abn deuce

Yes thats part of what was done, a brilliant bit of decoy and camouflage work.

Not sure if anyone here had read the piece that" Dr duce" posted on "The GMC CCKW" site thats currently down. But I ll think its important to tell you that he says , basically you need to have at least 4 of the 8 rear tires all the same diameter or circumference , tread pattern does not matter , in the four outer tire positions you can use smaller diameter tires on the four inner locations , the reason being that if you run different diameter tires in any of the rear outer 4 tire positions you will have the two axles fighting each other by way of the 3 driveshafts 6 universal joints 3 slip joints, the pillow block bearing and the transfercase.

Also not to rotate the rear tires to different positions front tires will last 3-5 thousand miles the rears around 20-30,000 replace fronts don't swap with rears

How did it all work out in the end ? . Did it solve the wobble problem ? at least you wont have to do that job again seeing how many years the last job held up , after which I bet it raked up a number of hard miles.

Hows "WINDY" doing now ? thought I d ask since I m a nosey person :-D

a transport for a weather balloon? or balloon to attach a radio antenna to ? so as to increase the radio's range?

True , there was a army section specially created to build and deploy dummy military hardware and bases through out the war . IE the Rubber tanks . jeeps, aircraft, fuel and ammo depots as well . In order to keep the Germans guessing what the Allies intentions really were during the entire war . I recently heard that these units were not official declassified until the 90's and included Sound units some mounted on halftracks , with huge speaker systems to broadcast a verity of noises at the German postions at night to give them the impression of armour movements or Bridge construction .

Dakman what would you guess for an average distance for an aircraft loaded as I have described , I know that crosswinds ,headwinds or tailwinds would all effect the distance flown . I curious if the C47-a/DC-3 would have had the range to cover the distance's between some of the island chains in the Pacific , Maybe they used three aircraft or more to lighten the cargo weight and carry more fuel ? would they have mounted additional fuel tanks? or pumped fuel from drums while in flight ?

You can keep going on the Dakota facts as I have not spoken to a Pilot with first hand experience flying them :-)

You just never know Who exactly wrote the manual and what margins they gave them selves , or why they were changed , everything you said makes sense .

The stowage illustrated of the CCKW is complete in every detail and includes the fuselage floor beam and cargo tiedown locations in inches from the fuselage nose.

it lists the pilot as M.D. Watson ,Capt.,AC

the W and B officer C.B. Wood,Capt.,AC

for the 4 test flights between 3/31/44 and 4/15/44

one flight for each half of the truck with min. fuel and a second set of flights with max range fuel .

Agreed Great Photo's and Looks like a good crowd attended the event . :-) Now if I only had a Tardis to wisk me from home to each Super HMV display and back again with out missing any time away from home or the cost that would solve everything !!!! ;-)

a transport cart for the squad of solders web gear , since each solder pictured has only a pistol belt, perhaps experimental system.

Welcome Colin I see you have a good verity of vehicles in your collection . No need to fear the WW2 or Post War types trying to sway you since you already have both !!!! :-D

I ve heard that male Italian driver take their driving very seriously as a matter of machismo 8-) , the higher the risk the greater the glory or is that gory :shake: ....ah well driving in Italy is not for the faint hearted right ? :whistle:

LOL :-D ;-) :? :dunno: :shake: :shake: My My my he surely would be un lucky B*****D in that case times 1000!!!!

Yikes that was a close call !!! From the looks of the trailer and Scammell it must be 12 feet tall or so ?

Your quite forgiven for the civilian Vehicle , Thats a very interesting looking rig all by its self !

the second aircraft load had same crew and fuel its load totaled 30,645 lbs. leaving 455 lbs from max take off weight of 31,000 lbs

I agree on the reserve fuel issue never want to cut things to close in case of unexpected conditions .Your right about having some more capacity on the fuel , the max weight conditions are given as take off weight with front half of cckw and its various items along with crew of five coststing of pilot, co-pilot ,crew chief, radio operator,weight and balance officer plus fuel total 30,514lbs. a max gross take off weight of 31,000 lbs a max landing weight of 26,000 lbs . so they had a margin of 486 lbs to the max take off weight .but given wind and weather conditions the repair and operating condition of aircraft I say there wasnt a whole lot left.

fuel u.s. 6 & imp 7.2lb/gal.

they break down the fuel as 2 tanks.29 gal ea. max 58 gal , 4 tanks, 2 wing frt.404 gal. 2 wing rear 400 gal.804 gal.total.100-octane

A cute little cottage but it has the strangest chimney ??? I can hear someone say from that time

True , very true and to let them Know they did what they needed to do to survive the conflict they were in . That luck or God or fate had a plan for them . that while others around them had tragic things or lucky things happen to them , They should not feel guilt or blame . that what they did is appreciated by all of us.

My Goodness and how far back in time do these date from ? are they still in use?

Thank You LeeEnfield . Sometimes I get my thoughts across other times not so much :-D ;-)

Congrats to Mr. hardyferret or will that now be Mr. hardypig ?.

True some Pig's are truly more rare and endangered than others. Thank you for doing your part to protect Yours.

You are Wicked. I m sure they are not that Bad !. It is a unique combination that I have never seen done in any other country , yet . its hard to imagine seeing a number of these motoring down the road in a military exercise trying to be all business. Were these in fact ever mass produced or was this a one off test vehicle ?

I take it although they could be disassembled and loaded on to the C47-a aircraft that not many were since it affected the aircraft so markedly . and the max fuel load for the aircraft was limited it to 804 gallons . Not being a expert on c47-a's I have no idea what distance that would be equal to ?

According to "Wheel's and Track's" Issue #22 " whether any of these Jimmies were ever used operationally in tactical or stragic airlifts we have not been able to ascertain. If they have, it will not have been on a grand scale. "

I have a photo copy of tb 9x-74 , which shows the exact placement of the truck in two c-47a's and lists the pilots report of aircraft handling characteristics the second comment by the captian says

" Care had to be exercised in banks and turns in Flight number One because of the truck's main chassis' C/G being located above the window line.This gave the aircraft a tendency to continue to turn about its longitudinal axis.Turns in excess of 15 degrees bank are not advised"

A very Happy Birthday to you Mat !