Issue 13 - Gatwick Aviation Museum

GATWICK AVIATION MUSEUM
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NEWS
days that the museum is open during this year.
We are very pleased to report that Peter Vallance
has been made a life member of the Shackleton
Association in recognition of his contribution to
saving and preserving the two MR3 Phase 3
Shackletons at the museum.
Following on from the National Aviation Heritage
Skills Initiative, a one day training course was held
at the museum on the 17th of December, further
dates will be announced for 2007. This training
course is available to all volunteer members of the
museum. A further training session is due to held at
the museum on the 29th of April 2007.
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In November 2006 we had a special visitor, a
relation of the explorer Ernest Shackleton, Jonathan
Shackleton was welcomed to the museum. He was
very impressed with the aircraft named after his
illustrious forbearer! He also mentioned that he was
in touch with Mary Dove, she is the daughter of
Avro’s famous aircraft designer Roy Chadwick.
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During the winter we have a steady number of
visitors taking advantage of the museums
“appointment” facility. A number of our visitors are
ex aircrew that have flown some of our airframes.
One such was Art Stacey who was kind enough to
sign the Avro Shackleton WR98(J) in the
designated place.
We also had our first visitor from China, the
museums name is spreading far and wide,
fortunately the newsletter will not need to be
translated into and printed in Mandarin! Yet!
The museum has made a donation to the local
church fund. St. Nicholas Church in Charlwood, is
over 900 years old and is extending its basic
facilities. The museum was pleased to be able to
support a local institution with a donation to help
with the extension.
The museums small colour brochure has been reprinted and the odd mistakes present in the original
version have now been corrected.
In common with past years the museum will be
open on certain days from March until October
without an appointment. The table below shows the
The panel above the navigator station on WR982 is
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Engineering Work
becoming like the pavement in Hollywood with all of
the signatures now on it!
Hawker Sea Hawk XE489 (WM983)
New Artefacts’
Since the final paint was removed from the Sea
Hawk she has spent most of the winter under partial
cover. Now that the weather is improving a decision
is to be made on how the airframe will be repainted.
Very little preparation work remains; it’s mostly a
case of cleaning the airframe and degreasing ready
for the primer.
A “new” engine arrived in mid March from Filton,
this is a Rolls Royce Pegasus. There are no
obvious data plates on the engine to assist in
identifying it. The consensus of opinion is that it’s
likely to be an early version, possibly even from a
Kestrel.
English Electric Canberra P.R. 7 WH773
Late in 2006 a new
volunteer,
Rebecca
Reddy
decided to take on
the restoration of
this
important
airframe. WH773
was
the
first
production P.R.7, shortly after entering service in
1953 this Canberra took part in the Daily Mail
sponsored Air Race from London to Sydney. At one
time she held the record for the fastest transit from
London to Colombo (Sri Lanka). (May still, perhaps
someone knows?). The wooden fin section was
repaired and repainted a couple of years ago, just
before it became damaged beyond repair by birds.
No major work has been carried out on this airframe
for many years.
As a consequence the numbers
of problems were beginning to mount. It was
therefore very timely when someone showed up
with the enthusiasm and drive to turn the situation
around. Although it’s not immediately obvious what
The engine has been moved to the engine shed to
join all of the other engines except the GE CF6, this
is just too large to go inside. Some of the cowlings
that came with the CF6 have been modified and
fitted to the engine. As can be seen from the
picture below this “cleans up” the appearance of this
exhibit. It has been moved to a more prominent
position at the entrance to the museum.
The engine information on the web site has been
updated to include the engines that have arrived in
the past couple of years. These include two
Derwents; they ended their active duty as
snowblowers. The other engines are five Artousts a
Viper and a de Havilland Gypsy Major. All of these
are now housed in the engine display buildings.
The museum will be providing facilities for a
meeting of the Royal British Legion due to take
place on the 25th of August.
has been done from the outside, this belies the
large amount of work carried out so far. Most of the
airframe has been accessed and surveyed; this has
given a good idea as to the condition of the aircraft.
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Some parts have seen daylight for the first time in
over 20 years! A full report on the work carried out
will eventually appear on the web site. It has given
up many gallons of water in the past couple of
months. It may be that which has caused it to “sit”
gently on its tail a couple of times recently in high
winds. It now has a tail prop to prevent it happening
again. Work on the inside has started the DV
window (Direct Vision) a source of much water
ingress has finally been closed properly. The
missing instruments are being sourced and the
Navigators floor has been repainted. The picture
above shows the repainted Navigators floor. The
photograph below shows the instrument panel, still
with some items missing but fewer holes than
previously!
minor changes have been made to this aircraft;
these are the addition of hard point pylons to the
outboard section of the wings.
