1954 Avro Shackleton Mr2
Discussion
A mad mad mad weekend for me and the Shackleton gang. From the first e-mails wednesday night saying WR963 was in the hangar a day early, everything went nuts.
Classic Flight at Coventry very kindly let us use the Airbase hangar for four days to progress the painting on our old Shackleton. It's something it desperately needed and was looking a bit of a hopeless task to try and get done outdoors.
I loaded up the car with as much painting materials as I could Thursday morning and set off for Coventry, eager to see what was going on there. I couldn't believe how busy the place was... it seemed as if everything was being worked on at once. If what I've seen today is anything to go by, Airbase's second season is going to be a cracker.
Arriving to find everything sunny and bright I made my way over to where the Shackleton now wasn't, to drop the paint off. I'm sure this was where we left it?
Best go look inside then. There she is!! Asking around the place and a figure of 17 years was arrived at since she last saw the inside of a hangar.
Two of our guys were already hard at work starting to mask up the windows and cover the floor, as was requested of us. The team are all in good spirits, even when asked to unroll the plastic floor covering again (and again) for the camera..
Airbase have been kind enough to kick a lot of other stuff outside for this one weekend, so we are NOT going to make a mess.
I have to compliment the ground handlers though, they've put 963 in the hangar bang on the centre line with barely feet to spare on the wingtips. This is how close it is:
As you can see it's a snug fit.
Helping out with the masking, I had to take this shot, as it was too good to miss:
The DC3 was started up later in the afternoon outside, and made a really very pleasing amount of noise.
Being at the west end of the hangar meant we got the sunshine for longer, which was rather nice. 963 looked that happy in there it was rather tempting to let the tires down so we don't have to move out, squat in the aircraft, or just paint a line on the floor that's Shackleton shaped with a "reserved" sign on it...
Various other things happened today... we're losing our old crew portakabin in favour of a room in the hangar, and I was given access to a place that I could have spent hours in (not the pub!)the 'Shackleton Design Office'.
In a small room off the hangar is every drawing that exists for the Shackleton, all the mod details, and God knows what else. It's a treasure trove. Apparently we hold the design rights to the aircraft now, having all the master copies of the drawings and prints. There is a phenomenal amount of information in there.
Saturday we worked long into the night, pausing only briefly for food and once in shock, when one of the female members of our painting team dropped into conversation that she was a pole dancing instructor...
In terms of numbers, we've had around 20 people working on the Shackleton this weekend, which is kind of a record for us. Even the elder members of the group can't remember seeing that many people working on her in the 12 years that she has been in their care.
Unfortunately we got beaten by time, WR963 isn't finished. Various gremlins crept into the mix too. While for the most part 963 has been well behaved during her hangar time, she has tried marking her spot when one of the bomb bay hydraulic rams started leaking. Even so, the hydraulics have held pressure for just over a week with the doors only just starting to creep open. This and various other small leaks caused problems with contaminating paint.
Then the paint we had for the roundels/fin flashes started reacting, so they'll get redone next weekend. Luckily we noticed it after the first fin flash, so we didn't have to worry about any large areas. We overestimated the need for some colours, and underestimated others, but on the whole she's about 90% done.
Got some photo's for you all...
These last two were taken right before we left.
More good news on the horizon too regarding undercarraige servicing, propellers, and all sorts of other things that are lined up over the next few months... but you'll just have to wait and see for now.
Kind regards
Rich
Diary dates (engine runs): .... for those that are interested!
Sat 16 April - Friends of WR963 gathering
Fri 22 April - Airbase re-opening
Classic Flight at Coventry very kindly let us use the Airbase hangar for four days to progress the painting on our old Shackleton. It's something it desperately needed and was looking a bit of a hopeless task to try and get done outdoors.
I loaded up the car with as much painting materials as I could Thursday morning and set off for Coventry, eager to see what was going on there. I couldn't believe how busy the place was... it seemed as if everything was being worked on at once. If what I've seen today is anything to go by, Airbase's second season is going to be a cracker.
Arriving to find everything sunny and bright I made my way over to where the Shackleton now wasn't, to drop the paint off. I'm sure this was where we left it?
