Victor K2 XL231

[Gaz]

Love it!

Great work, lads!

[Xplumberlives]

Marvellous work Gentlemen!

[MOD]

Brilliant work Graham/Andre and the rest at Elvington.

This was almost a good shot of XL231 from the early 90's. Will she have the Red highlights?


Regards Ian

[Blue_2]

Thank you all for your comments guys! Remember this is only half the battle done, there's still the grey belly to be painted. But that can wait till next year. There's brakes and things to be sorted first!

Ian she has the flourescent belly marks but the underwing ones were never reapplied after the last repaint. Hopefully this will be rectified this time round. I doubt we'll be bothering doing the flourescent pod stripes though- they fade really quickly sadly.

If it wasn't for the 'nose job' that'd be a great shot!

[Yeomanry_trooper]

Cracking work lads!

[MOD]

If it wasn't for the 'nose job' that'd be a great shot!

Somewhere amongst the pile of slides, in front/behind and alongside me, are the shots just before and after this one.

I'll find them eventually.



ibw

[Jigsaw]

Just caught up once more with this thread. Bloody marvellous
Great work everyone She is looking fantastic

[Blue_2]

Firstly, thanks to Ramshornvortex we have some nice new wipers and arms!

High spirits all round on Sunday as the weather was kind to us so it looked like we'd actually get some progress on the last few bits of paint.

One issue we did face was the frost overnight, and the resulting damp on the skin of the jet which the Autumn sun was never powerful enough to get rid of sadly.

Missions for the day, I was to paint the RAT exhaust vents and the port RAT scoop, Ian would continue with the nose art and Andre would busy himself with stencils once more, firstly the petrol pumps



Port side RAT scoop and vent done

And starboard side. Most of the jet has been painted with that size roller!

Ian busying himself with detail work

As you can see the damp never really left. This is the starboard wing. Despite being in the sun all day it's still soaked

We really think that's it for paint this year, given how the weather's going against us more each week.
Our noisy visitor

And less noisy neighbour

Lindy viewed from behind the Nimrod's wing

Close of play, and as you can see apart from finishing a couple of minor stencils and painting the brake chute doors the fuselage is also now done! The doors are going to be painted with anti-slip paint then hemped as a safety measure for us poor sods who have to jump on them to make them close!

And closing shot of a Victor looking better than new in 2012

Other parish news, Movember continues to be taken seriously by the team

Please support us in this venture, all funds raised will support 2 very good causes.
Oh, there is one other thing. Andre promised that once the main part of the repaint was over, there would be the ceremonial blowing up of his manky, paint-encrusted boots. Without him in them I hasten to add! As he and Christine are both licensed to use pyrotechnics, we'd been looking forward to this.
Here are said boots

First boot expires...

And the second one

And the, er, remnants.

Not sure what next week will bring; hopefully more progress and beards, and less exploding footwear!

PS. Just thought some of you might like these shots I took on Sunday of our girl looking good in her new paint...

[Sploosher]

shes looking good guys.................

shame about the boots though, will whats left be going into a museum

[Xplumberlives]

Nice work team, but why the long faces?

[MOD]

Brilliant work guys. Thanks for posting these shots here Graham mate.

I knew I had a (slightly) better shot of XL231.



ibw

[Jigsaw]

She is looking absolutely fantastic. As I have said before, she is a credit to all of you
The boots made me laugh out loud

I think that is a great shot of her Ian

[Blue_2]

That's a very nice shot Ian!
The remains of the boots have gone on to a better place. I think it's called the back of a council dustbin wagon!
As to the long faces, I can't speak for the rest of the team but that is me looking happy, nay positively joyous.! As anyone who has met me will be able to testify...

[Sploosher]

can I ask a stupid question

why are the two left hand petrol pumps in red and not black.

[Blue_2]

They mark missions flown after hostilities had officially ceased, but while things were still a little, er, iffy...

Edit, Ian, any chance I could have a 'full fat' copy of that photo of Lindy landing please?

[Sploosher]

They mark missions flown after hostilities had officially ceased, but while things were still a little, er, iffy...

Edit, Ian, any chance I could have a 'full fat' copy of that photo of Lindy landing please?

Thanks for that info...........

[MOD]

Graham can you send me your e-mail address and I will send that shot and any others I come across as I scan the next batch of slides

EDIT: Gordo that wasn't a stupid question as I didn't know the reason either...


Ian?

[Ramshornvortex]

They mark missions flown after hostilities had officially ceased, but while things were still a little, er, iffy...

Edit, Ian, any chance I could have a 'full fat' copy of that photo of Lindy landing please?

Thanks for that info...........

Damn....... I thought it was black for AVTUR and red for Diesel............

[Jigsaw]

They mark missions flown after hostilities had officially ceased, but while things were still a little, er, iffy...

Edit, Ian, any chance I could have a 'full fat' copy of that photo of Lindy landing please?

Thanks for that info...........

Damn....... I thought it was black for AVTUR and red for Diesel............

