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Rich W

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  1. Hi all, I thought I'd post a little update into progress over the past couple of weeks. As always its two steps forward, one back as the run up on 2nd May did not go at all according to plan. The event itself? Fantastic from our point of view. The crowd must have easily been a couple of thousand people despite the slightly grey and cold conditions, and the queue to get on board WR963 for a look around stretched out towards the wingtip most of the day. We made a lot of new friends, met a few old ones, and made a lot of people aware of what our intent is for the Shackleton. So you can imagine our frustration when No 3 just turned on the starter, peed fuel out the priming drain and refused to do so much as cough! We believed the problem to be in the booster coil connection to the magneto or the mag itself, as while there was plenty of fuel there wasn't even a hint of life in the engine, it felt as if we were turning it over with the switches off. The rest of the run-up went fairly well, and with careful management of the brake pressures (only one compressor available because No 3 was U/S) we still managed to exercise things and blow out the cobwebs after a fairly lengthy quiet period over winter. Then came the bigger problem. After settling the engines down and bringing them to a halt, the starboard undercarriage indicator flickered then went from a 'green' indication to a 'red'. Never has that tiny little light looked so evil or so bright... We got off the aircraft fairly carefully and thanks to the crowd barriers were able to keep everyone away. Tentative checking of all the ground locks was done before venturing into the undercarriage bay to see what the problem was, as none of us wanted to see WR963 take up a reclining position, or for one of us to get intimate with a mainwheel. A quick check of the jacks and the downlocks showed the inboard hydraulic ram had crept back just enough to set the switch to open and show the red. With persuasion the ram would come out to its full extent, but soon crept back again. The decision was taken to manually adjust the lock to prevent any creep from the ram inadvertantly unlocking the leg, and unfortunately to limit access to the aircraft for the time being. Fast forward to a couple of weeks later and the team were on site from just before 10am to just after 9pm; determined to get to the bottom of things. The intent of the day's work was to try and trace the problem that caused the red light on the Starboard undercarriage and if possible fix it, it was thought that one of the valves was not properly selecting 'down' and preventing hydraulic pressure to the rams. So out came the multimeters and they started getting pushed into various places on WR963 and the problem was slowly traced back to the wire from the undercarriage selector switch in the cockpit to the 'down' selector valve in the starboard undercarriage bay. It appears to have a short to earth in the starboard wing leading edge area. Normally one side of it is always live - so you have either an up selection, or a down selection. In this case both sides are unpowered so the hydraulics are 'free'. The complete undercarriage system on that side is not being supplied with hydraulic pressure to ensure the gear stays down and locked, and because of this, the starboard inboard ram was allowed to retract in an uncommanded fashion - unlocking the leg. Because we haven't managed to replace the damaged/shorted wire yet, WR963 is still closed to the public for the time being, meanwhile we're getting stuck into the manuals and planning the best course of action for getting to and repairing it. As this work was going on, so were other bits around the aircraft. While working in the undercarriage bays, Mark Ward and his son Curtis have been making amazing progress. This is a before and after shot of one of the undercarriage locks. As we're overhauling things there will be a retraction test at some point, and the locks have had precious little attention in the last 25 years other than making sure that they are positively engaged.. As mentioned, work was also being carried out on No 3 engine, and as predicted the problem seemed to be related to the boost coil. Initally there was some head scratching as there seemed to be no output from the booster coil despite it buzzing away merrily. Investigation slowly narrowed things down and it was found that while the primary coil was doing its job, the secondary coil had failed. A replacement was fitted from our stock and once the undercarriage issue is sorted we will be able to try and test run the engine. Time was taken during the day to have a look at our latest acquisition, a hydraulic servicing rig. As its been stood for some time it was suffering from stale petrol, a seized clutch and a few other issues, but by the end of the day it was turning over freely with good oil pressure. Would it start? No. As often with WR963, a magneto fault of all things... Last but by no means least, some work in the drawing archive, which is slowly coming back into some kind of order due to the efforts of SPT team member Michelle Mclaughlin. We had to dig out some more drawings for use in a certain plastic model project, and these will be dispatched shortly. When looking through the manifest, once again we were reminded how much Avro DNA is within the Shackleton. All in all a fairly productive day, and we'll be back on the 30th. Regards, Rich (Photos courtesy of Mark Ward, Michelle Mclaughlin and Phil Woods)
