This aircraft is a Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon, a Navy patrol bomber and submarine hunter used during World War II. I first saw one of these aircraft at a military airshow and immediately thought it was mone of the coolest things I had ever seen. It looked much cooler than it's Army Air Core equivelent, the B-26 Marauder. When I was trying to come up with an "Indiana Jonsey" type character for the GD2K role-playing game I thought about how neat pilots for hire were. I mean remember how cool Baloo was from Talespin? Anyway, the coolest plane that came to mind for his transportation was the old PV-2 Harpoon that I saw at that airshow years before.
The story behind the "Amber Eyes" goes back to Zap's days in the Navy. During his tour he saw many exotic locations: the Persian Gulf, The east coast of Africa, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, the Mediterranean and Hawaii, where he decided to live after the service. Zap fell in love with visiting exotic locations and their cultures and became addicted to the adventure of it all. When he was released from the service after his tour of duty he decided he would keep traveling to exotic destinations. Only he wouldn't do it as a soldier. Instead he would as a thrill seeker and a treasure hunter. He did many odd jobs in the marinas and airfields around Hawaii to help finance his dreams. Soon he found a plane that he could both afford and fell in love with because of it's historical significance. An old cargo pilot was retiring- and selling his U.S. Navy surplus PV-2 Harpoon civillian converted patrol bomber.
Zap bought the flying junk heap and immediately went to work restoring her. He put back in the weapons found in the old military model and put it back to it's original specifications. He then re-christened the plane "Amber Eyes" after one of his favorite animals he saw while he was sailing abroad- the cheetah. Soon in his spare time he used the plane to go on far off adventures looking for antiques and treasures. When his money ran low he would haul small amounts of freight to and from the U.S. mainland for people. His exploits became pretty successful for he was able to aquire to more airplanes to use and restore at his whim. One day however an enormous debt with a loan shark lead him into the arms smuggling business so that he could come up with the cash to pay him off. He nearly got caught by the border patrol in the process, so spooked Zap left Hawaii to find better work and get a new start with his cargo hauling business. He heard Atlanta, Georgia was one of the fastest growing cities in the nation and that there were some very interesting characters that lived there. So he packed up and left his beloved Hawaiian islands to try to reclaim his adventurous legal lifestyle that had become so corroded back home.
Type: Patrol Bomber
Powerplant: Two Pratt and Whitney R-2800-31 Double Wasp air-cooled radial engines rated at 2000 Horsepower
Wingspan: 75 ft
Length: 51 ft, 1 in
Height: 13 ft, 3 in
Weight: 36,000 lbs.
Maximum Speed: 282 mph at 13,900 ft.
Climb: 1,630 ft/min
Ceiling 23,900 ft
Range: 1,790 miles
Armament: 9 Browning .50 caliber machine guns, 8 5 in HAVAR rockets, 4,000 pounds of bombs or depth charges
This drawing was made on 80lb. Strathmore medium surface drawing paper. I used 2HB and 5H leads in a .05mm mechanical pencil for the pencil work. The pencil drawing was then scanned, cleaned up, and shadowed in Paint Shop Pro 3. The print out was colored with Crayola colored pencils. The main ink work was done with a black 08 Pigma Micron. Finer ink lines were done with a Pilot V Ball Extra Fine pen. The coloered drawing was then scanned back into the computer. The lettering, background, pilot, and an earlier drawing of Amber the cheetah were added in with Paint Shop Pro 7.02.
All text and original multimedia is © 2001 Daniel Keller. All other information is copyrighted by their respective owners.