UPDATE # 82 - CITY OF SAVANNAH B-17 Restoration January 10, 2011 Things began humming on the City of Savannah project this week as the volunteers returned in force to start 2011. Wednesday began with Richard Moscatiello, Bill Burkel and several of the Wednesday (Day) crew accessioning and photographing the B-17 equipment that was purchased when Jim Grismer, Bill and Richard traveled to Tampa before Christmas. The rest of the Wednesday (Day) crew installed the new flooring in both the upper and lower cockpit area. They also cut covering material to insure that the upcoming cockpit re-installation activity won t scratch the new floors. The Wednesday (Night Riders) continued their work in the radio room. There was a big turnout for the Saturday crew this week. Richard took some of the crew to the LMI factory where David Pinegar had organized an LMI volunteer effort to work on the City s fabric control surfaces. The Saturday crew also got a new member when a second father/son team was welcomed to the project with the arrival of Joel Hedgpeth s son, Ben. (The other father/son team is the Patrick s, Gil and Justin.) (L to R) Mort Glick, Ben and Joel Hedgepeth working on ammo boxes Several projects are underway with the Saturday team: Rocky Rodriguez has begun wiring the aircraft so that the radios, lighting, bomb bay doors and turrets will have power when they are installed, and the Patrick s are building stairs for entering the aircraft through the waist door.
Saturday Crew Chief, Rocky Rodriguez Everyone is looking forward to the second annual dinner honoring the City of Savannah volunteers. The big event will be held on Saturday, January 15 th, the second anniversary of the day that airframe 44-83814 arrived at the Museum. We are honored that Tommy Garcia will be traveling from Houston to be with us that night. (He will be working with the volunteers from Wednesday to Saturday another Garcia Week!) Tommy will be joined by another good friend of the project, Dr. Harry Friedman, the nationally acknowledged leader of the informal organization of all the flying and static B-17 restoration projects here in the United States. Paul Grassey will be the speaker at the dinner. Paul is a senior docent at the Museum and served in the Mighty Eighth in 1945 as a teenaged B-24 pilot.
Saturday Crew: Rear, (L-R) standing Mort Glick, kneeling, Richard Moscatiello, standing Ben/Joel Hedgpeth Front row: Jeff Hoopes, (Crew Chief) Rocky Rodriguez, Bob Hearn, Gil Patrick This will be a very busy week for the project, so, as you can tell, there is More to come...
UPDATE # 83 - CITY OF SAVANNAH B-17 Restoration January 17, 2011 Things were really humming again this week at the Mighty Eighth as Garcia Week II unfolded with Tommy Garcia s arrival on Monday. As was the case last summer, having Tommy s expertise in the building allowed a full week of volunteer effort as everyone sought his advice on the part of the City of Savannah restoration on which they are engaged. Our special guest, Tommy Garcia, preparing the instrument panel frame for remounting on the airplane. Tommy took the Crew Chief s and lead workers on each crew through the airplane from nose to tail and explained the various challenges facing each crew as we transfer over from preparing the airplane for restoration to the actual restoration process. Considerable time was taken to talk to the carpenters on the Wednesday (Day) crew, the metal workers on the Wednesday (Night) crew and the electricians on the Saturday crew. Assistant Project Manager Richard Moscatiello attended all of these briefings and will be coordinating the efforts of the three crews. Guy MacDonald and his CARS radio team discuss plans for their soon to be completed radio room.
David Pinegar, our contact point with LMI Corporation has announced that the year long effort to refurbish the City s rudder has now been completed. The rudder will be returning to the Museum, for remounting on the aircraft, in time for the Wednesday crews to undertake that chore. Mork Glick and Jim Grismer putting finishing touches on the new waist entrance steps. Everyone seemed to enjoy the 2 nd annual dinner sponsored by the Museum to honor the volunteers who are working on the project (more coverage to follow). Other events ongoing during this week are the completion of the wooded stairs that will be used at the waist door of the aircraft and the Saturday addition of the Stars and Bars insignia to the fuselage of the City. More to come...
