial engines. Made many Lathe parts (at McDonnell Douglas) for the DC-3 that American Airlines Tulsa rebuilt in the early 90s.

[Skip Lackie]

Very neat story. Thanks, Jeff.

(Those big turbine engines are a nice upgrade to a DC3)

When I was working in the Arctic for the Navy in the 1980s, we had a contractor that had retrofitted a DC-3 with THREE turbine engines, with the third one in the nose. Except for some strengthening of the fuselage nose, the plane was otherwise unmodified. It was used exclusively to supply temporary camps built on the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean, where "runways" were just short strips where the biggest bumps and ice ridges had been knocked down -- so more power meant more payload and/or shorter runways. The FAA classified it as experimental and prohibited it from carrying anything but freight. It burned an enormous amount of fuel, but performed its function well. They were tough airplanes.