My dad spent part of the summer of 1943 at Salinas Army Airfield. Two squadrons of the 34th Bombardment Group (Heavy) were temporarily relocated there. The other two went to Fresno. Their own base, Blythe AAF near the town of Blythe in eastern California about 10 miles from the border with Arizona, was in an area which often has the highest daily high temps in th U.S. To make matters worse, as an experiment, the airfield had been paved with tarmacadam (as in "tarmac"), a predecessor of asphalt paving. It was bad enough when they operated various older B-17 models for replacement crew training. On the hottest days the main landing gear tires would begin to sink into the pavement almost as soon as the aircraft stopped. The ground crews had to quickly position wing jacks sitting on wood planks to support the weight of the aircraft. A B-17 has relatively fat tires. When two squadrons converted to TB-24D and B-24E for pilot training in July '43 it became unworkable because of the narrower main landing gear tires of the B-24. But Salinas was no day at the beach. The two squadrons lost eight aircraft in one month at Salinas. The FBI began an investigation due to a concern about sabotage. It was eventually determined that the losses were mainly due to inexperienced pilots flying in an area with highly changeable weather and mountains. One of my dad's second cousins was killed when he was co-pilot on a night training flight which failed to turn onto the cross-wind leg for landing and continued on and crashed into the side of the mountain east of the field. My dad was working on the flight line that night when others started yelling. The landing lights were beginning to shine on the side of the mountain and the aircraft still did not turn. The tower controller had apparently lost radio contact so he ran out onto the observation platform and fired a red flare to no effect.
Once again, very informative. Brings back memories of working and walking through the Navy and Coast Guard Depots. Checking on work, picking up finished work, getting materials , attending classes, attending planning meetings, etc..
@@gcrauwels941 I see. We would would use CAD programs to generate our water jetted sheet metal blanks to speed up our fabrication. We always kept a master template for everything we made. We did have some fittings that required our machine shop to employ CNC fabrication. The reason we had to resort to these processes for the both the C-144 and C-27 aircraft was because of the long lead times involved from these 2 companies located in Spain and Italy in getting these parts in a timely manner, and keep our aircraft in service.
What a great video! You know exactly the right people, the best shop for every task, every difficulty in restoration you can not do in house. Great shop for sure, perfect machinery and equipment. BTW if I remember correctly, when Paul did the Bf 108 disassembly of the slats (slots?), he mentioned they would be difficult to make. I seem to recall because they taper and have a different bend at the fuselage to the outer wing and the overall length of them. I guess if you can not do them at your FoF workshop, Airmotive Specialties would exactly the right shop to do these. 👍
Had a tour of this shop during a airshow there several years ago. Most organized a clean shop I’ve ever seen. Only way to run a business. Where did you go to dinner, Growers Pub? Best steak in town.
@dyer2cycle No, top shelf military depot & aircraft factory grade materials, processes, and equipment. A depot does to aircraft, what shipyards do to ships.
This really makes me think you could build a "Brand New" P-51 but I bet there would be so so many hoops to jump through to actually license the thing. My dream if I ever win the lottery would be to put one together.
Googleze for 3D metal is : additive manufacturing. He adds intertitles for CAD & CAM. There is also CNC Computer Numerical Control for lathe and milling machine & other machine tool machining operation. If you run into the word hexadecimal know it is base 16 which is easily translated back and forth to base 2 (zeros and ones) of machine language used by microprocessors.
Thanks for the tour Kermit.....l am going to fly from here down to Florida to see some of my family lol.....But the first thing i am going to do is pick up a case of your nacked in Jamaica Rum...... Old flying Shoe🇺🇸
Hi Mr Weeks, not sure if you will see this, my dad R W Preddy Jr. is a distant relative of Major George Preddy who flew the P51D Mustang “Cripes A’ Mighty 3rd”. I noticed that you mentioned this plane in this video. Question, do you still have this plane and if not what is the current status of the plane? My dad is 89 years old and I would love to update him on the plane. Thanks for any help that you might be able to provide.
Hey Kermit! Loved the video. I would like to ask you to get a newer camera/gopro. The quality of sound and image are generally bad on your last few videos. A newer camera will improve many aspects on the content you create. I am your biggest fan! Cheers and thank you!