Best go look inside then. There she is!! Asking around the place and a figure of 17 years was arrived at since she last saw the inside of a hangar.
Two of our guys were already hard at work starting to mask up the windows and cover the floor, as was requested of us. The team are all in good spirits, even when asked to unroll the plastic floor covering again (and again) for the camera..
Airbase have been kind enough to kick a lot of other stuff outside for this one weekend, so we are NOT going to make a mess.
I have to compliment the ground handlers though, they've put 963 in the hangar bang on the centre line with barely feet to spare on the wingtips. This is how close it is:
As you can see it's a snug fit.
Helping out with the masking, I had to take this shot, as it was too good to miss:
The DC3 was started up later in the afternoon outside, and made a really very pleasing amount of noise.
Being at the west end of the hangar meant we got the sunshine for longer, which was rather nice. 963 looked that happy in there it was rather tempting to let the tires down so we don't have to move out, squat in the aircraft, or just paint a line on the floor that's Shackleton shaped with a "reserved" sign on it...
Various other things happened today... we're losing our old crew portakabin in favour of a room in the hangar, and I was given access to a place that I could have spent hours in (not the pub!)the 'Shackleton Design Office'.
In a small room off the hangar is every drawing that exists for the Shackleton, all the mod details, and God knows what else. It's a treasure trove. Apparently we hold the design rights to the aircraft now, having all the master copies of the drawings and prints. There is a phenomenal amount of information in there.
Saturday we worked long into the night, pausing only briefly for food and once in shock, when one of the female members of our painting team dropped into conversation that she was a pole dancing instructor...
In terms of numbers, we've had around 20 people working on the Shackleton this weekend, which is kind of a record for us. Even the elder members of the group can't remember seeing that many people working on her in the 12 years that she has been in their care.
Unfortunately we got beaten by time, WR963 isn't finished. Various gremlins crept into the mix too. While for the most part 963 has been well behaved during her hangar time, she has tried marking her spot when one of the bomb bay hydraulic rams started leaking. Even so, the hydraulics have held pressure for just over a week with the doors only just starting to creep open. This and various other small leaks caused problems with contaminating paint.
Then the paint we had for the roundels/fin flashes started reacting, so they'll get redone next weekend. Luckily we noticed it after the first fin flash, so we didn't have to worry about any large areas. We overestimated the need for some colours, and underestimated others, but on the whole she's about 90% done.
Got some photo's for you all...
These last two were taken right before we left.
More good news on the horizon too regarding undercarraige servicing, propellers, and all sorts of other things that are lined up over the next few months... but you'll just have to wait and see for now.
Kind regards
Rich
Diary dates (engine runs): .... for those that are interested!
Sat 16 April - Friends of WR963 gathering
Fri 22 April - Airbase re-opening
Well, we're on three engines now, with the prop getting put together for the fourth!
We ran WR963 on Saturday in preparation for Airbase at Coventry Airport re-opening on the 22nd. She will be rolled out to the public and invited guests, and then there will be a ground run at 1pm. If you want to see a running, growling, Avro Shackleton then this is your only chance as WR963 is the last.
If you feel like coming along to say hello, please do.. there's more than just the Shackleton too, there's whole bunch of other classic aircraft (DC3s, DC6s, Canberras, a Nimrod, Avro Anson, DH Venoms, Hunters..) all on display with no ropes to stop you getting up close and personal.
Entrance is £10, you get in through the West Gate at Baginton.
Regards
Rich
We ran WR963 on Saturday in preparation for Airbase at Coventry Airport re-opening on the 22nd. She will be rolled out to the public and invited guests, and then there will be a ground run at 1pm. If you want to see a running, growling, Avro Shackleton then this is your only chance as WR963 is the last.
If you feel like coming along to say hello, please do.. there's more than just the Shackleton too, there's whole bunch of other classic aircraft (DC3s, DC6s, Canberras, a Nimrod, Avro Anson, DH Venoms, Hunters..) all on display with no ropes to stop you getting up close and personal.
Entrance is £10, you get in through the West Gate at Baginton.
