Many parts were missing, mainly because in its latter years it had been used to spray insecticide. There, Hansen, with a group of friends and volunteers, began the restoration to return it to the exact condition, internally and externally, of an aircraft that flew during the war in the remote Alaskan theatre. It took a year to get it in ferryable condition and to its new home in Heber City, Utah. He had found the aircraft semi-abandoned on a ramp in Wyoming. at least three Harpoons are flying, including the one operated by Dave Hansen of the Warbird Warriors Foundation. The combat use of the Harpoon by the Navy was fairly brief, and was cut short by the end of the war in August. The PV-2 was taken into combat for the first time in March of 1945 by VP-139, one of the original PV-1 squadrons. They finally resumed when the redesign was complete. By the end of 1944, only 69 PV-2s had been delivered. Those PV-2s already delivered were used for training purposes under the designation PV-2C.
This hurdle delayed entry of the PV-2 into service. As the problem could not be solved by a 6 foot reduction in wingspan (making the wing uniformly flexible), a complete redesign of the wing was required. The Navy ordered 500 examples.Įarly tests indicated a tendency for the wings to wrinkle dangerously. While the PV-2 was expected to have increased range and better takeoff, the anticipated speed was expected to be lower than the PV-1, due to the use of the same Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines and an increase in weight. Some other significant developments included the increase of the bomb load by 30% to 4,000 lb, and the ability to carry eight 5-inch (127 mm) HVAR rockets under the wings. Many early PV-1s had a bombardier’s position, which was deleted in the PV-2. On the PV-2, the armament became standardized at five forward-firing machine guns.
FLYING HARPOON 2 FULL
The motivation for redesign was to correct the weaknesses in the PV-1, which demonstrated poor takeoff performance at full fuel load. The new version made its maiden flight on Decemand, like its predecessors, the PV-2 Harpoon was built by Lockheed’s Vega subsidiary.
During 1943, Lockheed produced a new version of the Navy PV-1 Ventura, designated PV-2 Harpoon, which was a major redesign with increased wing area and expanded load-carrying capability.
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