Informe de progreso de Lockheed Vega 2024

Video from the channel Kermit Weeks Channel - Over 480 Videos to See! about Lockheed Vega, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 30:21. Language: English. Video type: Onboard.

Kevin Kimball and his son Kallin, who are restoring Kermit Weeks's Lockheed Vega in their workshop, give an update on the project. They first show small finished parts: the pilot's seat back, the oil tank with its mounts, and the seatbelt anchors. They then go through the wooden fuselage, which has its full structure complete and skin fitted on only one side. The second part of the video follows Weeks at Fantasy of Flight, where he reviews the wing and other Vega parts with the team and discusses how the aircraft will be displayed.

The skin is a three-ply Sitka spruce laminate, 1, 2 and 1 mm thick, with a total thickness of about 157 thousandths of an inch. The frames are made of laminated wood and took six to eight months to produce. The floors, seats and pilot's bulkhead will be glued in once the second side is fitted, since fitting them earlier would get in the way of the gluing. That gluing process keeps five people busy for about two hours, with a margin of about 45 minutes before the glue sets. The door will be cut out once the skin is glued on, as the factory did. According to the restorers, it was Lockheed's first aircraft with an executive interior: filing cabinets, a folding desk and a Smith Corona typewriter, which appears on the equipment list. It carries four passengers plus the pilot and a chemical toilet. The pilot reaches their seat by folding part of it down, and the cabin roof slides open. The planned engine is a 500-to-550-hp model 1340.

The aircraft has six documented accidents. In one, in Mexico, the fuselage broke in two. The patches and non-original wood added over the years led to the structure being rebuilt. The original oil tank was modified in 1931, with the conversion to the 5C. What remains to be done: the second side, the windows, fitting the wing and tail, the systems, covering with fabric and painting, and the search for original instruments.