  2. Iain, true, East Anglia isn't really 'Shack' territory - but what warbird doesn't visit Duxford? Just to reiterate; thanks to all that made it happen. We hit (and surpassed) the fundraising target! As soon as the Kickstarter period ends, we'll be cracking on sorting the rewards out, and also getting things organised to get deep inside some parts of WR963 that haven't seen daylight since her last major. Regards, Rich
  3. Hi Iain, Many thanks, we hit the £12k mark just before midday today, so once kickstarter collects and releases the funds we'll be getting on with sending out all the rewards for pledges. Then we'll be tearing into WR963 with a renewed enthusiasm and seeing just how good the wing structure is internally. We've always said we want to take her around some of the old Shack bases when we get her flying again, it would be nice to see her in the air over Kinloss and Lossiemouth again. Kind regards, Rich
  4. 6 days to go and less than £1500 to hit the target! Please help us if you can by pledging or sharing the link, it makes all the difference. First public engine run of the year is on May 2nd for Airbase (Coventry Airport) reopening, so if you haven't heard the Griffon growl this year now's your chance! Kind regards, Rich W
  5. Hi all, With 13 days to go we're just over £8000 towards our structural inspections. We really need your help if we're going to make it! Besides the taxi run, there are also Griffon pistons, a Michael Rondot Shackleton print, polo shirts and other things available as rewards for different levels of support. We know the Kickstarter platform is a bit clunky to use and requires sign up; but we really would appreciate it if people could take the time - even if its £1 it helps get WR963 closer to flight. We haven't had the begging bowl out until now, having made it from a dead aeroplane up to a taxying, live and growling Avro masterpiece. We need help to go that little bit further. Again, help if you can; or share the information if you can't directly. Kind regards, Rich
  6. Hi all, We're still trying to get this aircraft flying. If you fancy helping us raise some funds, there's some interesting rewards up for grabs. Full update to come... brace yourselves! Regards, Rich W
  7. Hi all, sorry about the lack of updates - there seems to be an issue with access from the computer I use most which messes up the format of my posts. I'll endeavour to work around it where possible. Griffon plugs and Merlin plugs are pretty similar, but for ground running use we use the same spark plugs you'll find in a military spec V8 landrover. The price is quite agreeable too against the £90 per plug it costs for the genuine Griffon item! We'll have to change them out if we get to the point of flight though. If any of you are near Coventry on a Saturday from 10am on, come and have a look.
  8. Sorry about the poor formatting. Seems to be an issue when I post from work.
  9. Hi all, sorry for being away so long. The various other activities taking off to do with the Shackleton severely cut into my time. As a result I only kept a couple of the forums updated. The museum that we're part of has been and gone, with it moving south to the former RAF St Mawgan, but the old Shackleton will be staying with us at Coventry. If people are interested with catching up I will post a large update tonight! leading edge - I didn't know about the SAAF record, it makes sense as the MR3 could carry quite a bit more fuel even without an overload tank in the bomb bay. There's very little info on SAAF Shackleton operations get published which is a shame. I suppose I can adjust my quote as 'longest MR2 mission', as it was carried out by WR964. Regarding the last Shackleton running, I was rather happy to hear of 1722's return to health this May. When I wrote about WR963 being the last; at the time she was - with 1722 still suffering from the hydraulic issues which had prevented her running for two years. Since then (over a year ago) they have been resolved and looks to be back on a monthly run schedule. There are also rumours that our friends at Gatwick have been thinking about reviving MR3 WR982 'Juliet'. Back to WR963.... On Dec 15th we're due to carry out a ground run if anyone is interested. Its a scheduled run as part of our upkeep of the aircraft as she has been quiet since September. The run is usually carried out around 1300hrs, but you're welcome to get there a bit earlier if you choose. Bear in mind that now Airbase is closed, your entry won't cost you anything but you will be restricted somewhat on where you can walk about in the immediate area. This is not a taxy run, as there's still a few little niggles to be resolved with No 2 engine before we can wake it up. Taxy runs are still on the cards though for next year. WR963 will be open for inspection, but we will be asking for a donation on the door of the aircraft. As is usual there are no barriers inside or outside, so if you fancy a sit in the Boss's chair or want a close up look at a particular widget, be our guest and do so! There may also be spaces available on the aircraft during the run. Come on over and help support Avro Shackleton WR963! Regards, Rich W
  10. No problem with more volunteers. The more the merrier! Don't think I've forgotten about you guys over here in HMVF, its just that my computer keeps screwing the format of the updates up!! I'll have another shot at uploading some stuff tonight.
