1954 Avro Shackleton Mr2
Discussion
perdu said:
Love the view of the wing inner Rich, really does look a viable subject for flight if the structure is all that good
Any news on that front? There's a Vulcan rapidly running out of life (over there) and I'd love to be taking photos of the Shack aloft some time
Bear in mind thats only one small part (leading edge between the No 3 and 4 engine). There's a lot more and in more depth to do, but the initial peek insde did raise spirits considerably. It means the efforst over the years to arrest corrosion, and aply the correct sealants and jointing tapes has paid off.Any news on that front? There's a Vulcan rapidly running out of life (over there) and I'd love to be taking photos of the Shack aloft some time
In regards to flight, everybody's ready and we have a path to follow that the authorities are happy with. We just need to get the structural inspection done to make sure we're not about to start bolting airworthy parts onto a knackered airframe.
We have aboput 85 - 90% of the parts required to do the overhaul if the inspection result is good, there's a few hydraulic and landing gear components we're short and we could do with more front propeller blades as there's a couple of units that are near their life limits.
Regards,
Rich
It would be great to see her fly again.richw_82 said:
Thanks to all that made it happen, we hit (and surpassed) the target! As soon as the Kickstarter 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
Congratulations!! Great news. Regards,
Rich
Since I was at M.A.M with my car club on Sunday I went round to see her too
She's looking rather good Rich well done you lot
Nice shiny supernew looking props and bright red spinners make her look awfully purposeful, shame you were not around
I had a chat with Martin? instead, in the hut
(apologise if it was somebody else, I am crap with names when I'm mentally engaged with something else)
She's looking rather good Rich well done you lot
Nice shiny supernew looking props and bright red spinners make her look awfully purposeful, shame you were not around
I had a chat with Martin? instead, in the hut
(apologise if it was somebody else, I am crap with names when I'm mentally engaged with something else)
Edited by perdu on Wednesday 13th May 22:34
Hi Perdu,
Sorry we missed you, we've been gathering kit together for some undercarriage work as the last run up showed a red indicator light on the starboard side, which has caused quite a bit of worry and a large amount of effort to sort out.
Glad you liked the look of her, the paint is wearing well to say its nearly five years old. You'll have to come ack when we're running her up some time?
The chap in the cabin will likely have been Martin Aspden, one of the volunteers and a proper gentleman. The amount of work he's done over the years for the Twin Pioneer and Dove/Devon to keep them flying is remarkable.
Regards,
Rich
Sorry we missed you, we've been gathering kit together for some undercarriage work as the last run up showed a red indicator light on the starboard side, which has caused quite a bit of worry and a large amount of effort to sort out.
Glad you liked the look of her, the paint is wearing well to say its nearly five years old. You'll have to come ack when we're running her up some time?
The chap in the cabin will likely have been Martin Aspden, one of the volunteers and a proper gentleman. The amount of work he's done over the years for the Twin Pioneer and Dove/Devon to keep them flying is remarkable.
Regards,
Rich
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)
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)
Edited by richw_82 on Friday 22 May 14:26
Edited by richw_82 on Friday 22 May 14:27
Weekend 12 - 14 June
(photos to be added this evening)
This weekend promised to be a good one with some of the team being available for three days. The tasks at hand were the rectification of the hydraulic fault, a test run of No 3 engine, and work in organising our on site stores, so it was great to see such a good turnout of our team in what proved to be rather poor weather..
12 June
Friday saw Pete, Andy and Druid all working on trying to find the electrical issue in the wiring between the cockpit and the starboard undercarriage bay. With a large leading edge panel off, access to the loom wasn't too bad but the size of the wiring bundle had to be seen to be believed! It was thought that due to some of the marking on the bundle that there had been a slightly larger incident but it turned out to be dirt that had stained the outer sheathing from the time prior to our weatherproofing and repaint. Similar stains were evident on the spar web - a spar web which seems to be in fantastic condition; to the point the original hand written station markings can be seen on its face from when WR963 was rebuilt. Of course; things can look a lot better than they truly are but the more we see inside the wing, the more positive we're feeling that the long awaited NDT work will show up good results.