Hi from the UK Kermit, I work at Duxford and found that out Mosquito we have starred in the 633 Squadron film, it appears yours did too ! but i'm sure you know the heritage of the plane, how is the old girl doing at the moment ?
The Martin Mars did a recent flight after sitting they just stretched her legs she’s off to museum too bad it’s so costly to be on display like the spruce goose. Too bad they can’t fire her up
The Teeter's do amazing work.
My dad spent part of the summer of 1943 at Salinas Army Airfield. Two squadrons of the 34th Bombardment Group (Heavy) were temporarily relocated there. The other two went to Fresno. Their own base, Blythe AAF near the town of Blythe in eastern California about 10 miles from the border with Arizona, was in an area which often has the highest daily high temps in th U.S. To make matters worse, as an experiment, the airfield had been paved with tarmacadam (as in "tarmac"), a predecessor of asphalt paving. It was bad enough when they operated various older B-17 models for replacement crew training. On the hottest days the main landing gear tires would begin to sink into the pavement almost as soon as the aircraft stopped. The ground crews had to quickly position wing jacks sitting on wood planks to support the weight of the aircraft. A B-17 has relatively fat tires. When two squadrons converted to TB-24D and B-24E for pilot training in July '43 it became unworkable because of the narrower main landing gear tires of the B-24.
But Salinas was no day at the beach. The two squadrons lost eight aircraft in one month at Salinas. The FBI began an investigation due to a concern about sabotage. It was eventually determined that the losses were mainly due to inexperienced pilots flying in an area with highly changeable weather and mountains. One of my dad's second cousins was killed when he was co-pilot on a night training flight which failed to turn onto the cross-wind leg for landing and continued on and crashed into the side of the mountain east of the field. My dad was working on the flight line that night when others started yelling. The landing lights were beginning to shine on the side of the mountain and the aircraft still did not turn. The tower controller had apparently lost radio contact so he ran out onto the observation platform and fired a red flare to no effect.
What a fascinating shop! Great that they have been keeping up with the latest tech and staying competitive.
Once again, very informative. Brings back memories of working and walking through the Navy and Coast Guard Depots. Checking on work, picking up finished work, getting materials , attending classes, attending planning meetings, etc..
Manufacturing has come a long way. Fascinating stuff.
@gcrauwels941 Standard aerospace factory level equipment, materials, and processes.
@@redr1150r I was mainly referring to the use of CAD.
@@gcrauwels941 I see. We would would use CAD programs to generate our water jetted sheet metal blanks to speed up our fabrication. We always kept a master template for everything we made. We did have some fittings that required our machine shop to employ CNC fabrication. The reason we had to resort to these processes for the both the C-144 and C-27 aircraft was because of the long lead times involved from these 2 companies located in Spain and Italy in getting these parts in a timely manner, and keep our aircraft in service.
Oh, I remember the video about scanning the pieces. It was fascinating. Thanks for sharing this insight on Aeromotive, Kermit.
Cheers.
Very interesting report. An aviation factory that uses old and modern technologies.
Thank you for the explanation of the Tour in the Zeppelin Shop! 👌👍
What a great operation. Looking forward to one of these projects to take flight, before I die.
COOL Tour 😎... of a Darn Nice Shop /Hanger and a Class "A" operation ! Thanks Kermit.
Kermit has the best projects
Kermit you have some of the coolest friends.
7:30 Casual F-117 parts laying around. So cool to see that.
Fake "F-117 parts". In "process".
This place is amazing. Specialty fabrication of sheet metal. For warbirds this is an invaluable facility.
That P-51 is flat gorgeous!
What a nice shop.
"Thats 50% off"....
BWAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHA!🤣
Awesome work! Thats! A sheet metal shop!
Most enjoyable video to watch. As always, thanks for sharing these with us.
It was fun reading about Paul Mantz.
What an incredible shop, plus they’re cranking Led Zeppelin.
Excellent. Thank you for posting.
What a great video! You know exactly the right people, the best shop for every task, every difficulty in restoration you can not do in house. Great shop for sure, perfect machinery and equipment. BTW if I remember correctly, when Paul did the Bf 108 disassembly of the slats (slots?), he mentioned they would be difficult to make. I seem to recall because they taper and have a different bend at the fuselage to the outer wing and the overall length of them. I guess if you can not do them at your FoF workshop, Airmotive Specialties would exactly the right shop to do these. 👍
Amazing! I can't stop watching.
