Exclusive Behind The Scenes: Aircraft Restoration Corsair

[Music] you know whenever I get an opportunity of a lifetime especially in aviation to share something special with you I jump on it and today we're doing that for sure so we're here right now at the Naval Air Museum here in Pensacola and we're in kind of the back lot and these are the restoration facilities that we're going to walk through and show you some incredible stuff now the rest of the film crew is on the other side with Tyler feed Davies from the Blue Angels also Captain Sterling Gillum who's the director of the museum and they've given us unrestricted access to show you guys some behind the scenes really fun stuff that's inside this hanger right here but before we go in the one of my favorite planes the Connie is sitting right here there is some incredible history at this Museum if you haven't had a chance to get here you definitely want to and it's free to you the public so make sure you join us and you can see down there the Blue Angels cuz they're usually training here all week that you get to come watch but also behind the Connie is a C130 which is the only C130 on the planet that has landed and taken off from an aircraft carrier to my left here we've got the kind of Secret of Nighthawk and we have a whole bunch of videos where we walk through all these aircraft these are all sitting out here in the line getting ready at some point to go into the facility that I'm about to take you into where they do all the restoration so really looking forward to show this to you and you know what's fun about this there's nobody here they gave us full access to be able to walk you guys around and just talk about what we see and actually while we're sitting here going you're probably going to hear there's a T6 taking off right there the Blue Angels just came in from training and they're about to take off here in a few more minutes so hopefully we catch them but let's go ahead and walk inside and we're just going to start to walk around and check out their whole facility and what they do here so let's jump in wow this this is incredible I mean I'm so honored to even be in this building and to be able to be out here and and and just grateful to the museum for giving us this access but if you think about the history that has come through this building or the airplanes that have been in this building and been restored it's kind of awe inspiring but the volunteers here do an incredible job when you get to see some of the original stuff here in this Museum and and what they do it's uh it's pretty impressive so I'm so grateful for all the guys that come here and do the work on this stuff but just think so you got a whole bunch of different stuff here I know that these are some cockpits that they use out on the line when they have uh people come the public comes for the Blue Angels this is obviously more of a modern plane that they're doing some work on but over here is uh a pretty interesting incredible airplane that I want to talk to you guys about this plane is very special this is a a 1943 Corsair now why is this special this is called the bird cage model and one it's one of the earlier versions of the Corsair where uh the reason they called The Bird Cage is the canopy was kind of like you're in a bird cage and we're going to show it to you because they're doing an incredible job restoring this as we sit here today as we know there's only three of these actually still left on the planet this one was just found in the in the 2000s in the bottom of Lake Michigan and this is an incredible find when they found this so um the bird cage the the issue I had in the earlier versions of this airplane is the bird cage is the pilots couldn't see anything if somebody's on that toil whatever when they're trying to look out they can't see so they modified this airplane and this is the original so they modified it changed the canopy they changed some of the gear on the bottom so it brought it up a little bit they changed the prop a little bit but and it made it the the more of the current version of the F4U but this is all original so like I said the volunteers are restoring this right now this came out of the lake it has the original engine in it right now all of the skins and everything original now the other thing that they did which was really interesting here is the the whole cockpit is fully restored we can't get in the cockpit but um what they did is when they were restoring the cockpit at this point right here they kept the plane cut in half so so that these guys could get in and out easy because this plane is incredibly hard to get into so as they're restoring a cockpit it would just be almost impossible for them to really do that in a timely fashion they get in there and totally do the restoration that they did so when the plane got here they kept it cut in half into two pieces so they could get it in and out now uh they're getting ready to type put the F on here and all the rest of the stuff but all this is is original I'm going to show you some stuff on the other side as well and then we'll get to the engine but here's here's something else is cool so I'm going to show you something here and it's the prop now by the way we're here in the in this restoration facility and they're letting us just walk around and show you guys some incredible stuff here but so here is the prop that they just finished restoring so this prop was on this plane when it came out of the lake so just think about that this plane crashed in 1943 in the 200s this prop and this plane came out and they just restored it and you know it's incredible I I got to tell you I'm I can't believe I'm even here I'm even touching the stuff and going through it but uh it it's it's pretty incredible to see the work that these guys have done and you know what as a visitor when you come here you can actually come and see this stuff