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Titan Missile Museum - Tucson

n5lp

fugio ergo sum
I took the Top to Bottom Tour today and recommend it. Near the end of the tour I got the best close up look at airframe details. I was struck with how familiar it all looked after having built my little RV-6. Edge distance OK?

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Old School

....I was struck with how familiar it all looked after having built my little RV-6....
You can bet the production worker who shot all those big AD5 and AD6's never heard of a fancy tungsten bucking bar some amateur builders need to set teensie AD3 rivets into a little RV with. :p
 
I always enjoy the Titan Missile Museum. Did you also go see the Pima Air Museum? If not try to make it over to see it. Some really cool stuff there.
 
Pima is Recommended

They have a great display of the SR-71 with some parts disassembled. If you are interested in the design techniques and build details you can see it there. I had seen many A-12's and SR-71's but saw it with new eyes after building a while. All (ok maybe most) outer skins are attached with screws. The boneyard tour was ok, but I liked the museum much better.
 
Great pic Larry - I can't help doing the same thing when looking at space hardware - check how well the riveting was done. The amazing thing is that with all that care and precision, it is all designed to be flown once and then thrown away!
 
You can bet the production worker who shot all those big AD5 and AD6's never heard of a fancy tungsten bucking bar some amateur builders need to set teensie AD3 rivets into a little RV with. :p

I'd gladly trade my tungsten bar straight across for all the OJT those production workers got to get to their skill level. However, I'm an amateur, and consider my tungsten bar one of the best investments I've made on the project so far. And, since those production workers "never heard of a fancy tungsten bucking bar", who's to say they wouldn't like it better?;)
 
Shoot, those rivets are nuthin'...here are a couple of pics from the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany, that I visited a couple of months ago. My minimal riveting skills gained during building RVs pales in comparison to what these guys must have done! I spent a spent a long time looking at these and other components going "How in the h*ll did they assemble that???" :)

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Lots of interesting stuff there...Friedrichshafen is where the Hindenberg and most other Zeppelins were built, along with quite a few seaplanes, etc. Good museum, recommend visiting it.

Steve
 
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Lots of interesting stuff there...Friedrichshafen is where the Hindenberg and most other Zeppelins were built, along with quite a few seaplanes, etc. Good museum, recommend visiting it.

Steve

I had a business trip to nearby Uberlingen and flew into Friedrichshafen - when I mentioned it to my IA he said he bombed it, twice...:D

He was a B-17 co-pilot. The USAF did a good job I think as there didn't seem to be many old buildings left. I believe it was also a FW factory.
 
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