  11. Nov 12 Mixed weather at Coventry today, it started quite gloomy, before drying out and becoming quite pleasant at one point. I'm told the weather conditions prevented the planned drop of poppies by one of the DC3's yesterday, which is a shame.. Still, the weather was good enough for the Harley Davidson Owners Club day and plenty of bikes turned up, bringing plenty of visitors. Moving on to all things Shackleton - we dug into the problem No 3 engine had (it's always No3... that engine hates me. ) regarding the slow running cut off, and its failure to operate. With power on, we tested the fuse, then the circuit, and finally the solenoid; and found that it was intact, and appeared operational. We pulled the solenoid and the cut off valve off, stripped it down and cleaned it. While the solenoid comes apart fairly easily, the valve appeared to have a sealed body, which made life difficult. After cleaning and lubricating we reassembled the parts and refitted them to the engine. Trying the system again and once again fuel poured down the intake drain and all over the floor and starboard tyre. The offending solenoid/valve is still unserviceable and will be replaced by a new one next week. Last but not least, I had these photo's passed onto me that were taken as we were leaving last week. I liked them, and thought you guys might. They were taken by Pete Curran, one of our crew. Kind regards, Rich
  12. Well, not much to report from Coventry this weekend. With the winter weather approaching, we're double checking all the places that water tries to get into WR963, we're getting the covers out, and the anti deterioration servicing schedule has been consulted to keep her happy through the winter. The work we did over this year keeps paying off with only a few weeps in the extreme nose, a couple in the beam and a small amount where the tailplane passes through in the tail. Its nice to compare against this time a couple of years ago, as now you just get the smell of cold Shackleton, rather than cold wet and damp. A trip to our store yielded another ignition harness, as the one with the damaged connection on the magneto end was just going to cause problems. It will be dismantled and rebuilt with a new fitting in the future, along with the old one off the engine. When you're taking parts from the store, you always have to remember to take the correct tools, as it can be a pain to make another trip for what you've forgotten! Luckily for us the engine we were robbing has already had the magneto and a couple of other parts removed which made life easier. While at the store we took time to select which mainwheels we're going to fit, find the box of brake units and stumbled across another couple of bits that weren't where we thought they were! The best being a brand new galley roof escape hatch - meaning if we can find a B.17 mid upper turret cupola, we can fabricate an easily removable mount for it on the aircraft without major structural work. We also took the opportunity to clear out an empty engine bearer/nacelle, which was delivered to some friends in Doncaster on Sunday morning. Bit by bit we intend to get rid of parts that are unserviceable or slightly damaged and try and make a little more sense of our spares. Once back at AIRBASE we set about the harnesses again. Being new, they are reluctant to take up the position of the old ones, and feeding the leads under the intakes and onto the plugs is a pain! All being well we should be testing the engine next weekend. Hopefully there should be some info coming soon about the night runs, as I know there's been several discussions about the event at Coventry. With this event in mind, time was taken to do a thorough lighting check on the aircraft. Outside we had a few unserviceable items; the starboard nav light is out, and we couldn't get the bomb bay lights to work this time. Landing lights, taxi lights, and upper and lower anti collision lights all behaved themselves, with the motors responding well to lubrication. Inside, most of the UV lighting and cabin lights still operate, with nearly all panel lights doing their job. I think on the night, its going to look as spectacular from inside as outside, with all the instruments up and down the cabin lit. Regards, Rich
