Some pictures of the last couple of days work.
The bomb bay carrier points have access panels inside the aircraft. Its a distinctive alloy cover, and they are in rows of three. Some are easier to spot and get to than others.
We took them up one by one and refurbished them. Each cover plate has seven moving parts, which seems a bit overkill, but probably why they still work after 20 years of inactivity. I'll get a shot of the mechanism inside in the new year (I needed more light.) but it consists of a sprung latch, a lock, and an attachment to fit a jacking mechanism into for lifting carriers, stores, or payload into place.
The carriers themselves - now fitted to 963 - look something like this:
They lock off onto the carrier point mechanically, and have their own electrically operated latch. This is how things are dropped out, the carrier itself stays with the aircraft. As we may have something fitted to them next year we've got one of the old "Aircraft Armed" signs and put it over the selectors inside. We don't want any accidents - these things are heavy, as I found out earlier today when I didn't lock one off and put the buffers down onto it properly.
The middle points have been used to hang the pannier. Its a genuine Shackleton item, we have another one just like it in storage. We've removed the canvas outer cover for the time being, as we're using it for a different purpose and don't want it to rot. The panniers are an ingenious piece of kit, you can configure them to be shallow or deep to fit any point in the bomb bay without fouling the doors.
The covers in there are spare ones, and the little mechanical 'bit' nestled in there is my homework for the new year - one of the aircraft's pneumatic compressors.
So that is it for 2011... what a year.
The covers are on, the door is locked and Avro Shackleton WR963 is now having a well deserved nap until the new year. She'll growl plenty more in 2012, helping keep the legend that is the Shackleton alive, and if everything goes to plan we may even see her go for a wander around under her own power.
Thanks to all that have donated parts or funding to help her, cheered us on in the face of the problems she's thrown at us, and of course the many of you that have been to visit our old bomber. Its been appreciated by all our little team.
See you all in January.
Kind Regards,
Rich and the SPT