Regards
Rich
No 3 was the first to start, the engines are numbered 1 - 4 from left to right as you are sat in the aircraft. No 3 is usually the first engine started as it has an air compressor, a generator and a hydraulic pump on it, so once it is running you can begin bringing other systems on line.
The inboard engines are always started first, as if there is an engine fire on start up you can't get to the inners if the outers are already running.
I was the engineer for the run, and while I could try to claim the clean start was down to me, it's nothing but the hard work of our crew that made WR963 behave so well.
This shot was taken by one of our guests and is probably the best one I've seen so far:
Regards
Rich
The inboard engines are always started first, as if there is an engine fire on start up you can't get to the inners if the outers are already running.
I was the engineer for the run, and while I could try to claim the clean start was down to me, it's nothing but the hard work of our crew that made WR963 behave so well.
This shot was taken by one of our guests and is probably the best one I've seen so far:
Regards
Rich
Time for some more updates!
4th May
The Press Day at Coventry looked to be well attended with people wandering around from various publications and organisations. Hopefully a sign of things to come as there has been a LOT of hard work done at Coventry on things other than the Shackleton by a lot of people. It's cool to watch the place evolve.
Crew for the run on the Press Day was:
Dave Woods and Ricky Marriott in Pilot and Co-pilot positions, myself as Engineer, and John Cubberley overseeing us. We also were also thrilled to have aboard Don Johnson as a guest. Don was an Auster pilot in the Malaysian jungle during WW2 and had no end of stories to tell.
WR963 once again behaved herself with only a couple of problems. We had an intercom issue which caused a bit of feedback until it was traced, and a weeping fuel priming line. As it was late in the day we had to leave it until the next visit.
7th May
A wet Saturday down at Coventry but a reasonable days work. Two of our guys are busy at work cleaning and repainting parts of the interior, a couple of us went leak chasing and the pneumatics should be back before long.
Leaks:
First up... the heavy rain has shown we have some more work to do. The prolonged dry spell has dried out more of the old mastic around the cockpit canopy frame and the beam lookout windows. We have water dribbles! The next fine day will see it sorted as we'll dig all the old stuff out and put new in.
More worrying was the fuel leak. When we shut down we found the priming overflow on the starboard side was still chucking raw fuel out - but with the pump off. Initial thoughts were that I had overprimed during the start, but not so. The supply line into the fuel priming pump was weeping fuel. We got it off the aircraft today and this is the state of it:
It caused a few sharp intakes of breath when we took it off. It must have cracked to the point of failing on this last run. Typically this pipe is hard to see hidden behind the air intake and outlets for the generator, so you could only feel it rather than see it until it was off. I'm not convinced its the original pipe, I think its a legacy from 10 - 15 years ago when Air Atlantique were using her as a test bed. So, from now until we can get Pirtek to come visit, 963 will be a bit quieter than she has been for the past month! All being well she'll be fit and well by this time next week
The air bottles came back from testing today, with all the NDT, x-ray, ultrasound, and boroscope testing done. Four bottles passed, one bottle failed with the wall thickness down to less than 1.6mm and metal flakes seen on the x-ray! Luckily for us we only need four, but a good job we sent the spare too.
The props are currently across the other side of the airfield causing much head scratching at CFS, as the last ones they did were in the late 1990's for the AEW2 that went to the USA. I should have more news later if all goes well - but we have to admit things have slipped a little with getting this sorted out.
14th May
Windy again at Coventry, but dry!
Plenty to do on 963 though to get her even better and keep her in good condition for the coming season. Vic and Rich Marriott are making immense progress on the interior, I couldn't get photo's due to getting in their way. When I left Coventry at 4.30pm they were still hard at work, somewhere near the galley. Repairs to floor matting and the bunk area were happening last time I looked.
Pirtek when phoned arrived at the airport within the hour (the guy on the phone asking "Is it the old Shackleton again? No problem!") and when we gave them the old pipe we had a nice shiny new one produced inside 10 minutes. The old spec of the pipe isn't available any more so an equivalent was used. Thinking about it; there's now enough non original parts on this aircraft to give the CAA and anyone else a field day if it had to be audited for flight. But as it's probably not going to happen we can use slightly better materials without getting it approved. Hopefully the work we're doing will keep the Shackleton 'live' for a good many years. With the new priming line fitted, it was then just a case of switching the internal power on, selecting fuel tanks and master cocks for that side, and turning the priming switch to No 3. The pump hummed away with no nasty noises and no leaks... so 963 is good to run again.