  13. Mega update... as I've neglected this thread somewhat. Sorry. The Cyprus Shackletons, WL747 and 757 are likely to stay there a loooong time. The latest we heard is that they had racked up £1/2 million in parking fees, and there has been several thefts from them. Not good. On to happier things... 9 July 1991 Avro Shackleton WR963 landed for the last time at Coventry Airport, after being sold by the MOD at an auction at Sotheby's on 3rd July. Bought by the Shackleton Preservation Trust she has a total of 15483.45 flying hours over some 6800 flights spanning a 37 year career. 9 July 2011 To an assembled crowd of guests, the Lord Mayor of Coventry, and any members of the public lucky enough to be visiting today at AIRBASE, we celebrated 20 years to the day since she arrived. Invited guests included the family of the late Gp Capt Dave Hencken, who was the last man to take her out on a runway. Also in attendance were members of the current 8 Squadron who had served on Shackletons. It was also great to meet people that had been in the Shackleton Preservation Trust looking after the aircraft in the past 14 years, and put faces to names. I think we may have persuaded some of them to come back from retirement. First order of the day was a naming ceremony. WR963 now carries names under her cockpit windows. On the Port side, "Gp Capt Dave Hencken" which was unveiled by the Hencken family and 8 Squadron, and the Starboard side "Sqn Ldr John Cubberley", unveiled by the Lord Mayor and Clive Dickin, AIRBASE's director. At 3.15 we got everybody who wanted to be onboard the aircraft for the engine run in, and the first engine began to turn. Everybody seemed to be enjoying it... apart from several of us. The engines took too long to come on the throttle for such a warm day, and No 1 engine refused to start after three attempts. Faced with shutting down to find the fault, or letting people enjoy the running engines, the taps were opened and No 3 and No 4 engine got some exercise. We had that many people wanting to experience a live Shackleton, that after warming the engines up the crew had to throttle back and let some people out so more could get in! The engine run finished after 45 mins to the sound of polite applause from those that were present. WR963 is going to get some attention to her engines over the coming weeks, as her servicing is due... so while there were a few scowls at No 1 engine, it didn't pick the worst time to misbehave. Our initial thoughts were the booster coil had stopped working but that was found to be buzzing away nicely. However, we got nothing from the priming pump on that side. The fuse had blown and the pump had quit, possibly due to water ingress. Not difficult to change, but it means we need to chase another water leak. 13 August Its always difficult to keep momentum at this point in the year as people are off on holiday. For a couple of weeks the numbers of our crew were diminished, but now we're back to strength. What's been going on? We started with a few niggles. We've always had a few bits that were needing replacement but the trick was finding the parts. So we've been raiding the store. This time I took my camera. WARNING! NOS Shack parts pictures coming up so if you struggle with things like this, sit down before reading on.. ) We have a mainwheel swap coming up. Not a problem. We counted around 10 and a few spare tyres. Lots of brake units too, which is good. Airframe parts... Powerplants... Spare props... We also found a couple in boxes. Speaking of boxes... This gives you an insight into how much of a pain it is to find some of our stuff. In that pile alone we came across fuselage frames, a couple of brand new bomb aimers windows, some Grifffon cylinder banks - and that was just in the boxes we could get to. But it all helps. We now have a complete aerial set up, with a brand new tensioner on the starboard fin. It had been safety wired in place after the last one failed, and had annoyed us a long time. Standing inside the aircraft now you can hear it hum merrily in the wind. A major part of the search has been for glazing panels. we now have nearly a full set of cockpit glass, the latest part being a brand new pilots escape hatch. Fitting a new hatch is fairly easy, but the great thing is by consulting the schedule of parts, we found brand new seals to fit with it to keep the water out. I took a few shots while Vic was fitting this. We've been continuing with replacing as many access hatches as we can, though the vast majority need drilling out and tapping. Where we don't have the panel or it is badly damaged, we're having new ones made. We are prioritising which ones we do, the most recent ones are to get access to the trim cables and sprockets. We're still working at freeing them off, the rudder is starting to behave but still needs attention. 