they'll bring you out here and allow you to see kind of what's going on and by the way they're just um marrying the wings yesterday that Wing just got married to the other side and I'm going to show behind you in the camera guys here in a second but that's the other Wing that's going to go on here so they're right in the middle of marrying These Wings so here's some gear doors gear doors that are they're working on right now that that are going on here is the other Wing um again it's like crazy that I'm standing here touching this particular airplane um this is extremely rare and it's uh really cool to be here I'm just in know OD just being able to walk around and see what's going on but we have here you know the the gear isn't on yet the gear is over here we'll show that to you in a second um the engine is here the majority of the engine is intact is original was in there now there is a section in here that is magnesium so if you know these airplanes you got like uh you got the front end of the engine and then you got the power section the power section is where like the fuel pumps and everything hang off on it or uh you know other the hydraulic pumps and things like that are usually on that magnesium section well of course magnesium and water doesn't do well so there is a section in here that isn't there because the water just did away with uh the Magnesium but the whole rest of the engine is there which is cool I'm going to show you the the tires here and the wheels because this I'm going to take you through the whole machine shop inside here but like here's the original tires but like I just want to show you an example of this is all original but then the Gu Machine this cap uh with the greases inside so you got the the ring here the ring comes out the grease is in there this is where the bolt is when they get through they bolt it up but there's a lot of parts here that these guys machined all here in the facility um so you know the majority of this plan is original but there are some pieces that they have to redo but I'm only showing you that cuz I'm going to get to go into the machine shop and actually walk around the whole machine shop and show you that but let's let's go on the other side here cuz I do want to show you guys uh a couple other interesting things that I didn't realize and now obviously we got have a lot of aluminum on the plane um again I'm freaking out that I'm actually touching this airplane right here and that's one thing about this Museum in Pensacola is these planes aren't behind glass I mean these are some incredible original aircraft they're not behind plastic or behind some kind of ropes or something this is one of the only museums that I've seen where I can walk up to and they let you walk up and touch some of these aircraft I mean you got George bushes George W Bush's playing he's in there you got Marine one that's in there you can walk up and actually touch this stuff at this Museum so it's pretty incredible let me show you a couple things like this I thought was interesting I didn't know this you know the majority of the plane is aluminum but I didn't realize that some of it you know the elevator you got the tail section here these are fabric on this warbird just like our carbon Cub um you know ours is poly poly fabric I'm not sure the exact on ours but these these are you know pretty close to the same thing so you see it's uh pretty incredible that uh a bird like this has got fabric on the back of it so got some of the flaps here of course you know these are split flaps on the Corsair but I'm going to show you something really cool something that like I said if you could even find one on the planet and this is the bird cage that they just did refab on like this is incredible can't believe I get to touch this you got the mirror up there um but the team here did an incredible job restoring this polishing the Plexi and stuff on it um it's just uh it's absolutely are inspiring it's kind of cool that we're we're sitting here touching this stuff and getting a walk around um they've been so accommodating to us here so that's the bird cage so that's where this plane gets that nickname of the bird cage so now you get a good good feel for it and then in the later models they they adjusted that and stuff so really cool let's take another quick look at the plane here and then I want to kind of take you through the rest of the facility and bring you into the machine shop um so on this whole plane it's all original there's only a few pieces uh there go the Blue Angels maybe you can hear them America ah the sound of Freedom right so the uh the majority of the plane is all original there's only a few places that they had to um fabricate this is one section when the plane crashed that they had to fix this one section so you can see like the rivets that the team did this work is absolutely impeccable look at what the Restoration Team here at this base has done I mean they just do incredible work so this whole thing they fixed right here and then you see here's original spot welds so you can see where the originals were so the whole rest of the plane is original that's all original and this one section where the plane crashed that they had to take care of so that's really kind of cool and then this is the other side where we talked about that they kept the plane split in half here so that they could restore the cockpit um we can't get in the cockpit right now because is one of the steps to be able to jump up in there um looking forward to uh seeing this thing when it's done because it's such a rare iconic bird so it's um pretty cool it's pretty impressive it's uh I can't say it enough times over and over that how grateful I am that I'm here able to be able to do this and show you guys so let's I'm going to show you a little bit more of the hanger here and talk a little bit more as we go into the facilities but the whole