> Must be one hell of a trailer parked outside. Imagine how scarce everyone 
> will be on the day they call for a rigging crew.

 

 

I have helped put the wings onto a C-47 Dakota.  It was… interesting.

 

There were photos and a link to the manual for the rigging of a P-47 
Thunderbolt circulated some time ago.

 

Anthony

 

From: Aus-soaring [mailto:aus-soaring-boun...@lists.base64.com.au] On Behalf Of 
Mark Newton
Sent: Monday, 14 March 2016 8:29 PM
To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. 
<aus-soaring@lists.base64.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] perlan/U-2

 

On 11 Mar 2016, at 9:17 PM, Derek Ruddock <drudd...@iinet.net.au 
<mailto:drudd...@iinet.net.au> > wrote:

 

After doing some research after the recent Tom Hanks film re Gary Powers, I 
found an amazing amount of declassified information on the U2 program, 
including all the actual flight paths. Google is your friend.

 

I visited Duxford in July.

 

They’re building a new exhibit hall for the American stuff: effectively a 
hangar big enough for the Duxford B-52, but with a glass front facing the 
runway. Massive quantities of concrete and structural steelwork. Won’t need 
radio navaids to find Duxford, you’ll be able to see the gravitational 
deflection of a plumb-bob.

 

Anyway:

 

Due to the (con | de)struction, all the American stuff is salted away into 
other parts of the museum, intermingled with other exhibits.

 

The hangar next to the one that contains the Concorde prototype currently, on a 
temporary basis, hosts the museum’s U-2.

 

But there isn’t enough space in that hangar for the U-2, everything is crammed 
in with no sensitivity at all to the exhibits’ historical significance. So the 
U-2 wings are sitting on the floor underneath and parallel to the fuselage of 
their SR-71, next to the U-2’s fuselage sitting on something that looks for all 
the world like a trailer dolly.

 

Yes, that’s right: They’ve derigged it.

 

SR-71 with U-2 wing panels on the floor:

 



 

 

U-2 fuselage sitting in a fuse cradle. Sadly, you can’t get any closer to it 
than this.

 



 

Must be one hell of a trailer parked outside. Imagine how scarce everyone will 
be on the day they call for a rigging crew.

 

  - mark

 

 

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