01/09/15 Update
Where has the year gone? September already?!
August Bank Holiday weekend is a busy one for any attraction; Yorkshire Air Museum is no exception. And while our Bank holiday Monday fast taxying event was unable to take place due to runway works we were still determined to make the best of it, and as much noise as possible!
We mustered on Sunday as usual to make sure Lindy was in good health and ready for static engine runs and systems demonstrations. First though, we went to the hangar to see what progress our fearless leader had made with the Tornado repaint. The answer was plenty!
The Devon was waiting patiently in the hangar too. Awaiting preparation for the next day's event.
We had decided to fire up the APU and give everything a good exercising. She always looks good de-blanked and ready to go!
John and I had been round doing the tyre checks. Pleasingly, the recently replaced tyres had lost no pressure whatsoever! Another little job got ticked off the list after lunch. the Omega aerial had had the sealant around its mounting recently replaced and tidied up, so with an idle couple of minutes before we gave the jet her systems check I broke out the paintbrush and gave it all a quick coat of LAG.
Then we lit the Artouste to begin our checks.
As we have had a wet few weeks, Niagara Falls appeared out of the flaps when they deployed
The centreline HDU was given some exercise
As were all the control surfaces
As you can see particularly in the tail shots, a lot of trapped water was expelled from the aircraft. Testimony to just how wet a summer it has been in this corner of Yorkshire.
We also dry-spun all 4 Conways, prior to lighting them 'in anger' on Monday.
Everything performed as it should, so we shut down and started praying to the Weather Gods that all the forecasts for Monday were wrong.
As you can see, they were not...
After breakfast it was decided to give the Bucc and the Dak a test run before the public arrived. Brian, or the Bearded Peril as he became this week, really enjoyed towing the Bucc's air starter out in his new convertible...
The Bucc started fine, and did a spot of grass flattening
And also ran through all its systems, which seemed to behave perfectly
The Fire Team then pulled the props on the Dak through
Before Brian tried to start it using The Force, merely by pointing at it!
...Which surprisingly, worked!
Despite some pessimism around the site that the weather would mean she wouldn't go, both engines fired up nicely and were on good song. The rain meant there were some interesting spray patterns off the props too.
With the site now filling with visitors, there was little to do but final prep, such as topping up the oil on the Artouste, wait for our turn.
The weather showed no intent of improving, as you can see
So sadly the WW1 aircraft demonstrations had to be cancelled. The weather would have done the SE5 and Kitten absolutely no good.
The Devon came out to play though! It sounded in good health
With our warm-up act the Nimrod preparing to run, we decided to do our final checks too. I was on engine checks, as caught here by Ian
There was a surprisingly good crowd, given that the weather was still poor
The Nimrod struck up, and lit up the afternoon gloom
While it was performing, we carried out full control checks again
After the Nimrod shut down, it would be our turn. But first we had to have the fence behind the jet removed, so as not to cause it damage with our Conways. So ladies and gentlemen, may I present a new attraction at YAM for 2015, the Fire Crew Formation Fence Lifting Team!
With the fence out we could start.
Again, we cycled the jets systems. Nice to see those bl**dy RATs are still behaving!
All 4 engines behaved perfectly. No. 4 even decided to suck up all the water off the tarmac for us!
After shut down, we decided for fun to do an experiment using the steel plate we site under the jet's Artouste exhaust. Can we fry an egg on it...?
It would seem so!
So a great day, despite the weather doing its best to scupper things. Many thanks to everyone who attended despite the poor weather, and thanks to the fire team for their usual top job of covering the event.
Team leader, Meteor NF.14 WS788 restoration, YAM Elvington.
by Sploosher » Wed Jul 15, 2015 9:44 pm 
), not bad for a 10 year old load lugger with 140+k on the clock! 