rest of the facility they do all the maintenance on all their tugs and everything here as to they got one of the other aircraft coming in from the line that's out out back here that they're going to start the restoration on in this one just like in the Corsair there's a better shot of the cor here let's take a look at it from the front here but you could see you know what they got going on there so that's pretty cool um all right so let's let's go into the machine shop fabrication inventory um again they've given us uh I say they gave us unrestricted access but just so you all know we have escorts that are with us as we're walking through but the fact that they're letting us do this and show this to you guys I think is incredible so let's take a peek what's going on in here all right so cool here we are in the machine shop or one of the sections so this is where they do the fabrication and stuff you'll see that so we got some raw materials here um some welding we've got uh some bending equipment and shaping equipment so if we need to you know Bend some of the aluminum look at we got all this aluminum here on the rack all these raw materials and then uh this is where they can punch and shape uh some of the aluminum and stuff like that so uh get some nipple guides in here so this is this is kind of cool so they got some really great Machinery in here so we've got uh big grinder here sander they've got the vacuums on them we've got some sand blasters these are cool look at the size of these sand blasters so this is where they're going to clean some materials and now I'm not a machinist and stuff guys but I'm just walking you through but um a lot of you guys probably know a lot more about this equipment me but you get sand blasters here we got Cutters Benders here's a shaper so 45° or a 90° Bender there for the aluminum look this is just really cool we got a paint booth actually let's look it right here so they made some stencils for painting on the side of the planes you can see them here look at that so these are some stencils for whatever side of ples ground for the museum more presses saws another Bender here oh this is a cutter paint booth here so now we're getting into some of the areas where they've got avionics whole bunch of older avionics and stuff in here we're going to go down and show you some of the uh the machine shop as well as parts and inventory all right so here we are in a little bit of a cleaner area um kind of cool we've got sop manuals in here looks like we got maintenance manuals all through here so this must be where they do a lot of their documentation and things on on what they're doing uh both Bolton board emergency exit stuff so um again all kinds of manuals and stuff so this is more office but let's see we're going to get into down here we got well this is kind of cool so here's where they can do um like some of the restoration on seats and cushions and fabrics and all that kind of stuff so you got a whole sewing section here um whole fabrication section here that's pretty cool you get grommets and things um this is this is what I want in my hanger here's a whole machine shop so a couple lays in here not a couple whole bunch we got Grinders couple laes got a/ inch La here/ inch La here we got a 1 in La over here this is really kind of cool I mean this is some really great stuff let's snake through over this side check this out ah so we've got all kinds of drill presses here um God it would be great to have some of this equipment for doing some of the work we do on our planes but uh this is really impressive it's again pretty cool to be able to see this stuff and now we're into some of the parts supplies um all kinds of avionics and things so look at some of these old radios that are from some of these old war war brdge and things um this is just blowing my mind to be able to see some of this kind of stuff um hopefully nothing's classified here but I'm sure they're going to check it all before we go but got some altimeters RPM gauges turn coordinator hsis some really crazy old stuff through throttles and then uh over here we get all more parts supplies check out this board so this is what I want to do when we're building the carbon Cub cuz we're getting ready to to go ahead and do full build and film the whole thing from beginning to end for you guys but when we get to Crate in and we get all the parts in there this is exactly what I want to do in the hanger is to create the boards like this and get all of the materials and stuff inventoried and up on the wall like this um and get ready to do the build so we're heading out of here let's go out back to the next hanger and here we are so back we've got some turbin here some more Benders and check this out it's a really cool paint booth here that's awesome and look at these props so I hope you guys enjoyed it I mean I want to thank the museum for letting us do this walk around and giving us this kind of access this place is incredible you got to come check it out if you can get this backstage sort of uh tour makes it even better but uh I'm just so grateful and thank you that we're we're actually here in this facility and get to share this with you so we'll see you on the next one and take care everybody [Music] [Music]

Channel: E3 Aviation Association

Views: 47,860

Keywords: aviation, restoration, sailing, corsair, plane crashes, airport, museum, aircraft, b.o.b airplanes, military pilots, navy, aircraft carrier, carrier landings, national air and space museum, BLUE ANGELS, THUNDERBIRD, AVIATION HISTORY, MUSEUM, AVIATION ARTIFACTS, SPACE TRAVEL, F16, F14, TOMCAT, F18, FIGHTER PILOT, NAVY, AIR FORCE, AIRCRAFT COMBAT, cubi cafe, full tour, facts verse, blue angels, carrier landing, airshowstuff, corsair birdcage, birdcage corsair restoration, plane restoration

Id: Cpv1C520C-M

Length: 18min 24sec (1104 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2024