The First Visit

On our first visit to see 78H, we found about what we expected. The engine harboured wasp nests, the tail held a birdnest, and the paperwork had some 'omissions'. The dataplate provided us with the name for the ship though, as 78H's date of production was 14 February, 1947.

Not only does this put some perspective on the size of this airplane, but for those of you that know Bill, it is a rare chance to see him NOT wearing either a Hawaiian shirt or an Army Uniform. We found 78H to be fairly complete, without surface corrossion, and in need of a LOT of TLC.

After a long and cold day of inspecting, Steve takes time out for a 'cool breeze' shot. Between this picture and the one above, you can see all four whip antennas for Lord knows what...

Here you can see the smiley face that just screams '40's. Also notice the nose strut is collapsed and the scissors have severe surface rust.

After spending a good 45 minutes clearing out the storage locker that formerly served as the cockpit, you can see there is plenty of work to do here. All the plexiglas is junk, someone decided to insulate her like a house with fiberglass, and God only knows where some of these instruments and the panel came from. The old folks in the crowd may recognize the old Motorola Speaker brick hanging from the ceiling from the 60's.

The boys at North American did make it kind of hard to misplace your checklist though...

Here's the ugliest single bit of corrosion on the whole aircraft. It appears that the drain for the Auxiliary Fuel Filler is either clogged or nonexistent. Oh well, what the heck, it's only money.......

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