Victor K2 XL231

[Jigsaw]

[Blue_2]

Possibly the smallest update ever, as I had a weekend off away from the jet seeing as the sun put in a guest appearance. I'm told not a lot occurred, just a bit of prep continuing on the main undercarriage doors. See what happens when nobody's there to keep an eye!

[Xplumberlives]

Still progress though!

[Sploosher]

dont forget to give her a good polish for us guys coming on the 17th March................

hoping to get some quirky pics of `Lusty Lindy`

[Blue_2]

Polish? What's that?!
The paint is actually just settling to a nice satin finish, just as it would have been in service. She may have had a wash by the time you guys visit as all the rain has left some black streaks down her. That said, the snow may have dealt with those...

[Sploosher]

I am sure she will look her best for us all Graham.................

looking forward to taking her pic again........

[Blue_2]

25/02/13 update
This weekend the temperatures crept back up to almost plus figures, and the inland sea that has been for the last few weeks YAM has finally drained!

I had another busy weekend but managed to get a few hours at the jet on Saturday. I had a job in mind so I'd brought my drill. Ian has as you've seen been working on preparing the port main gear door for a repaint. On the doors are plates containing data on Shock Absorber and Dashpot pressures.



These were on the jet when she flew in, however time has not been particularly kind to them. Andre had sometime in the dim and distant past acquired a new unused pair of these plates (one per mainwheel door) so we decided I'd drill the old ones off, then once the door was repainted the new ones could be riveted on and would look much smarter. After much drilling and cursing of cold-numbed hands the plate was off, for the first time in decades!

The washer-like things on the plate are spacers. We'll need these when it comes to putting the new plate on, so they've been put in a safe place. Now taking bets on the odds of me forgetting where that safe place is when it comes time to put the new plates on...!
The door was in good condition under the plate, and shows what colour the door should be and will be returned to

I gave the area a bit of a scrub up, then departed before my fingers froze and fell off!

Before I left though the door latches were getting a bit reluctant, so I lubricated the inner handle and the claws.

The rest of the system needs doing, however that's a job for next weekend as it involves climbing into the radome. Always fun, specially when the H2S scanner attacks your head!
The Sunday crew did little, the lazy beggars! I think they put ground power on for a while though.
Next weekend, being the first Sunday of the month there should be some aircraft making some noise at the museum. Always worth a trip out!

[Dan4th]

It's all good, Mister Blue......

I especially like the "MADE IN ENGLAND"
plate in the last shot -- as if the ground
crews had any doubt

And that leads to a question: The last
pic makes it look like there was access
to the landing gear during flight....

Is/Was there any?????

Thanks for keeping us up on things

Danf.

[Blue_2]

That's the cockpit door and steps Danf, not the gear doors! Sorry I should have been clearer. That's taken from outside the hatch looking in, when the hatch is closed the yellow and black striped handle is sunk into the cockpit floor. You use that handle to open the hatch from the inside.
You can't get to the gear in flight, however you can access most of the interior of the wing through a small hatch in the front of the main gear bay. If I remember I'll get a pic at the weekend.

[Dan4th]

Well, that clears it all up......

The Origin Plate still tickles me, though....

In college I had a Volvo 122/Amazon which
had a plate on the firewall which read: "Product
Of Canada" because it was assembled at their
small plant in Halifax, Nova Scotia....

LOTS of doubletakes on that one

Thanks, Mister B.

Danf.

[Jigsaw]

Another great update. Cheers mate

[Mackrick]

Thanks for the update....

[Blue_2]

3/3/2013 update
Think you might like this update even better chaps!
Being the first Sunday of the month, it was one of the museum's scheduled 'thunder days'. Down to run were the Devon and the Buccaneer, while we pestered Andre to let us run the Victor. He eventually bowed under pressure and the Victor did indeed show Yorkshire what a proper jet sounds like! We decided to crack on and de-blank her and do our checks early on, before Andre could change his mind!