[Ipso]

Credit to you all. A mammoth effort

[Blue_2]

Hail from wettest Yorkshire!
Cheers again for your comments chaps. I used to hope that the 2 red pumps were for a bit of tax-evading red AVTUR!

I had hoped to bring happy news of much graft on the jet and us marking the 19th anniversary of Lindy's arrival at YAM yesterday. However the weather had different ideas...

The museum was well flooded and declared closed.





I only popped down for an hour or so, as I was worried about getting back home due to flooded roads. But I checked Lindy over and put the rudder and elevator locks back on the Nimrod as they'd blown loose.
Lindy was fine, and in the week Andre managed to get in. He repainted the rear starboard side of the fuselage that he hadn't been happy with

And did some more stencilling on the nose

Ollie and the guys put some time in trying to get the Bucc serviceable. Here Ollie is trying to disconnect the hyd rig without getting too much hyd oil in his comfort blanket!

And a suitably nautical view from a maritime strike aircraft!

Hopefully next weekend will be better, for the denouement of our Movember efforts!

[Dan4th]

In spite of it being nice to see Lindy getting
tended to, what with all the adversity Mother
Nature's throwing at you right now, I have to
say that Bucc photograph is Superb!

Hope you kept your boots and socks dry

And I hope the Museum didn't sustain much
if any damage due to the downpours.....

Danf.

[Xplumberlives]

Nice to see a SHINY Banana jet!

[Blue_2]

It's only shiny because of the rain! There is a plan for a repaint on the cards; but I'll keep you posted on that. At least we've had plenty of practice with Lindy!
Danf my boots stayed dry, unlike my poor car She's now drying out and awaiting a new front bumper and exhaust heatshields as well.
The museum has had the offices flooded again, and had to close for a couple of days. But it's nothing they haven't grown to expect in such conditions, and they're on with sorting it. Apart from being thoroughly soaked all the aircraft are I believe ok.

[Blue_2]

An update from Elvington that does not involve sanders, rollers or paint! Can it be...?!
This week there is a Buccaneer flavour to my update, but I bear good news about the Victor too.
The tide had gone out a bit...

But it was still bl**dy cold! There was in fact a brass monkey wandering around looking forlorn and wondering if anyone had any brazing gear it could borrow.
In a pleasant change from the painting of the last umpteen months, the plan for the day was to dry and wet run all 4 of Lindy's engines to wake them from there long slumber. It was also our intention to give all the hydraulics a thorough workout. First on the agenda was Buccaneer XN974 though. After a long time during which it has seen little or no maintenance she has a new person i/c maintenance, our very own Ollie. He knows Buccs as he is heavily involved with the ones at Brunty, and has TBAG's wealth of knowledge only a phone call away! He's put in a lot of work over the last few weeks to get the jet's systems serviceable, and on Sunday 974 got her engines blown over and her hydraulics also exercised.

Steve Pepper was at the sharp end, I had my 'talking hat' with me so I jumped in the back seat. Not every day you get to sit in a live Bucc!

Here Steve and Ollie confer

The wings extending (note the frost still on the canopy!)

And the airbrake (which we had been told was beyond fixing) working again!

A little reminder of her life as an active airframe

Lindy and Kim seen from the Bucc

And a couple of the Bucc's now functional rear end



Work continues on getting this jet back to full serviceability, we hope to do engine runs and full functional checks this Saturday coming. So if anyone fancies a couple of hours away from the Christmas shopping...

Then it was to Lindy for basically more of the same. Repainted and de-blanked, she look amazing now!

The plan was to both dry and wet run the engines, and to run all hydraulic systems. to make sure the last few months of dormancy haven't caused any ill-effects.
Ollie and Steve were up front, and Andre was on AEO duties

No1 starts to show life for the first time in many months

Steve Pepper (with suitably patriotic helmet!) giving the hyds some exercise

Andre busy with the AEO's desk

Pretty much everything went well. There were only 2 problems, the nosewheel steering refused to play and the starboard RAT scoop is sticking again. The scoop is I am sure just a case of the seals being dry after not being exercised for a few months; I shall look into this next weekend. The nosewheel steering problem has been narrowed down to either the switch on the instrument panel or the wiring to it. Either way it's nothing major. All 4 engines and the hydraulic systems behaved perfectly other than these minor issues, so hopefully we'll light the engines before too long.
Here is Lindy before we started blanking up. A job we do much more carefully now she's freshly painted!

Which leaves only one other matter outstanding; Movember. Here is the final Rogue's Gallery...

L-R Brian, Rich, Steve, Andre, Ian, Myself. To remind you, Brian is beardless as he has been bearded since he left the RAF back when they flew tame pterodactyls, so he did reverse Movember and remained clean shaven for the whole month. Ollie couldn't participate due to work so paid the fine, John chose not to but also paid up. The historic event of one tight Yorkshireman extracting money from another is captured below!

Thankyou to everyone who has supported us in this fundraising effort.
Finally, I think in her new paint and because after her long hibernation she threw no major problems, Lindy deserves to look smug in this photo!