P39 Engine run.
This afternoon at Ardmore Jerry Yagens P39 had it’s first, successful engine run it was a joy after so long to see this happen. High powers later in the week and who knows what after that.
Video now uploaded. Sorry about the first attempt for those of you that watched.
Important delivery
What we are hoping is the last piece of the P39 Puzzle has arrived, exciting times for February.
Kingfisher Video.
The video of the P39 attracted a lot of attention so we thought you may be interested in a video that Kermit Weeks shot at Pioneer Aero in 2017 and released a month or so ago.
New P40N-1
At the very successful Airshow held at Gisborne last Saturday Pioneer Aero was proud to announce the start of another P40 Restoration. NZ 3147 a P40N-1 with a very interesting New Zealand history has been sold to an Auckland based businessman and work on this is scheduled to start later this year.
NZ3147
As well as being flown up to Guadalcanal and operated in and around the Solomon Islands it was operated at Gisborne. While at Gisborne in 1944 it was involved in an incident the saw NZ3147 flown by a Flying Officer “shoot down” the Squadron CO. fortunately the damage was confined to the other aircraft and a few reputations. Initial research indicates there were some very well known people with this serial in their logbooks.
Happy New Year.
We have been fairly quiet on social media as of late but have been working away none the less. The team has returned well rested from a much deserved Christmas break.
For those of you wanting to know more about the P39 and the other exciting projects that will be happening this year check out the following .
Warbird Digest
From our friends at Warbird Digest.
http://warbirdsnews.com/warbird-restorations/pioneer-aero-p-40e-restoration-update.html
P39 progress.
You know you are getting to the business end of things when you are building wing root fairings and fitting out the cockpit.
Cockpit
Spaghetti
RH wing root fairings
Coolant and oil pipes
Visitor.
Unfortunately hangar space is a little short here at Ardmore so we are having to bed our visitor down outside. For those of you that miss the Blunty’s flying around Auckland make sure you get to the New Zealand Warbirds open Day on the 3rd of June and catch this one before it heads south.
Home to roost.
50 Cal test.
Our friends from Air Corps Aviation posted up an old video of ours on the test firing of the 50 Cals prior to the 2012 Warbirds over Wanaka Airshow. This has resulted in a lot of interest, comment and questions from people who have previously not seen this clip.
The P40N-1 ZK-CAG has flown at this show with the guns fitted on 4 occasions 2008, 10, 12 and 2016. The guns fitted are genuine WW11 examples that were recovered by Charles Darby during his many trips through the South Pacific. They are fitted with blank firing attachments that allow the guns to cycle using the blank ammunition which we have loaded for us. Once the show is over the guns are removed from the aircraft and stored.
Over the years we have made changes to the load to try and increase the noise and look of the firing not all of these have been successful and we are still looking for that perfect combination. We have always been a little disappointed with the size of the flame (visual effects) but when we did a frame capture from the GoPro we had set up to video a test one day we were shocked, it just looks like the human eye/brain can’t keep up. We think the shot below say’s it all.
50 Cal test.