The Devon opened the show, after a reluctant start it was taxied by Steve Pepper and sounded in good health. Then after a fairly rapid lunch it was the turn of the Buccaneer to have a trot round the hangar, in the capable (!) hands of Ollie

Stretching her wings

And back at rest

Then it was all hands to the Victor, to give the Conways some exercise. Andre was outside watching over proceedings, Ollie was LH seat, Steve RH seat, John on AEO duties, and I sat in on the 6th seat.

We decided to run the engines one at a time, seeing as they hadn't been lit up for about a year. Each engine would only have a short run and only be taken to about 70% power; after all we only have a finite amount of fuel!
Here Ollie sets up the fuel tray

After the Artouste was lit all the hydraulics were exercised, then the engines were wet spun. Next it was time for the main event!
No.1 running

And at 70%

And no.2 up. No.1 shut down and cooling down nicely

I did something a little different with no. 3, I took a video of it starting then winding up to 70%
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AYfWHUEM68
It's quite noisy in there isn't it! Although you don't normally hear it really with headsets on. The only thing missing is the intercom chatter.
4 lit on second asking, and was very well behaved. The only real issue we had was a sticking throttle on no.3, after shutdown and cake o'clock being declared Andre dropped the door under the nose and climbed into the radome to lubricate the throttle runs. He did the door latch mechanism while he was in there, it is now much happier for it. We then lubricated the throttle boxes too, and with much contortion we even got the linkages which run down the side and then across the back of the LH ejector seat.
So what's next on the jobs list you ask? Well there's the mainwheel doors to continue with, and soon work will start on refurbishing the brakes. Always handy things to have, brakes...
Finally I'd like to thank all who have donated to our fuel fund so far, especially Earl Pick for his kind donation to the cause yesterday. If anyone else is feeling flush and generous, may I point you towards our blog for details...?
More next week.

[Jigsaw]

An excellent update a pleasure to see. Hope to get there some time soon to witness this

[Mackrick]

Thanks for the update

[Blue_2]

18/3/2013 Update
It was not the best of days yesterday. The weather started not too unpleasant for Ice Station Elvington in March


So after the traditional bacon we decided to get on with stripping various access panels off to access the labyrinthine throttle runs to all 4 engines. Firstly though I have to admire the result of last week's work, the rather nice looking clean undercarriage

Here Ollie is performing the 'please open nicely O underwing acces panels' dance, while Ian and John attack the port door a little more

Most of Steve, Rich and myself's day was spent attacking one panel in the wing root. As followers of this thread may know we have removed and refurbished several of the port wing root panels. One had to be removed to get to the throttle runs for Ollie to give them some tlc. However the panel had other ideas. After several hours we got most of the fastenings undone; the 4 stubborn ones have been well bathed in oil and should hopefully undo next weekend.

So while Ian and John continued to do battle with the door...

...the stiff throttle issue was chased into the cockpit. Here Andre is attacking the copilot's throttles. It was really good of Handley Page to make them nice and easy to get to...

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Lindy will be running and fast taxying on the weekend of May 11/12. We still need fuel money donations though...
Here is another of our aircraft which should be running very soon, fingers crossed...

More from V force (Arctic division) next week!

[Dan4th]

Nice Dance

Good to hear about ground runs, too......

Arctic conditions Breed Character!

I was out in the weather both weekend
days, and it certainly got my attention

Three days 'til Spring!!!!!!!

Danf.

[Bubbles]

Did Ollie break anything?

[Blue_2]

only a little bit! Apparently he did observe tradition and leave tools scattered randomly around the Buccaneer though!

[Sploosher]

thanks for the update Blue_2, have made a note in my diary for the fast taxi as we shall be there one of those days

great news about the DC3 aswell............