Tracing the wires out to the selector block in the undercarriage bay found the source of the fault. At some point the wiring had been removed and left unsupported, and when plugged back in to the selector it had been badly twisted. Over the years the inevitable happened and the wires broke. Fixing the wires to the plug then required some interesting soldering work - as for anyone who has stood in the undercarriage bay of a Shackleton will know, the selector is mounted right at the very top above your head! With the wiring fixed, checked for continuity, and the multimeter giving nice readings instead of proclaiming the whole thing dead, the 'Down' button was pressed.
Nothing happened.
The gremlin in the system was a beauty, the selector's two solenoids for 'up' and 'down' were also dead! So a new selector was required...
13 June
In rolled the rest of the team, with donuts, cameras, clipboards and labels. While Pete, Andy and Druid were left to crack on with WR963 we were working (honest!) at bagging and tagging stores, under the watchful eye of Michelle. The new system she's created paid off instantly as instead of "I think we have one of those.. and I'm pretty sure its over there..." as has often been the case, we were given a location, shelf and quantity of spare selectors, and booster coils (more of which later). The bagging and tagging mission continued well into the day with most of it now sorted. The next job is the off site storage - engines/airframe parts and god knows how many unidentified brown boxes - and we're all hoping Michelle doesn't have a nervous breakdown at the sight of it or run and hide in a corner! Having said that the quantity of items held on site really surpised us. Starter motors, CSU's, translation units, gauges... stuff we'd largely forgotten about.
The new selectors were checked, and solenoids removed to service the ones on the aircraft. This time, with power applied there was a definite 'clunk' heard, and when the hand pump was used, the offending ram slowly made its way back to its proper position. The undercarriage was down, locked and showing the proper three greens once more!
Next job was the No 3 engine.
A replacement booster coil had been fitted on the previous work weekend, but until the undercarriage was safe we couldn't attempt a test run. So after a few phone calls to get permission, No 3 engine was primed and turned on the starter. We didn't even get a puff of smoke or a cough. Investigation showed that we still weren't getting a booster coil output to the magneto. Working through and testing showed up a couple of issues, such as corrosion on the mag switch terminals (again) and also a pinout difference between a bulkhead connector and the lead up to the booster coil. This last item was strange as none of us can remember changing this lead recently, yet a Griffon is fairly reluctant to start without the booster coil, so you would think it to be instantly noticeable!
14 June
A continuation of the previous day's shenanigans with No 3 engine...
With the wiring now working off the correct pins, no live magneto issues (or dead ones), the points were reset in the magneto as it had been noticed they had closed up slightly. No 3 engine was still reluctant to start, so the booster coil from No 2 engine was substituted. No 2 started quite easily on the slightly weaker coil and was left running with a generator on as the batteries in the trolley had been through quite a workout.
With a little persuasion and what I have been told are Shack engineer tricks of old, No 3 engine was finally persuaded that it should behave as before. WR963 is now serviceable again.
This weekend's efforts, and the results, wouldn't have been possible without Druid Petrie and Andy Devitt, ably assisted by Pete Buckingham. Our work in stores this weekend was an achievement, but the sheer depth of knowledge and skill they put to use after a 24 year break from the Shackleton still impresses and what we did pales in comparison. Thanks again to them for giving up a large portion of their time and for travelling such a distance to help us younger less knowledgable members look after WR963.
WR963's next run up will be 4th July for the Baginton Air Pageant.
Regards,
Rich
(photos to be added this evening)
This weekend promised to be a good one with some of the team being available for three days. The tasks at hand were the rectification of the hydraulic fault, a test run of No 3 engine, and work in organising our on site stores, so it was great to see such a good turnout of our team in what proved to be rather poor weather..
