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Post by baz62 on Oct 17, 2021 11:51:26 GMT 12
Fantastic progress Alex! Certainly the first time I've seen that fuselage without the major air conditioning hole!
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Post by ZacYates on Oct 17, 2021 16:55:15 GMT 12
Seeing the door in place made my day! Well done all!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 20, 2021 10:56:25 GMT 12
The Wings Over New Zealand Show Episode 245 is now online. This features a brilliant talk given five years ago by Ferrymead Aeronautical Society's Denys Jones about the recovery and restoration of their rare Lockheed Hudson wartime bomber, NZ2035. This talk was given five years ago at a Wings Over New Zealand Forum Meet at the Air Force Museum of New Zealand, but it remains totally valid today as the restoration continues. Have a look at photos from Denys's presentation on the show page here:
cambridgeairforce.org.nz/WONZShow/2021/10/wonz-245-denys-jones-hudson-nz2035/
I should have released this ages ago but we were planning to make it a video too with all the photos Denys used in his talk, but then he could not find some of them as he'd wiped his USB stick, and it got put aside and accidentally forgotten. I am glad to have finally released it.
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Post by denysjones on Oct 24, 2021 15:05:20 GMT 12
A quiet day in the workshop this week with lots of guys off here and there for the long weekend. However the usual activities were underway with stripping of a helicopter transmission mast, Harvard cockpit pimping, and Mosquito wiring, metal bashing and wood crafting. On the Hudson front the starboard firewall and accessory bay continue to come back together with nearly all the items recently removed being now reinstalled and some new plumbing being made up and/or fitted along with more cleaning and polishing of the stainless bay items. Meanwhile the home workbench has a kitset bomb rack (number seven through the process) arrayed on it. Items are in varying stages of the Clean, Prime, and Paint process. You can tell it has to be British simply by the number of parts can't you! I'll take this opportunity to put out a plea again if anyone can point us to any of these units as we need seven more to mount all these bomb racks in the bay. The whole rack attaches to these and they in turn lock into the bomb bay structure. All very complicated and Hudson specific but I keep on hoping that some lurk out there somewhere. cheers
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Post by denysjones on Oct 30, 2021 20:49:29 GMT 12
Another day of refitting bits, cleaning areas, and measuring up and bending piping. During it a delivery of assorted bits arrived and amongst it was a quantity of some confusing bits. These look to be some sort of stand-off supports for some tubular object. Given that then you'd assume there is a second piece that mirrors the upper segment and is screwed/bolted to the two ends of it. However there are no holes for said attachment to be made via. So what are they? They bear what we assume to be their P/N 1350E207. Anyone out there have a clue as to what they are, and if you do and have a need...we're the ones to contact! cheers
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Post by hrvd1068 on Nov 4, 2021 6:24:35 GMT 12
We will have an iff aerial and bracket coming your way shortly for the mosquito.
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Post by agile on Nov 5, 2021 8:47:35 GMT 12
Many thanks for that Nick. This weekend's mission is to rattle the Harvard guys' cage to see what we have in the way of spare bits.