We may add stores or tanks to these pylons in time.
Might even put a registration on the fuselage, just
not sure which one yet, something that will confuse
for sure!
XS587- G-VIXN De-Havilland Sea Vixen
Focus on this airframe has been to remove and deal
with ferrous corrosion, which has begun to take hold
on the bottom wing areas. This corrosion has
started as a result of steel fastenings reacting over
time with the aluminium skin. To fix this, we are
steadily flatting these areas back, killing the surface
corrosion and applying a coat of etch prime.
Gloster Meteor T.7. VZ638
Small amounts of work have been carried out on
this airframe over the past months. One of the jobs
to be tackled is the “glazing” in the cockpit canopy.
Although we do have a new canopy the judgment is
that it will simply deteriorate in the outdoor
conditions if fitted. An improvement in the state of
the currently fitted canopy could be achieved by
replacing the cracked and discoloured panels. A
survey has been carried out as to the feasibility and
is seems that we can relatively simply replace the
flat side panels. Initial investigation shows the
Perspex to be at least half an inch thick!
The Vixen has recently been re-fuelled, but
unfortunately we have a leaking starboard
feeder tank bag, which will require looking at, at
a later date, so this will curtail filling the
starboard centre tank any further. The Vixen
hasn’t been started for about 18 months now,
so a good all panels off inspection and a full
service will be required before we look at
running her. During this period though, the
Hawker Hunter F.51 E-430 (XF418,XG226)
Recently, on an internet forum, complaints were
made that this aircraft had no markings on it? I
guess the average spotter wants to be able to run
past without having to look too closely. In fact both
wings have their respective serial on the underside.
We must confess that it’s actually quite amusing to
read such remarks from such experts. A couple of
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engines are spun over on a hot air trolley
regularly, to stop deterioration.
removed from the old engine, which is a time
consuming job. There are no plans to attempt that
soon, unless a good engine man would like to
volunteer to do the job!
Engineering Update Lightning ZF579
Avro Shackleton WR982 (J)
No big leaps over the winter on ZF579. Time has
been concentrated on preparing the airframe for a
final push in summer 2007, to get ready for number
1 engine installation. The canopy was removed and
ejection seat removed, to allow us to remove the
cockpit floor. The primary aim has been to get at a
broken brake control cable, which if any ex
Lightning “linnies” remember, involves removing the
canopy and ejection seat; removing the floor, and
standing on your head inside the cockpit, to remove
4 tiny 6 ba screws (without dropping them into the
seams and crevices under the floor!!!!!!) which
secure the break cable bulkhead pressure seal in.
NOT…….. the most pleasant job! All went without a
hitch though and the completely knackered brake
control cable was out. Now all we need to do is get
a new one made before the floor and seat go back
in. The lack of floor allowed us to inspect the
primary and secondary structures, as well as the
intake roof. All are in tip top condition, just requiring
cleaning. So the good luck continues with the sturdy
old Frightning! Much work has been done on the
ferry ventral tank. The “BIG” F6 style ventral tank,
but without the cannons installed. The tank skin has
been completely refurbished back to new finish and
a final polish will enable the tank to be fitted so that
the No. 2 engine hatch can be removed very soon.
Following on from our abortive attempt to resolve
the cooling problems with the number three engine,
another attempt is being made. A survey of one
“other” possible source (WR974) showed that the
radiators on the No.1 engine looked to be in
reasonable condition.
Approval was given to
remove the small radiator, providing the faulty item
was fitted in its place to make it complete. On a
warm spring day the operation began. Having
previous experience meant that the process was
somewhat quicker than the first time. The small
radiator from J had been removed a couple of
weeks earlier.
No1 engine bay is finished, bar one small leak from
a failed O ring, to be replaced in the next 2 weeks.
Attention will turn in mid summer, to making a very
large dent in re-splicing much of the outstanding
engine control wiring and core DC generator wiring
control circuits. This will pretty much complete all of
the wiring we will need for now.
Once the cowlings were off the No. 1 engine it was
clear what a good condition this engine was in. A
little over an hour later and the radiator was free
from the aircraft. An initial visual survey showed it
to be in good condition externally, the test however,
was how much flow of water would it allow?
Buccanner S.1. XN923
Not a great deal of work on the S1 this year. Just
some corrosion treatment in the gear bays and a
repaint of the nose cone will be in order. Work is
progressing on obtaining a new canopy though. The
old canopy, being an S1 canopy, is not UV
resistant; hence it has milked beyond repair. The S2
canopies are UV resistant, and will fit just the same.
