Shackleton WR963

[Richw_82]

Hi all,

Spurred on by last weekends good efforts, the engineers have been fettling the Nimrod and are going to be running XV232 again this Saturday. The format will be the same with the Nimrod running first, followed by WR963.

Its nice to have a bit of healthy competition - early information suggests that once it is back to health the Nimrod will be running every 28 days, and working towards the same goal as us... taxying status!


Kind regards,

Rich

[Xplumberlives]

Things just get better, thanks Rich!

[Richw_82]

Update from SPT at Coventry!


Well, the run on 17th September went well, with the exception of losing part of the outboard exhaust pipe on No 4 engine. I didn't get any photo's as I was manning the engineers panel; but a visitor of ours got a couple which I found over at fightercontrol.

http://www.fightercontrol.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&p=265815

Working on the principle of I broke it, I fix it - a new item was found from the store and cleaned of its protective coating. We've checked the others as this failed along the welded seam, so it was obviously cracked, then the last run finished it off.

The old pipe.


New replacement, it was still in a sealed bag.


Replacement means getting the exhaust cover off. There's a slip joint for expansion, and a yoke to hold the pipe.






The slip joint is held by two large nuts, and locked with splitpins. The yoke has a similar set up but had to be 'persuaded' to part company with the exhaust.

New one on...


Job done!


While I was busy getting exhaust soot all over myself and anybody else nearby, the rest of the guys were hard at work too. No 3 engine is having its inlet ignition harnesses checked to try and cure a slight mag drop. Don and Tony took on this task, with Don teaching the rest of us as to how the system works.



You can also see Vic Marriot here up on the nose, doing the last bit of sealing. Vic is the man responsible for eradicating a lot of the water leaks, and is one of the guys on our team that seems to thrive on a hard task. I've never yet found something he can't handle.

Roger, our electrician has been working inside the aircraft renewing parts of the intercom system. There was some annoying feedback which made communication difficult, and the port beam postion wouldn't let you speak on the intercom. It now works correctly, and has been tested thoroughly.

Organisation of the hangar time next year is in progress, with undercarraige and brake components being tracked down, and all the relevant manuals being organised. We've also been looking through the hundreds of drawings to see whether we can do something about those bomb doors now the quiet season is approaching.

No news on our prop yet, we're still in the queue for CFS to do their bit.


Oct 2nd...

A 'Wings and Wheels' style of event was held, organised through several car clubs that follow the progress of the Shackleton. It turned out rather nicely, with some 70 cars attending, hopefully we can make it grow a bit next year as there's plenty of space to fill. Here's some shots I got from on '963...









We at the SPT have never really ran our own event, so we were relying heavily on our friends in the Classic Flight Ground Support Team to show us how to go about keeping everybody in the right place at the right time.

I have to say, I'm impressed. Roger Smith ably assisted by Malcolm, Anthony, Clive and a few others showed us how the pro's do things. They have set the bar high for future events to the point I think I'm going to have to bribe them with cake to help again next time...

WR963 has left that unshakeable memory with a few more generations - particularly children - and the use of an unserviceable flying helmet while sat at the controls of the Shackleton really makes it magic for them. '963 saw several more flying hours, a lot of enemy action and numerous new destinations (including “the seaside”) in young imaginations over the course of the day.

Its cool that so many other people get enjoyment from this old warrior. The Nimrod and DC6 were weaving their own spell too; a particularly neat touch was one of the GST volunteers dressed as an aircraft captain welcoming people aboard the DC6.

Even the weather was spot on.

So what does the rest of the year hold? Well we're all looking forward to the night runs...

Kind regards,

Rich

[Xplumberlives]

Thanks Rich and Team, keep up the good work!

[Dan4th]

Thanks for the Great Report, Rich!

I'll bet at the end of the day you were Exhausted!!!!!!



(...sorry, couldn't Help myself....)

Everything looks wonderful!

Danf.

[MOD]

Thanks for the latest report Rich.


Ian

[Richw_82]

Thanks guys.

We're going to take a visit to the prop overhaulers see whether we can persuade them to hurry up a tad. They don't need to build it, just NDT things so we know it's good and safe.