UPDATE # 84 - CITY OF SAVANNAH B-17 Restoration January 21, 2011 The City of Savannah project hit the trifecta this past weekend as we ended Garcia Week II with the arrival of Dr. Harry Friedman, who delivered a van full of toys for the airplane, and the second annual dinner presented by the Museum in honor of the B-17 project volunteers. All of this happened on January 15 th, the second anniversary of the arrival of B- 17G 44-83814 at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in 2009. The dinner was attended by almost one hundred volunteers, spouses and significant others. There were six honored guests in attendance: Tommy Garcia, the good Dr. Friedman, our famous nose artist, and Mighty Eighth B-24 pilot, Skip Shelton, and the Gulfstream artists who painted the inside of the airplane this year, Tony Hall, his son Terry, and Frank Quirk. Left to right: Jerry McLaughlin, Karen Garcia, Tommy Garcia, Dr. Harry Friedman, Henry Skipper Each volunteer who had worked on the project for the majority of the year received a bound copy of all of the 2010 Updates and a letter of thanks from the Museum CEO, Henry Skipper. The keynote speaker for the evening was another WWII B-24 pilot, Paul Grassey. (Paul and Skip graduated from flight school in 1944 - two classes apart. Both were 19 years old.) Paul gave a talk on the subject of Character Counts! - a Mighty Eighth sponsored program that he normally presents to young people in the Savannah area. Paul described the lives of five of his high school friends from New Jersey who, like himself, had to begin life after high school by participating in World War II, and how that experience affected them and the lives they led after they came home from the war. After an excellent dinner the City of Savannah Project Manager, Jerry McLaughlin, spoke to the group and outlined the highlights and accomplishments of the volunteers during the
past twelve months. He thanked all of the honored guests for their special contributions and discussed plans for 2011. He also mentioned that 21 volunteers had contributed over 100 hours to the project this year, and that the total number of volunteer hours for 2010 was 5,785, with a total of 9,176 hours for the 24 months the project has been underway. When Jerry was done with his remarks he was surprised by Henry, who presented him with a special gift from the Museum for his hard work and leadership - a brand new A-2 Bomber Jacket with a project patch. After some closing remarks by Henry the week was finally ended, and a fine time was had by all. Prior to the Saturday night dinner it had been a very hectic week, as is usually the case when Tommy Garcia visits the Museum. (This time Tommy actually took a day off! He was traveling with adult supervision on this trip, and he and his wife Karen toured Savannah on Friday to give the volunteers some time to catch their breath.) During this visit Tommy devoted most of his time to working with the three crews. He spent hours with each crew, advising them on the specific chores they are working on since the transition from preparing the aircraft for restoration to actually working on the restoration itself. Dr. Friedman and Tommy Garcia with Saturday s crew Harry s arrival at the Museum on Saturday was very special. He had filled his van with B- 17 parts that he had accumulated over the years, and that he had noted were on our wish
list that was distributed at the B-17 Co-Op meeting last summer. The gifts that he presented to the Museum as a donation would have cost the project thousands of dollars to purchase on the restoration market. Harry will be recognized as yet another wonderful benefactor that has surfaced and made a major contribution to our efforts. Hats off for Harry!!! Yes, it was a great week at the Mighty Eighth, and there is.more to come!!!
UPDATE # 85 - CITY OF SAVANNAH B-17 Restoration January 31, 2011 This was another full week at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum as the City of Savannah project moves from preparation to restoration. Much discussion was held regarding rewiring of the aircraft to enable the radios, bomb bay doors, navigation and landing lights, and eventually, several of the turrets, to function as part of our B-17 s display in the Museum s Combat Gallery. Henry Skipper, the Museum CEO, reports that the several trade opportunities he has been discussing with other projects continue to be on track. Special kudos go out this week to Assistant Project Manager Richard Moscatiello as he has formally brought the weekly Crew Chiefs reports to activation on the project web site that he has organized. He has also done a superb job setting up the coordination of the various crew assignments again with the use of technology. An additional atta boy goes to Dave Talleur for using a family connection to contact the Boeing Corporation restoration team. This new contact in the B-17 family may lead to yet another source to help our project down the road to success. The biggest event at the museum this week was the long awaited arrival of the restored Hunter Field fire truck that saw service at Hunter during WWII and with the local Isle of Hope FD for years after the war. The truck was restored by the Ft. Stewart motor pool staff under the guidance of our Deputy Project Manager Jim Grismer (who has 50+ years of volunteer service as a fire fighter) and Saturday Crew member, Brig. General Jeff Phillips. (Jeff s dad was a WWII pilot and a volunteer fire fighter.) The fire truck will eventually be part of the Combat Gallery exhibit, sitting beneath the wing of the City. More to come... General Jeffrey Phillips and Jim Grismer