So the Hunt is on to replace it. XN923 hasn’t been
run this year and much work is required to inspect
her before she can run again. Unfortunately, the
port engine is past its life and is no longer safe to
run. Vibration problems have set in, the engine is
just old. We have a replacement Gyron Junior for
923, but it requires a compressor stage to be
A hosepipe connected to the outlet (reverse flush)
showed a good rate of flow. Only small amounts of
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rubbish, mostly the hated crystallized glycol,
emerged. A direct comparison was made to
the faulty radiator, the difference was
dramatic, the faulty radiator “blew back”
very quickly, indicating a very poor flow
rate. In comparison the other unit took as
much water as it was given! Much water
was passed in both directions through the
radiator before it was declared good
enough. It just remained to refit both
radiators to the respective aircraft. A couple
of hours later this was completed. With all
components and the cowlings on, the No. 1
engine on K looked as if it had never been
touched! With the replacement fitted to J
and all the pipes and connections done up
the coolant system was filled with water and
anti-freeze. No leaks were found.
During our earlier engine run we had
experienced a problem with the radiator
shutters; they wouldn’t operate from the
engineers’ panel in either auto or manual
mode. Whilst deciding what action to take
regarding the radiators this problem was
tackled. Investigation revealed a number of
problems present in the whole system. The
primary one was the inching control unit,
water had found it way into the box and this
had ruined the solenoids.
Fortunately,
spare items were discovered, along with
some of the cables needed to operate it in
auto mode. The cables were also another
problem, being seized and despite
languishing in Jet-A for a couple of weeks
refused to free up. The whole system is
fairly complex and has quite a number of
rose joints and swivel points, all of which
needed lubricating. A couple of weeks later
and the inching system was back together,
the pneumatic system was charged and the
system could now be tested. With the
Auto/Man switches in the Man position the
shutters were operated to the fully closed
and fully open positions. They moved,
slightly reluctantly, jerkily at first, but they
moved throughout their full travel. A test
was carried out on the other engines, No. 4
work flawlessly, No.2 just simply didn’t
work, No.1 worked fine. Fault finding on
No.2 showed that the inching control unit on
this engine was faulty. It also showed how
much the whole system needed each joint
and pivot to be really free and properly
lubricated to work correctly. This is now a
new task for each engine, refurbish the
shutter mechanisms.
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Andy Scrase started in the aviation industry as an apprentice Aircraft
Engineer at Air Europe. Part of this training included a day release to
the local college at East Surrey in Redhill. In 1991 when Air Europe
went into receivership Andy found himself made redundant and
without a college placement. To enable his training to continue Peter
Vallance agreed that Andy could work full time at the Museum whilst
continuing his college course. Initially the college wanted him to work
on the Pembroke but Andy had other ideas, the imposing Shackleton
was much more to his liking! At first, the task appeared to be very
daunting. The airframe was at best, loosely assembled and needed a
lot of work to make it secure. Internally it was a jumble of items
mostly in the wrong place. Once some order had been brought to the
inside, the next task was to get power on and see if a simple task like
getting the internal lighting could be completed. With this achieved,
some inkling of what was possible was beginning to dawn. The
aircraft had flown into Cosford in about 1971 and had remained
effectively static since that time. All of the engines were seized solid
after 20 years without being turned. No. 3 engine was the first to
receive some attention. With no spark plugs in the engine a mixture
of light oil and fuel was poured into the engine every day for 2-3
weeks, the prop was “rocked” to assess the effect. Finally the engine
turned. More work was carried out to prepare the engine for a
possible start, at this time there was no Flight Engineers panel and
the fuel system was a “direct feed”. Instrumentation was minimal, a
piece of aluminium with just a Tacho, Rad temp and Oil pressure
gauges. On the third attempt the engine fired! With the experience
of the past few months the other engines were tackled in a similar
fashion, No. 2 came next. With the inboard engines working, now
some hydraulic services were returned to operation. By this time an
engineer’s panel had been found and fitted. The outboard engines
were more of a challenge but succumbed eventually. Since those
early days many hundreds of hours have been put in to bring more
services into a working condition. The inside is continually being
fitted out with missing items.
In 1993 Andy joined Monarch airlines as an engineer and is still
working for the airline.
For the rest of us engineering volunteers Andy is considered our
“Chief Engineer”. His expertise, knowledge and enthusiasm for old
aeroplanes are an inspiration to all of us. Andy’s experience with
both old and new systems is an invaluable resource and he is more
than happy to offer advice and guidance. He has probably worked on
all of our airframes but the Shackleton still receives his main
attention. Peter Vallance may own the aircraft, but the rest of us
know that J is really Andy’s aeroplane!
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