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Post by denysjones on Nov 6, 2021 20:18:35 GMT 12
Having finished bomb rack 7 the other week we're left with two more needed for a full set for 2035. We're blessed with two more sets of sway stays, release control, and release slip but currently are short of two more of the main rails. We do however have a pair of US units type B-7 one of which came attached to a Hudson rack adaptor so we know that they were used on our Hudsons. I've also a shot, courtesy of the team at the AWM Canberra, of an RAAF Hudson being bombed up and you can see plenty of British racks in evidence but two bundles of flares/incendiaries show up and must be mounted on some other unit which I think could most likely be B-7s. So I've taken a punt and decided to refurb our pair and put them aside for use if we can't complete the set of British ones therefor the starting point on one was, They are a much simpler unit than the British ones as seen here with it disassembled, and for their size quite interesting that they are rated to load 1100lb (roughly 500Kg for you non-imperials). Things all came together, albeit that someone has removed three of the pins that hold bits in place, hence the twist ties which will be replaced after a fossick in the stock of pins, and it makes an interesting comparison with the British rack. Note that the rack doesn't have sway stay arms like the British does but the one that came attached to the Hudson adaptor unit had these somewhat crude items which I wonder could be RNZAF in origin as they just don't look American production pieces. As a bit of an aside you might notice in the first pic above a bit of cable lurks across the top of the shot. This is one of a parcel that came our way from our kindred group at Ferrymead, the Radio Preservation Society, which they had been told were from a Hudson radio installation. That was right and after treatment this week it and a kindred partner made the connection today from the MP-10G radio dynamotor pack through to the W/O's bay of 2035. cheers
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Post by denysjones on Nov 13, 2021 20:52:17 GMT 12
A quiet day today plodding away on the reinstatement in engine accessory land along with more cleaning and prep work of the centre section faces in the starboard accessory area. Now that major works in both accessory areas are over these wee fellas could go on as they clearly impede access from the sides of the bays. These are the Adel carburettor de-icing system pumps and once in place this enabled the afternoon measure ups and bend ups for connecting plumbing from them to the manifold on the firewalls and back to the supply tank just left out of shot. And then suddenly the day was gone :-)
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Post by ZacYates on Nov 14, 2021 13:31:59 GMT 12
I know this is a question that may not even have been considered, let alone decided upon, but I'd quite like to build a model of NZ2035 at some point and I was wondering what the final exterior paint scheme will look like?
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Post by denysjones on Nov 16, 2021 19:43:27 GMT 12
Just a quick update which some may be interested in relating to the mystery Y yoke shown on the 30th Oct. They have been identified as coming from the RAF Light Series Bomb Carrier, as you see below, and we're now working on a trade to another project.
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Post by agile on Nov 21, 2021 9:35:31 GMT 12
A bit of progress from the woodwork shop. Most of the balsa is back in The Big Repair, and we're starting to think about how to get the skin to conform to the compound curve of the nose: A recent parts swap with a group in Canada has secured us (most of) a second radiator header tank - the complete one came from Tony Agar at East Kirkby a few years back. It'll take a bit of tin bashing, and we'll have to somehow replicate the bottom half, but it's a start (tanks like these even in worse condition go for absolutely stupid money when they come up on EBay): A couple of interesting finds. The first is the union where the suction lines from the two hydraulic pumps join up on Bulkhead 3 just aft of the wing. The one on the right is from NZ2328, the one on the left turned up recently. This had me at a loss until I checked out the drawing. Turns out there are two alternative methods of manufacture: On a similar but more mysterious note, these also turned up recently, from within NZ. They are both fuel transfer cocks (which are mounted on the nav's armour) and nominally the same part but the one with the triangular flange has a Canadian part number (Q98CXXX as opposed to Q98XXX). I've not come across any prior evidence of Canadian manufactured parts on NZ Mossies, all of which were of course built in the UK or Australia: Zac, I'm hoping Denys will answer your question about the final scheme for NZ2035 - I'm curious too actually. Cheers A
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Post by ZacYates on Nov 21, 2021 14:52:30 GMT 12
Great update Alex, and how fascinating to see the different options for parts to do the same job. Zac, I'm hoping Denys will answer your question about the final scheme for NZ2035 - I'm curious too actually. I live in hope! No rush though, I haven't even got a kit but it struck me as a neat subject to build.