It's interesting seeing all the modern methods and techniques, but boy, it makes you wonder how they did it in the old days.
Glad I found this channel, So much cool,stuff and history. Kermit You're super cool. Neat stories and a love of anything flying.
Welcome aboard!
Great video
What a great shop!
Had a tour of this shop during a airshow there several years ago. Most organized a clean shop I’ve ever seen. Only way to run a business. Where did you go to dinner, Growers Pub? Best steak in town.
Some very neat Depot level equipment and processes.
Home Depot?
@dyer2cycle No, top shelf military depot & aircraft factory grade materials, processes, and equipment. A depot does to aircraft, what shipyards do to ships.
Thanks Kermit!
This really makes me think you could build a "Brand New" P-51 but I bet there would be so so many hoops to jump through to actually license the thing. My dream if I ever win the lottery would be to put one together.
Thanks for the tour. Quite the place.
This was just wonderful! English wheels. CAD/CAM... . Major bottom end component for a Ferrari F1 engine...
Fascinating
That 3D printing will save you guys a lot of money happy flying😅
Googleze for 3D metal is : additive manufacturing. He adds intertitles for CAD & CAM. There is also CNC Computer Numerical Control for lathe and milling machine & other machine tool machining operation. If you run into the word hexadecimal know it is base 16 which is easily translated back and forth to base 2 (zeros and ones) of machine language used by microprocessors.
Thanks for the tour Kermit.....l am going to fly from here down to Florida to see some of my family lol.....But the first thing i am going to do is pick up a case of your nacked in Jamaica Rum......
Old flying Shoe🇺🇸
I need those machines!
Where was the P-35? Is it so disassembled that there is nothing to see but small bits of it?
When this video was made in January, ONLY the extrusions were there. Now, the center-section is!
Where did the guy get such wonderful toys?
English wheeled the bottom cowling of a P51. Not many can say they have done that
Hi Mr Weeks, not sure if you will see this, my dad R W Preddy Jr. is a distant relative of Major George Preddy who flew the P51D Mustang “Cripes A’ Mighty 3rd”. I noticed that you mentioned this plane in this video. Question, do you still have this plane and if not what is the current status of the plane? My dad is 89 years old and I would love to update him on the plane. Thanks for any help that you might be able to provide.
Hey Kermit! Loved the video. I would like to ask you to get a newer camera/gopro. The quality of sound and image are generally bad on your last few videos. A newer camera will improve many aspects on the content you create. I am your biggest fan! Cheers and thank you!
We do now have a hopefully better mike!
Hi from the UK Kermit, I work at Duxford and found that out Mosquito we have starred in the 633 Squadron film, it appears yours did too ! but i'm sure you know the heritage of the plane, how is the old girl doing at the moment ?
Currently, on display at the EAA Museum in Oskhosh!
Kermit you can get some great Mexican food,-in Salinas,!!--also I'm sure i saw a "Seversky P-35a-at the "Planes of fame"-museum-12 yrs ago ??-
What alloy of aluminum was the original and what alloy aluminum was the replacement part? How did you determine the original alloy?
The structural aluminum would have been 2024 and still is.
Anymore progress on the BF 108 after Paul left?
Only the fuel tank that Kevin Kimball did, which I recently posted on Facebook.
👍
good
What's going on with the M-108?
Boxed up and in storage!
Employ the guys ,pay them well
did the p35 come from chuck doyles collection?
USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio.
Mine came from Sweden and the USAFM still has Chucks!
The mold is in storage.
In China.
Now that's a fabrication shop... Wow!
The Martin Mars did a recent flight after sitting they just stretched her legs she’s off to museum too bad it’s so costly to be on display like the spruce goose. Too bad they can’t fire her up
👍👍👍👍👍👌🙏🙏
Makes you wonder how they did it back in 30's and 40's !
Love your videos except constant use of the words "cool", "oh my god", " ya ya ya ya",
Cool!
Korbel Champagne. More like headache sugar water. There's only one place champagne comes from, and thats the Champagne wine region of France.
P-35 , knick named the P shooter ?
P-26 was the peashooter
That is a P-26
Thanks
Jeez Kermit - if you've made THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY videos, you ought to be able to get better sound quality than this!
You want sound quality, watch Jay Leno videos. I'm good if I can tell what's being said, and there's the transcript if not
Thanks Kermit!