Just had word that the hunt is on for a mid upper turret, as you'll all remember me saying thsi is what we're aiming to achieve:



WR963 in 1957, featured in the excellent book "Avro Shackleton: Avro's Maritime Heavyweight by Chris Ashworth". If we find one, and fit it, she'll look stunning.

Regards

Rich

[MOD]

What other aircraft carried that same mid-upper turret? Lanc/Linc etc

Ian

[Richw_82]

Avro Lincoln. It's a Bristol B.17 upper turret.

[Xplumberlives]

Avro Lincoln. It's a Bristol B.17 upper turret.

Plenty of those around then!

[Crew chief]

Great updates Rich keep them coming

cc.

[Jigsaw]

Thoroughly enjoy every update. Cheers mate, keep up the good work

[Richw_82]

Occasionally even a bad day can turn into a good one.

Feeling rather under the weather, I decided to spend today in our archive rather than working on the aircraft herself. Moving boxes of drawings, manuals, and paperwork is a way to while away a good few hours, get easily distracted by diagrams and find out what makes the old bomber do what she does and why!

The archive is an amazing place... wall to wall with bundles of original Avro blueprints (some of which are 6ft x 4ft or larger when unfolded!) AP's covering all aspects of the aircraft, parts lists - you name it. Even the MOTU training books, lessons, wall posters, and a bunch of weight and balance calculations for the last six Shackletons in service.

I was already enjoying some of the reading material I'd found, when on shifting some filing cabinets I came across a document wallet; the contents of which left me sitting there after reading it feeling rather stunned.

I had in my hand today a copy of the agreement between British Aerospace and the Shackleton Preservation Trust detailing the purchase of all rights and titles to the drawings and design of the aircraft type "Avro Shackleton", and of the purchase of the drawings themselves...

[Kermit]

Wow
you must have been totally gobsmacked, what a find ! How many years ago did it all take place ? And were you aware of it before you actually found that document ?

[Xplumberlives]

Well fancy that, I guess that made you feel a little better!

[Richw_82]

Gobsmacked - definitely! I had to go get a cup of tea and calm down a bit!

I did check the date on the document and it was dated 1993 (or 4) - I'll check it again tomorrow, and try and get a few more details.

I did kind of know about it - a few people had said that we held the design rights, but nobody seemed to know for certain. Various things around the internet give all kinds of speculation about who they belong to whereas this kind of proves it. The document is all in legal speak and is signed by both parties.

Rather sadly I also came across letters dated August 1991, of the first attempts to get permission to fly a Shackleton on the display circuit. The answer was pretty much a straight out 'No' from BAe and the CAA. Then again later (1998-ish) after WL790 flew in the USA. The CAA (at the time - I don't know if things would be the same now) refused point blank to even review the paperwork done for the aircraft to fly stateside.

[Xplumberlives]

What a lot of history!

[Richw_82]

9th Oct

No photos from me today as once again I was feeling a bit iffy, so didn't get about much. The amount of pills I'm on I'm sure I rattle.


Today we had a meeting of the "Friends of WR963" which is the little supporters club for the aircraft, which ended with an engine run for all present. We could only run the outboard engines due to the ignition harness issue on No 3.

The lack of serviceable harnesses meant we were going to have to get into rebuilding a couple from scratch, or rob a couple off a spare engine in our store. Then John Cubberley surprised us all today by walking in with four bags in his hand - each bag containing a brand new tagged harness!

The intercom work by our electrician, Roger White has made such a difference. Loud and clear with no feedback, absolutely wonderful. While the roar of Griffons is very nice, it helps if all involved in making the noise can hear each other!

The recent change in weather gave us chance to recheck the cockpit for any leaks - bar a few dribbles around the lower corners of the direct vision windows, the canopy is now leak free. Next on Vic's list is the gunners/observers station and the beam windows as they still have issues.

We had a brief meeting with a guy from across the field at CFS and he should be sorting the propeller testing out this coming week.... I have to say I'm a little cynical here so I'm not counting any unprocessed KFC before I see things happen. He had a quick look at the prop blades and hubs and believed they should be okay (being bagged and unused since overhaul) but agrees checking them is the safe and only thing to do before using them.

