B-47 51-2387 Kansas Aviation Museum

[BHawthorne]

I spoke with the Kansas Aviation Museum today about "adopting" a static display plane for my student organization's community service project. One of the things I do at my school is fill the role of the SkillsUSA student chapter President for Butler Community College. Since our SkillsUSA chapter is focused on manufacturing engineering, it seemed to be a worthy project goal. I met with the museum archivist today and spoke with him in detail about the B-47 and what needs to be done. The Kansas Aviation Museum inherited this B-47 when a location in Oklahoma no longer wanted it. It was cut down and transported to the museum where it awaits restoration to static display again.

While not really a "cockpit" project per-say, there is a cockpit in this thing. I felt this project would be interesting to blog here. It might even result in me deciding to do a B-47 simpit, because it sounds like such a unique one to do and I'll have access to the real thing for measurements. Give me the benifit of the doubt and think that I'm going about this backwards...work on the real thing, then make the simpit...lol.

Anyways, here are my initial cursory walk-around pictures of 51-2387, one of only 25 B-47's left in existence. In the background is Boeing Military Wichita, Spirit Aerosystems, McConnell AFB and the Kansas Aviation Museum. The walk-around pics will be in the next few posts.

[BHawthorne]

The nose is a bit bent in the raidome area (pic 10). The navigator? ejection location (pic 11) has been patched over badly.

[Badge]

A very worth while project and a very amazing airplane with a short but important history.

[BHawthorne]

The landing gear shown here was salvage. 1 gear (pics 2+3) needs to be retrofitted with the B-52 gear pieces (picture 6) to be functional again.

[Bob Reed]

I love this aircraft! PLEASE keep us informed of how this is going.

[Michael Carter]

Me and 30 other airman hand-polished one of those over 25 years ago at Whiteman AFB with Never-Dull.

No fun at all, but I too really like the airplane.

[BHawthorne]

Misc bits needed to complete the static display:



Note: (Pic 1) Another project, "Doc" the B-29 nears completion in the background. It's a sin that project has no hanger.

[BHawthorne]

A few wing panels are missing and I'll have to waterjet out new pieces for them to replace the rotted bits. Also, the logistics of remounting the wings should prove interesting.

[BHawthorne]

Me and 30 other airman hand-polished one of those over 25 years ago at Whiteman AFB with Never-Dull.

No fun at all, but I too really like the airplane.

hehe, I'll probably doing that soon enough too. Too bad there aren't 30 other airmen for this plane. That's a bit a ways though.

[jmig]

hehe, I'll probably doing that soon enough too. Too bad there aren't 30 other airmen for this plane. That's a bit a ways though.

Did I see BSW raising his hand to volunteer in the back?



I saw a B-47 make its last flight at Dyess, AFB. It became a static display.