Before I moved to take a job in a different state last year, I was working with part of the Oklahoma Wing of the Confederate--oops, now Commemorative--Air Force. They're in the process of restoring an A-26 that had come to them from the Arkansas Wing. Their airplane had been the Monarch conversion prototype airplane; this was a Rock Island Oil project, trying to market modified A-26s as a corporate airplane back in the late 50s.
Anyway, they have a complete set of A-26 detail, assembly, and installation drawings in their hangar, on microfilm, and all the Monarch STC drawings on hard copy. Being a mechanic, I tried to convince the 'powers that be' in the organization of the ENORMOUS value of these things--and that they needed to have these copied, and copies distributed throughout the organization, so that they wouldn't lose everything in a fire; they had done this with the military TOs they've got. But (as most all of the guys were pilots) I wasn't able to convince them of this before I moved.
The guy you want to contact is Rick Hudlow; the group has a website at:
A tornado that came through the Oklahoma City area this spring heavily damaged the hangar the airplane is in. The microfilms had been in a box under a desk; I just HOPE they didn't lose them in the tornado. From what I understand, though, the airplane is in pretty good shape--well, at least it wasn't damaged too badly by the tornado. The airplane has a cracked right rear lower spar cap, completely fractured through the cap just outboard of the wing attach lug. (The photo on the front page of their website was taken a long time ago; the airplane is now in pieces.) The crack had progressed up through the web and it was just a matter of time until the whole wing separated from the airplane. Fortunately it was caught in time; Boeing Montreal donated several replacement spar caps to the CAF, and one is in process of being installed.
The airplane also has considerable corrosion to the hat section formers under the wing fuel cells. Other than that, it's in pretty good shape. As it was built at the Douglas plant in Tulsa, OK, the group hopes to have the restoration done for Oklahoma's centennial celebration in 2007.
The TOs they have also include alignment check procedures--such as they are (a lot different from modern transport-category procedures!). The structural repair TO is more like a battle damage repair manual than a true SRM. From the way the manual reads, when they wrote it they didn't anticipate that they'd still be flying 5 years after delivery, much less almost 60 years later. Some massively beefy structure on that airplane, though! Those airplanes are like the WWII equivalent of the A-10.
There's also another guy that has a privately owned A-26 based nearby in Guthrie, OK, that completed a restoration of his aircraft a couple of years ago. Don't have his number, but the airport manager's number is 405-282-4250. He may be able to put you in contact with this airplane's owner.
Regards,
Sean