20 years outdoors has caused a little corrosion inside but we're pretty happy that we keep going fairly deep into the aircraft yet she seems to have held up well. The engine guys have been going at the engines, with filters, hydraulics, cams coolant, and a multitude of other tasks getting attention. The news is good with No 3 still behaving, the wear hasn't got any worse. We'll still keep a close eye on it, but it looks like it will make it to the end of the year. I'll report back on No 1 and 4 as they are done. And last but not least... our old tug.. Finally this old beastie earned its keep, shoving WR963 forward a few yards so we could put steel plate under her mainwheels to stop sinkage and help protect the tyres. There was a bet going on whether it would, and it seems it found some guts from somewhere! It's been getting some attention too to smarten it up and give it a long overdue service. 10 Sep A very windy day! First thing up was to check a few levels, and retighten things, before a walkaround to make sure everything on WR963 was in order. A few bits need attention, mainly a couple of dzus fasteners are past their best - and the hydraulic hand pump in the stbd undercarraige bay needed securing. The trolley acc batteries were all showing good charge (28V) which means they are working well. We replaced these recently with modern sealed lead acid types, and it was well worth the investment. We're now looking at finding an equivalent for the onboard batteries as they are getting tired and regularly need charging. Then it was time to move some fencing! Nimrod XV232 was due to engine run at 12pm, so we were drafted in to help keep the public at a safe distance. There were fairly large numbers of people around with this weekend being part of Coventry Heritage Open Days, and AIRBASE being one of the places on the tour. It was nice to see the Nimrod come back to life, even if she was a bit grumpy... the hard work by the engineers over the past weeks paying off with engines running, albeit briefly. I couldn't help but think about being stood in the same spot with friends, watching her make her last landing. Following the Nimrod's efforts, it was agin time to move some fencing... as we had to keep people away from the props! Once that was done, it was all aboard and start the engines. As is customary, we grabbed a couple of unsuspecting visitors to come aboard and enjoy it... This time we managed to grab a gentleman who was a pilot on Coastal Command Wellingtons and Liberators during the war! Now in his 90's, he still flies, and was pleased as punch to be sat in '963 (over both spars... well done sir!) with the Griffons growling away. He has said he will come back - and I sincerely hope he does. All too soon it was time to be silent... and a very happy bunch of people climbed out. The servicing over the past month paid off - no snags, no leaks, no fuss. This week we get to run WR963 twice more. 15th, and 17th. She's getting plenty of exercise! 3 Oct 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. 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. 07 Oct 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, as I get easily distracted by engineering diagrams and wanting to 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 schedules - 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. Some of this stuff really ought to be where the public can see it rather than in a locked room. 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... 9th Oct 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. We're also chasing down leads regarding Boulton Paul N front turrets, and Bristol B.17 mid uppers; though these are likely to take a while to come to anything. We still hope in the future we can give WR963 some teeth! 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 though, 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 a Handley Page 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. 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. That about brings you all up to date! Kind regards, Rich
  14. Update time. You'll notice we made it into this issue of Flypast in the news section, and we were pleasantly surprised to see the "Q Call" article on the Shackleton. 4th June Work has slowed a little on WR963, but never does it stop. The next big work day is after the next engine run when all the engines need their filters, plugs, cam clearances and many other things checking. There will be lots of photos of oily Griffon bits for those that like that sort of thing! As to those of you wondering when the next engine run is, we intend to run on Saturday 9th July. There is a significance to this date, as it is 20 years to the day since WR963 and WL790 arrived at Coventry, and 20 years since her last flight.