Feeling happy with our success we moved on to what would have been last weeks task - the refitting of the air bottles in the pneumatics crate. Myself and Pete Curran took this job on, and braving spiky little bits of safety wire and stiff air hoses, we had the bottles in fairly quickly.
There was a little bit of head scratching to figure out where all the joints ran to avoid chafing and rubbing.
We than fed the bypass pipes fitted to the oxygen cylinders (as they have been used in the past for extra capacity) back into the crate and gently opened the taps.
Hissing noises were heard and then port and starboard pressure gauges started to climb! There is a small leak off the bottom pair of cylinders, and what little pressure we had bled away fairly quickly, so we'll test the whole system from top to bottom next week. Volunteers were called for and with one man standing next to each wheel, one down in the nose near the crate, and one in the pilots seat; the brakes were pressed. Port brakes took up and then vented nicely, starboard took a little more persuasion, finally coming on with a drawn out creak and then a puff of years old brake dust out the sides! There didn't seem to be any sudden great loss of air, so it appears the brake bags are still intact.
So... 963 now has her brakes back. We need one more propeller and then a mainwheel tyre change, then maybe we can show her the runway again...
The propeller - this is a long standing bugbear, however it is now in the workshop being built up. It appears we're missing an intershaft bearing and seal, so it might take a little while to find those. Other than that everything seems to be okay on that score.
Next we decided to have a crack at removing some of the stiffness from the throttle linkages. Well, that was the excuse. In reality all of us have been itching to get those front doors open and see what state she is in, in one of the places we haven't been for a while. Well we weren't disappointed.. in there we found graffiti from the radar fit, original 50's paint, a couple of birds nests and a lot of work!
You never realise just how big that bomb bay is until all the doors are open, the AEW uses roughly two thirds of it and it seems cavernous at that. We're still planning around the possibility of re-instating the full length doors. There is MUCH more left over from the MR2 than anybody would think, and the position of where the doors were cut makes it look to be a job that can be done over Autumn/Winter. We've promised Airbase that we won't start taking big chunks of Shackleton apart until after show season!
Regards,
Rich
4th May
The Press Day at Coventry looked to be well attended with people wandering around from various publications and organisations. Hopefully a sign of things to come as there has been a LOT of hard work done at Coventry on things other than the Shackleton by a lot of people. It's cool to watch the place evolve.
Crew for the run on the Press Day was:
Dave Woods and Ricky Marriott in Pilot and Co-pilot positions, myself as Engineer, and John Cubberley overseeing us. We also were also thrilled to have aboard Don Johnson as a guest. Don was an Auster pilot in the Malaysian jungle during WW2 and had no end of stories to tell.
WR963 once again behaved herself with only a couple of problems. We had an intercom issue which caused a bit of feedback until it was traced, and a weeping fuel priming line. As it was late in the day we had to leave it until the next visit.
7th May
A wet Saturday down at Coventry but a reasonable days work. Two of our guys are busy at work cleaning and repainting parts of the interior, a couple of us went leak chasing and the pneumatics should be back before long.
Leaks:
First up... the heavy rain has shown we have some more work to do. The prolonged dry spell has dried out more of the old mastic around the cockpit canopy frame and the beam lookout windows. We have water dribbles! The next fine day will see it sorted as we'll dig all the old stuff out and put new in.
More worrying was the fuel leak. When we shut down we found the priming overflow on the starboard side was still chucking raw fuel out - but with the pump off. Initial thoughts were that I had overprimed during the start, but not so. The supply line into the fuel priming pump was weeping fuel. We got it off the aircraft today and this is the state of it:
It caused a few sharp intakes of breath when we took it off. It must have cracked to the point of failing on this last run. Typically this pipe is hard to see hidden behind the air intake and outlets for the generator, so you could only feel it rather than see it until it was off. I'm not convinced its the original pipe, I think its a legacy from 10 - 15 years ago when Air Atlantique were using her as a test bed. So, from now until we can get Pirtek to come visit, 963 will be a bit quieter than she has been for the past month! All being well she'll be fit and well by this time next week
The air bottles came back from testing today, with all the NDT, x-ray, ultrasound, and boroscope testing done. Four bottles passed, one bottle failed with the wall thickness down to less than 1.6mm and metal flakes seen on the x-ray! Luckily for us we only need four, but a good job we sent the spare too.