12 June
Friday saw Pete, Andy and Druid all working on trying to find the electrical issue in the wiring between the cockpit and the starboard undercarriage bay. With a large leading edge panel off, access to the loom wasn't too bad but the size of the wiring bundle had to be seen to be believed! It was thought that due to some of the marking on the bundle that there had been a slightly larger incident but it turned out to be dirt that had stained the outer sheathing from the time prior to our weatherproofing and repaint. Similar stains were evident on the spar web - a spar web which seems to be in fantastic condition; to the point the original hand written station markings can be seen on its face from when WR963 was rebuilt. Of course; things can look a lot better than they truly are but the more we see inside the wing, the more positive we're feeling that the long awaited NDT work will show up good results.
Tracing the wires out to the selector block in the undercarriage bay found the source of the fault. At some point the wiring had been removed and left unsupported, and when plugged back in to the selector it had been badly twisted. Over the years the inevitable happened and the wires broke. Fixing the wires to the plug then required some interesting soldering work - as for anyone who has stood in the undercarriage bay of a Shackleton will know, the selector is mounted right at the very top above your head! With the wiring fixed, checked for continuity, and the multimeter giving nice readings instead of proclaiming the whole thing dead, the 'Down' button was pressed.
Nothing happened.
The gremlin in the system was a beauty, the selector's two solenoids for 'up' and 'down' were also dead! So a new selector was required...
13 June
In rolled the rest of the team, with donuts, cameras, clipboards and labels. While Pete, Andy and Druid were left to crack on with WR963 we were working (honest!) at bagging and tagging stores, under the watchful eye of Michelle. The new system she's created paid off instantly as instead of "I think we have one of those.. and I'm pretty sure its over there..." as has often been the case, we were given a location, shelf and quantity of spare selectors, and booster coils (more of which later). The bagging and tagging mission continued well into the day with most of it now sorted. The next job is the off site storage - engines/airframe parts and god knows how many unidentified brown boxes - and we're all hoping Michelle doesn't have a nervous breakdown at the sight of it or run and hide in a corner! Having said that the quantity of items held on site really surpised us. Starter motors, CSU's, translation units, gauges... stuff we'd largely forgotten about.
The new selectors were checked, and solenoids removed to service the ones on the aircraft. This time, with power applied there was a definite 'clunk' heard, and when the hand pump was used, the offending ram slowly made its way back to its proper position. The undercarriage was down, locked and showing the proper three greens once more!
Next job was the No 3 engine.
A replacement booster coil had been fitted on the previous work weekend, but until the undercarriage was safe we couldn't attempt a test run. So after a few phone calls to get permission, No 3 engine was primed and turned on the starter. We didn't even get a puff of smoke or a cough. Investigation showed that we still weren't getting a booster coil output to the magneto. Working through and testing showed up a couple of issues, such as corrosion on the mag switch terminals (again) and also a pinout difference between a bulkhead connector and the lead up to the booster coil. This last item was strange as none of us can remember changing this lead recently, yet a Griffon is fairly reluctant to start without the booster coil, so you would think it to be instantly noticeable!
14 June
A continuation of the previous day's shenanigans with No 3 engine...
With the wiring now working off the correct pins, no live magneto issues (or dead ones), the points were reset in the magneto as it had been noticed they had closed up slightly. No 3 engine was still reluctant to start, so the booster coil from No 2 engine was substituted. No 2 started quite easily on the slightly weaker coil and was left running with a generator on as the batteries in the trolley had been through quite a workout.
With a little persuasion and what I have been told are Shack engineer tricks of old, No 3 engine was finally persuaded that it should behave as before. WR963 is now serviceable again.
This weekend's efforts, and the results, wouldn't have been possible without Druid Petrie and Andy Devitt, ably assisted by Pete Buckingham. Our work in stores this weekend was an achievement, but the sheer depth of knowledge and skill they put to use after a 24 year break from the Shackleton still impresses and what we did pales in comparison. Thanks again to them for giving up a large portion of their time and for travelling such a distance to help us younger less knowledgable members look after WR963.
WR963's next run up will be 4th July for the Baginton Air Pageant.
Regards,
Rich
Photos..
(source - Pete Buckingham and self.)