The rear starboard hydraulic ram in the bomb bay is still weeping so that is going to have to be changed out for a rebuilt item. It is not a problem as its fairly easy to get to and WR963 is about ready for her hydraulics to get some attention. We'll be checking the filters and bleeding the whole system off to get rid of a couple of moans and groans she has picked up.


Upcoming winter work -

If I get chance I'm going to organise the first steps to sorting the doors out into long configuration. We need a nice winter task to carry us through until the hangar time in March, and that would fit nicely.

Regards,

Rich

[Xplumberlives]

What NO photo's!

Thanks for the update Rich.

I look forward to seeing the door work materialise!

[Jigsaw]

Thanks from me too. Hope all goes well and you are feeling better soon mate.

[Richw_82]

Cheers guys!

Its a self inflicted injury unfortunately. I tried lifting something rather heavy and did myself a back injury.... I should be okay in a couple of weeks or so but the tablets make me feel lousy, and I can't get stuck into any heavy work.

Highly irritating, as I'm very much an active person.

Updates will continue however!

Regards,

Rich

[Richw_82]

15th Oct

Well today we had a good day. A decent turn out and nice weather all good for fitting new parts.

I'll apologise now for the state of the photos, I had to resort to the back up camera.

First job of the day was to start by doing a spot of light greasing round and checking of levels, and all appears to be well there. We have been in the store and have the new bomb bay ram ready to fit, but we think there's a couple of other weeps that need looking at so we only want to break the system open once if we can, so the AP's are being studied before we tackle this task. The various points that are used to bleed the system have been cleaned and oiled in readiness to hopefully make the task a little easier.

Roger White was back chasing intercom gremlins - being unsatisfied with the response he had got from a few of the outputs around the engineers station (I'm not guilty - when have any of you known me be quiet?!) By the end of the day after swapping a couple of the intercom boxes out it appears to be working well.



They were a devil to get to, with Roger having several of them under maintenance at once.

Roger had a chap working with him named Steve who used to be part of the team many years ago before moving out of the UK. He is still very knowledgeable and was able to coax 963 into doing something we haven't in a while... he managed to persuade the radio into life! 963 managed to talk to Coventry Airport for the first time in a few years which was great - usually we're working off a handheld item or by proxy through Classic Flight.

Steve took time to chat during the day, with a couple of stories coming to light about VP293 (the T4 ex-Strathallen) and its adventures at Farnborough. Apparently the aircraft had a peculiarity - which was every so often it would shake slightly, then resume normal flight. When investigated, it was found that a particularly hard landing had distorted the airframe slightly which caused the aerodynamics to be a bit 'off'!

And of course, I had to ask about how it came to be known as "Zebedee"... the answer? Well, Steve insisted it was not the aircrafts fault! The famed bounce was supposedly a certain pilot who was reputed to have similar difficulties with landing the Hastings.

Main effort of today was to get started fitting these:



Brand new (back in 1989!) ignition harnesses, ready to go on No 3 engine.



The harnesses are now on, with all the plugs removed for cleaning. On the inlet side, the left harness feeds to the right bank and vice versa. The inlets are a pain to get to as they hide under here:



You can just see the hole in there. Have some more Griffon engine shots....




I'll take comparison shots next week, showing the harnesses in place.

This is by no means the end of the ignition saga, as we're starting getting information (from Roush Aviation and a couple of other places) regarding the use of automotive style plugs in our engines. It would help with low speed running as they're less susceptible to fouling, make servicing slightly easier, and cost a hell of a lot less for new plugs.

There may be a midweek update too. Stay tuned..

Kind regards,

Rich

[RLN]

Thanks. Great stuff and photos (even if it was the back up camera)

[Dan4th]

This is just Great Stuff, Rich!

Reading your reports and seeing the pics is a
real treat for me and for everyone else, I'm sure......

Thank you for your time and trouble because it
truly is appreciated!

Danf.

[Richw_82]

No problem. So long as people enjoy what I'm posting, I'll keep going.

Rich