Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Beaver Tail Fitting

Sandy Sandstrom provided the following photos and information about the completion of C-133B, S/N 90536 at the AMC Museum in Dover. Taken during the fitting on 02 Aug 2007, the fiberglass beaver tail has since been painted to match the airplane.

Thanks to C-133 Crew Chief Erich Hausner for facilitating this final piece. He broke through the "stone wall" to get prints for the tail cone. Boeing couldn't be bothered with old Douglas airplanes, so Erich called some of his contacts, and the lady in charge of the library and a retired engineer who volunteered there went to work and found them. Then a company in Elkton, MD, manufactured the piece.

Whoever cut the original cone off destroyed the stringers, so Sandy made the new ones that provide the necessary support for this exact replica.

On a related note of trivia, Sandy offered a "Did you know?" The CPI and flight deck recorders now required on all commercial aircraft were developed from the very first use on the C-133.

The guys in the following photos are Doc Adams (shorty), Hank Baker (bigger), Rick Vetter the builder (tall slim one), and Sandy Sandstrom (khaki shorts or black jeans/gray hair):












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