The offending selector, right up at the top of the wheel well.
Large leading edge panel removed..
A peek inside the leading edge itself at the spar web.
Spares
More spares
Even more spares
The offending booster coil!
But at the end of the weekend it was all fixed...
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v42JeoEvbaM[/VIDEO]
Regards,
Rich
(source - Pete Buckingham and self.)
The offending selector, right up at the top of the wheel well.
Large leading edge panel removed..
A peek inside the leading edge itself at the spar web.
Spares
More spares
Even more spares
The offending booster coil!
But at the end of the weekend it was all fixed...
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v42JeoEvbaM[/VIDEO]
Regards,
Rich
Hi all,
Occasionally you get the odd time when somebody does something that can really hurt a project.
In our case, persons unknown have taken 4 x new rear propeller blades from our deep store. As a result we now only have enough new blades to fit to three engines on WR963 when the time comes to make her airworthy. As such if anyone is offered or sees for sale any Shackleton propeller blades; please let us know.
We have a control sheet listing all our blade serial numbers, so can match any that come from our stock - and there are only a couple that we have let go legitimately due to being time expired or damaged.
Regards,
Rich
Occasionally you get the odd time when somebody does something that can really hurt a project.
In our case, persons unknown have taken 4 x new rear propeller blades from our deep store. As a result we now only have enough new blades to fit to three engines on WR963 when the time comes to make her airworthy. As such if anyone is offered or sees for sale any Shackleton propeller blades; please let us know.
We have a control sheet listing all our blade serial numbers, so can match any that come from our stock - and there are only a couple that we have let go legitimately due to being time expired or damaged.
Regards,
Rich
richw_82 said:
Hi all,
Occasionally you get the odd time when somebody does something that can really hurt a project.
In our case, persons unknown have taken 4 x new rear propeller blades from our deep store. As a result we now only have enough new blades to fit to three engines on WR963 when the time comes to make her airworthy. As such if anyone is offered or sees for sale any Shackleton propeller blades; please let us know.
We have a control sheet listing all our blade serial numbers, so can match any that come from our stock - and there are only a couple that we have let go legitimately due to being time expired or damaged.
Regards,
Rich
Occasionally you get the odd time when somebody does something that can really hurt a project.
In our case, persons unknown have taken 4 x new rear propeller blades from our deep store. As a result we now only have enough new blades to fit to three engines on WR963 when the time comes to make her airworthy. As such if anyone is offered or sees for sale any Shackleton propeller blades; please let us know.
We have a control sheet listing all our blade serial numbers, so can match any that come from our stock - and there are only a couple that we have let go legitimately due to being time expired or damaged.
Regards,
Rich
I assume these blades are a specific item to the Shackelton and are of no use to any other aircraft type?
The blades fit the hubs as used on Griffon 58, but as they are the correct rotation for a lot of other piston engines its possible they fit into another hub that we're not aware of. We're pretty sure the theft (they've not been taken by mistake - we contacted the other keyholders to the store) was deliberate as only four of the five blades on the pallet were taken, and they're not easy to get at.
We've not much hope of getting them back, or if we do that they be in good condition; as the chances are they will have been cropped or modified for use elsewhere. We have had Warwickshire Police out to site, and we're all pretty sure its not just scrap metal theft.
So - if you see any blades out there please let us know... as not only would we like to find the missing set, we now have to find replacements as we now only have enough new items for three out of our four engines. Unless we can get new blades made, propeller life is going to dictate how long our Shackleton will fly for when she returns to the air.
Regards,
Rich
We've not much hope of getting them back, or if we do that they be in good condition; as the chances are they will have been cropped or modified for use elsewhere. We have had Warwickshire Police out to site, and we're all pretty sure its not just scrap metal theft.
So - if you see any blades out there please let us know... as not only would we like to find the missing set, we now have to find replacements as we now only have enough new items for three out of our four engines. Unless we can get new blades made, propeller life is going to dictate how long our Shackleton will fly for when she returns to the air.
Regards,
Rich
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