[Blue_2]

I believe the plan is for the Nimrod and Bucc to run on the Saturday, and Victor and Bucc on the Sunday. We may do a slow test run on the Saturday too.
24/03/13 Update
The consensus yesterday was 'at least it's not snowing'. That is about all we could say for the weather however. Don't let these bright sunny pictures fool you...





Because it was seriously cold! So much so that Lindy had sprouted an icicle, which didn't even come close to melting all day! The wind was something else too. Even though Lindy was securely chocked it was rocking her quite a lot.

Steve came prepared anyway. He knew his Scott of the Antarctic costume would come in handy sometime...

There was still much to do. Our first aim was to finish off removing the fasteners from the underwing panel which defied us last week. We were better armed this week, I had brought my faithful breaker bar and Steve his impact driver. Using the end and bit off that on the bar gave us some serious leverage and, after a lot of effort, freezing and cursing, we shifted the last stubborn fasteners! They have all been greased up and tightened back up again though, as it is a stress panel and has to be in place if the jet is moved. And indeed she is supposed to be moving; both she and the Nimrod are supposed to be off out onto the airfield for a few hours on Tuesday to allow the puddle jumpers out of their winter hibernation quarters in the hangar and back onto their summer (!) home on the dispersal next to Lindy.
So the panel will be coming back off for some tlc on Saturday. We'll see what lies beneath... If anyone's coming to Elvington for an Easter outing on Saturday do come and say hello; we don't bite!
In preparation for the move it always pays to give the undercarriage a good look over. Here John and Rich do just that

Andre spent much of the day in the cockpit cleaning and hoovering in anticipation of a couple of special visitors this week; I'll tell you more about that next weekend though!
More next week. Probably involving paint, possibly involving black circles and hopefully not involving corrosion discoveries!

[Sploosher]

thanks for the pics and update Graham, would love to come on sunday but we are going to Goathland for easter, hope to catch up with you soon though

[Mackrick]

Nice update looks rather cold though.....

[Blue_2]

30/03/13 Update.
With it being Easter weekend I had other commitments on the Sunday, so Rich, Ian, Ollie and I ventured in on the Saturday. The sun was present too which was a nice change



The puddle jumpers have been moved out too.

The Lightning basking in the sun

Anyway back to Victor matters.You may recall we've been battling a panel under the port wing root? Well it's off!

and what lay within cheered us greatly. As we've found with the other wing root bays, the interior is in excellent condition.



The aim of this exercise was to get to the throttle runs to lubricate and service them, and check their condition. As you can see they are very good. A few well placed (and a lot of less well placed!) shots with the ACF50 can by me while Rich worked the throttles from the cockpit saw them soon running smoothly and silently as they should.

the rear mounting for the pamel had a touch of surface corrosion so I rubbed it back and repainted it, before greasing up all the fasteners

While the panel was off, I'd noticed that the retaining cables which hold the refuelling hatches on had seen better days. Fortunately I have an eagle eye for useful things in skips, indeed I can spot a discarded gem from 100 paces. And look what I found in the YAM skip!

Someone had thrown away a couple of perfectly good retainers, in a fetching shade of green too. Needless to say they were yoinked, and as you can see are now gracing the jet's nether regions!
The panel was then refitted and cleaned up to remove our greasy paw marks



In other news of the day, Ian continued with his port gear door, and Rich checked the gear for any new leaks after Lindy's tow round the airfield on Tuesday

Lindy had a bit of a reunion on Thursday. As I alluded to in last week's post, she had visitors in the form of 2 of her 'drivers' from her later years in service, Andy Kellett and Syd Buxton. They both operated Lindy throughout her Gulf deployment; here are some pictures Andy sent me a while ago of Lindy and her time in the Gulf





And fast forward 20 years, Andy (left) and Syd with XL231 again.

There is a more concise account of the reunion on our blog; it's well worth a look!
http://victorxl231.blogspot.co.uk/
More next week. We hope to run Lindy and the Nimrod's engines on Sunday!

[Xplumberlives]

Nice report Mate, good to see the panels still seal well!