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| A color photograph of our XP-82 on her first flight in 1945. |
The major focus for the past six months has been the center section and control surfaces.
Wing Center Section
Bryan, Randall and Jeremy have been making faster than expected progress on all of the assembly set ups. To make it easier to understand, the center section is made up of what looks like four 9.5’ x 4’ imaginary boxes: left-hand forward, right-hand forward, left-hand aft and right-hand aft divided in the middle by the six gun bay ribs and horizontally by the center spar.
Each chamber has its own top and bottom skins with all of its associated ribs and stringers. They now have all of the 19’ stringers including all of the inboard wing attach angles predrilled in the bottom aft section boxes.
The third week of November they started on the top forward two boxes. The leading edge and trailing flap bay make up the last two boxes. So, to put it in plain English, we are about 30-40% completed with the drilling set up of the center section. Great progress!
Control Surfaces
Paul and Ayman have also been making great progress on the rudder and aileron control surfaces. The leading edges on the four ailerons are now riveted with the remainder of each aileron completely predrilled. They cannot go any further with the ailerons as they must attach each aileron to a completed wing to prove the washout (twist) of each aileron’s relationship to the wing tip, inboard flap and to each other.
Both rudders are now in final assembly.
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| Rudder |
Parts
Larry Kelley has again gone through his extensive parts hangar and given us another huge batch of parts to fit our XP-82. Thankx, Larry.
All of our overhauled instruments except two just arrived back from the overhaul shop in California. Very nice job at a fair price. Our thankx to Kurt at Instrument Pro of Hayward, CA. This leaves us only two dual fuel gauges to go. If anyone needs instrument work, this is the shop to call at 510-723-0541.
As soon as we receive our final two instrument and four switch panels back after mask painting, I will install all of the instruments and switches into each panel.
Wing Attach Angles
Vic Peres (Erie) has completed all of the inboard center section wing attach angles and two of the eight outboard wing attach angles to date. The remaining six are in process.
Ron Farleman (Ohio) is also heavy into a multitude of small parts for our XP-82.
Thankx, Vic, Ron and all of our team members for doing such a magnificent job bringing our XP-82 back to life as a award-winning 100 point restoration.
Our lead color picture is one that we received from our plans wizard, Lowell, in California. It’s a wonderful picture of our aircraft on its first flight. You can tell which way the props are rotating as you can just see the outline of the prop decals on the front of the blades.
Ken’s Model
Ken, one of our volunteers who builds the most pristine models that anyone could imagine, is building an extremely detailed model of our XP-82. Attached are two pictures of his XP-82 model in progress and two of his award-winning P-51. Once his XP-82 model is complete, everyone can look at the quality and decide if they would like to have one built by Ken.
Katz
"Because of the blur in the drawing, I think that's an 8 instead of a 3."
How can't you love them!
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