The props are currently across the other side of the airfield causing much head scratching at CFS, as the last ones they did were in the late 1990's for the AEW2 that went to the USA. I should have more news later if all goes well - but we have to admit things have slipped a little with getting this sorted out.
14th May
Windy again at Coventry, but dry!
Plenty to do on 963 though to get her even better and keep her in good condition for the coming season. Vic and Rich Marriott are making immense progress on the interior, I couldn't get photo's due to getting in their way. When I left Coventry at 4.30pm they were still hard at work, somewhere near the galley. Repairs to floor matting and the bunk area were happening last time I looked.
Pirtek when phoned arrived at the airport within the hour (the guy on the phone asking "Is it the old Shackleton again? No problem!") and when we gave them the old pipe we had a nice shiny new one produced inside 10 minutes. The old spec of the pipe isn't available any more so an equivalent was used. Thinking about it; there's now enough non original parts on this aircraft to give the CAA and anyone else a field day if it had to be audited for flight. But as it's probably not going to happen we can use slightly better materials without getting it approved. Hopefully the work we're doing will keep the Shackleton 'live' for a good many years. With the new priming line fitted, it was then just a case of switching the internal power on, selecting fuel tanks and master cocks for that side, and turning the priming switch to No 3. The pump hummed away with no nasty noises and no leaks... so 963 is good to run again.
Feeling happy with our success we moved on to what would have been last weeks task - the refitting of the air bottles in the pneumatics crate. Myself and Pete Curran took this job on, and braving spiky little bits of safety wire and stiff air hoses, we had the bottles in fairly quickly.
There was a little bit of head scratching to figure out where all the joints ran to avoid chafing and rubbing.
We than fed the bypass pipes fitted to the oxygen cylinders (as they have been used in the past for extra capacity) back into the crate and gently opened the taps.
Hissing noises were heard and then port and starboard pressure gauges started to climb! There is a small leak off the bottom pair of cylinders, and what little pressure we had bled away fairly quickly, so we'll test the whole system from top to bottom next week. Volunteers were called for and with one man standing next to each wheel, one down in the nose near the crate, and one in the pilots seat; the brakes were pressed. Port brakes took up and then vented nicely, starboard took a little more persuasion, finally coming on with a drawn out creak and then a puff of years old brake dust out the sides! There didn't seem to be any sudden great loss of air, so it appears the brake bags are still intact.
So... 963 now has her brakes back. We need one more propeller and then a mainwheel tyre change, then maybe we can show her the runway again...
The propeller - this is a long standing bugbear, however it is now in the workshop being built up. It appears we're missing an intershaft bearing and seal, so it might take a little while to find those. Other than that everything seems to be okay on that score.
Next we decided to have a crack at removing some of the stiffness from the throttle linkages. Well, that was the excuse. In reality all of us have been itching to get those front doors open and see what state she is in, in one of the places we haven't been for a while. Well we weren't disappointed.. in there we found graffiti from the radar fit, original 50's paint, a couple of birds nests and a lot of work!
You never realise just how big that bomb bay is until all the doors are open, the AEW uses roughly two thirds of it and it seems cavernous at that. We're still planning around the possibility of re-instating the full length doors. There is MUCH more left over from the MR2 than anybody would think, and the position of where the doors were cut makes it look to be a job that can be done over Autumn/Winter. We've promised Airbase that we won't start taking big chunks of Shackleton apart until after show season!
Regards,
Rich
richw_82 said:
t can really spoil your day, lucky you found it. From my experience the old things tend to leak quite a lot. One flight I was on sprung a leak and it was coming in and forming a puddle by the main spar, the captain was pretty nonch about and just told everyone to put their fags out till it had drained off 
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