* You may remember me talking about the air system a couple of weeks back, and the installation of the pneumatics crate. We had a leak on the bottom pair of bottles, but it was soon rectified. We won't know just how well the compressors are doing on the engines are doing until our next run, but the bottles and system are doing well having held what little pressure we had in the system for a fortnight. The interior has been cleaned and partly repainted and I will post pictures of that in the next couple of weeks. I couldn't get any at the moment as I really don't want to get in the way of Vic and Rich Marriott, the members of our team that are doing the task. There's no room to really get past the hoover, and all the bottles of cleaning products for floors and chairs, but I can say that 963 is looking very much healthier inside. Our prop is currently at the workshop of one of our team being built up off site. We are in desperate need of an intershaft bearing, it is classed as an engine part not a prop part and as such the kits we have don't contain it. We also have none on our spare units, they have all been used in the past - probably on WL790. We are desperately looking for: Intershaft Bearing - Part No: GN24866 Outer race - Part No: GN 25170 Washer for roller bearing nut - Part No: GN 21096 One thing that has been spoiling 963 for a while was the smashed nav light lens on the starboard wing. Vic Marriott took the smashed remains of the old one, and set to manufacturing another. Vic being the perfectionist he is, by the time we arrived this Saturday it was fitted, with the seconite sealing and repainted too! He still wasn't satisfied, research having revealed a telltale piece that you can see from the cockpit, so he made and fitted that too. I envy people's skills sometimes but it does look the part: There is no stopping him! He is scouring our spares holding for cockpit windows and any other glazing he can find, and has started muttering about replacing the clouded windscreen eyebrow pieces. We've had some other cleaning work going on, and some more niggling maintenance tasks. The priming line we replaced was checked again and while we were in the undercarraige bays the landing gear hydraulic rams were cleaned and greased. We also found that the external locks were seized (the red struts in the photo) so we set to and persuaded them out. We managed to revive the spring action on three of them, but one of them was too bad to repair. Thankfully we had a spare, so we gave it some lubrication and fitted it. For those that wonder about other locks.. the Shackleton control locks are all internal. There is one mounted in the tail (elevators), one in the trailing spar (ailerons), and a big red handle over the throttles on the pilot's side (rudders). They are all connected, meaning the rudder cannot be released until elevators and ailerons have been unlocked. This is the elevator one on the end of the little red tag: And here's how it normally appears, when I go down there to take it out: Not my favourite job, but a regular place I end up; as you can guarantee an unsupervised visitor will try to use force to move the rudder lock so they can play with the throttles. This bends things. Not good... I got asked a couple of weeks ago about the bomb bay - we haven't had the front open again yet, but I took these shots of the bay as they're better than the ones I posted before. Looking aft: Looking forward: In these shots, the flat portion is the centre section. The middle carrier position is rated at 12,000lbs, a legacy from the Lancaster. The small row of bolts you can see before the 'egg crate' style construction starts again is the transport joint. The unsightly brown tubes either side are remnants of the heater system - this being one of the few areas of 963 that has succumbed to being outdoors. After a cup of tea or two, a few of us boarded and attempted to see if we can get 963's radio behaving. She had many parts robbed, changed and chopped around in the past and it never really worked properly since. Unfortunately the best we managed to get out of her was that we could hear the tower but no-one can hear us! It's a shame it doesn't work, as there's much on the old Shackleton that still does. The Orange Harvest for example still lets you see what radar is looking at you and where from.. so while 963's hearing's gone, her eyesight is still pretty good even with the radar scanner long since removed. WR963 will be open to all during the upcoming Jaguar Enthusiasts Club day on the 12th June, but the update next weekend will be from another member as I'm away (again.) Kind Regards, Rich * We aren't counting the 8 seconds or so Dave Hencken (ex 8Sqn CO, and long time Shackleton pilot) managed to sneak in a couple of years ago
  15. I don't know as all my dealings are with it's bigger brother the Griffon. I do know that various design of cylinder head are more sought after if you want more power, with the 500 series and later Merlin heads being the most sought after. RR were after a good chunk of the civil market and kept developing the engine post war for power and longevity. Regards, Rich
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