Lockheed F-80C Shooting Star Mid-Air Collision 48-882 vs. 48-870 30 October 1953 Northeast of Las Vegas, NV

27 April 2012. This was the field trip for the 4th Annual Aviation Archaeology conference. The goal was to survey the debris fields and locate the impact points of two F-80Cs which had suffered a mid-air collision.

Craig Fuller giving us a pre-hike briefing.
Being a mountains and forests guy, I'm still struck by the sheer beauty of the Nevada desert.
First wreckage we saw were these .50 cal magazines, which would have been in the nose of the aircraft. Each magazine held 300 rounds, for 1800 rounds total.
A piece from the forward part of the aircraft. The part at far left is an ammunition chute and its strut, The large part in the middle right is the nose landing gear trunnion fitting.
Inspection stamp on a cast part.
Getting closer. The features are beginning to line up.
Jennifer was being very patient with me that day!
Remains of a microswitch hiding in the desert.
You never know what you will find...this is a truck tire. There was a trail of rubber bits leading to it, bad place to have a blowout!
The group pauses to examine a collection of wreckage.
Hydraulic component.
Production break.
Circuit breaker panel for the gun heaters, one for each of the six guns. According to the Dash One, gun heaters could be found on "winterized" airplanes.
More of the panel structure, with lines and an antenna cable.
Overall view of the panel.
Back side of the panel.
Circuit breakers for the gun firing solenoids and the cartridge casing ejection door.
Part numbers help tell the story, so it's something we look for when onsite (along with inspection stamps!). 177769 is a counterweight from the leading edge of one of the F-80's elevators.
The entire counterweight was present. It's one of two that would be on each elevator.
For some time, I believed that this was structure between the main landing gear doors. Further research using a part number from inside the structure revealed that it is actually from the upper part of the nose, and was the structure that supported the armament bay doors..
Part number is 174631-38. Prefix matches that for the P/F-80 series aircraft and is what I used to identify the part in the 1F-80C-4 IPB.
Other side of the piece has two hinge arms which supported the armament bay doors. The wire that seems to protrude from the upper hinge is a bonding wire that would have attached to the door. You can see the broken remnant of the other door's wire to the left of the lower hinge arm.
Part number with an inspection stamp.