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Post by agile on Nov 21, 2021 16:15:12 GMT 12
I live in hope! No rush though, I haven't even got a kit but it struck me as a neat subject to build. Don't forget that for real authenticity you have to build it, saw the wings off and bury them in your septic tank outfall for a few years then join them back on. :-D
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Post by ZacYates on Nov 21, 2021 17:00:38 GMT 12
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Post by denysjones on Nov 24, 2021 13:07:31 GMT 12
Checking in a few days late this week to let you absorb Alex's update. On Saturday Hudson land was more of the same from recent weeks but some of it is now coming back together so if all goes well this Saturday we should should have something to show for it. Also part of Saturday was taken up with sorting another delivery of assorted items that had been collected together and consigned to me solely because of the colour green that they were painted was Lockheed's Hudson interior green. As always with such arrivals quite a number of the items are badly damaged and/or we already have but they'll often yield fittings and fixtures that I'm always in need of. Others turn out to be real gems. One was a needed light unit. If you check back to pages 21 & 22 here and the 24 Nov and Dec 2020 posts you'll see I had two bases for interior roof lights but only one completed roof light had got installed in the main cabin. This week the missing item to complete another turned up and it has to have been luck or a colour blind finder as it isn't "Hudson green" but rather it is the later more olive shade, albeit two coats thereof. It was badly bent and had lost the opaque cover but somehow the bulb was in place and unbroken. It's now in bits on the home workbench. The reflector is in the process of panel beating and polishing and the others are getting straightened prior to cleaning etc. Apart from the paint shade I've confirmed it is a Ventura one as the base plate has 13644-2 stamped on it which isn't a Hudson P/N but is in the Ventura IPC. The light reflector has a painted P/N on it 610003-3 which is common to both aircraft and is a Lockheed one assigned to "standardise" it rather than use the OEM P/N. btw Zac...If I knew myself do you really think I'd tell?...cats and bags come to mind Onwards and upwards as they say
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Post by ZacYates on Nov 24, 2021 14:57:27 GMT 12
Another solid update, thanks Denys! btw Zac...If I knew myself do you really think I'd tell?...cats and bags come to mind Well..I figured it couldn't hurt to ask...
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Post by denysjones on Nov 28, 2021 15:07:16 GMT 12
First job of the day was to install the plumbing made up last week for the deicer. Here you see the connection going forward joined up to the through connector on the so-called manifold panel. All the other holes in the panel are pre-drills as per the blueprint for the other connectors of sorts and sizes that will eventually (hopefully) come to pass one by one. The rearwards connector then comes back to the under side of the fluid tank located on the inboard wall of the undercarriage bay. It's a pretty sizeable tank but I guess the RAF and RCAF needed lots of fluid for their area of operations. There are two tanks one each side of the a/c. Next was the contortionist act of measuring up the vent tube from the tank. This locates on the top,of course and right forward on the tank so that undercarriage brace did nothing to make matters easy but we got there. It then vents out the wall of the bay. I also sorted and pondered some more items from last week's new arrivals and brought one home to investigate further today. It's an interesting object and so I removed the remains of the exterior paint, which would come off anyway, in the hope of finding a P/N thereunder but nope! So I cleaned the interior next and one came to hand stamped therein but of course it is another not present in the parts book for the US Hudson which says it is RAF and/or bomber fit. The grommet suggests either fluid or wiring comes in there. The base ring might indicate a sphere or cylinder sits thereon and the fact it isn't an entire circle poses a question in itself . In the base are two holes opposing one another presumably to fix it in place plus a third larger one right out in the curve of the wall to base join (that's it faintly visible on the upper left) which suggests a drain for excess fluid perhaps. Anyone out there seen such a thing in the context of another RAF a/c? cheers
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Post by denysjones on Dec 8, 2021 14:44:57 GMT 12
A busy week so far has got in the road of last Saturday's activities. The major task was refitting all the items that were removed from the leading edge of the outboard end of the starboard engine accessory bay that has been the focus of late. This shot is taken from outboard obviously looking towards the fuselage. The large aperture fitting dominating the view is the connecting point for a major shielded cable duct which runs from the fuselage. The oversize washer surrounding it is a camouflage job as somewhere back in time the original fitting had been wrenched out of place and the mounting hole and surrounding metal had been stretched, cracked, and bits had broken off. I tidied up the hole to allow a replacement fitting to go in and then covered it all up with said washer and a mate inboard which squeezed things more or less into order as the fixing nut was tightened up. Then from it various cable sets break out and loop back to the smaller fittings around about it and thus back into the accessory bay and thence to engine accessories as appropriate. All the fittings here were in place till removed so the bay could be cleaned and painted so it's interesting the number of apertures that are blanked off and wonder what intents Lockheed had for them that didn't get use in our Hudsons? The blanks are Lockheed's as they all have P/N stampings. Top and bottom are a pair of terminal posts presumably for the common power connections. On the top of the wing a pair of pipes have had to be dealt to in situ as access to their other ends is completely obstructed by the oil tank immediately below the wing skin. The next job is to work out where the connection to the left of the pair that the forward pipe ends in has to be made to and build that. ttfn
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Post by ZacYates on Dec 8, 2021 16:04:18 GMT 12
Fascinating stuff, thank you Denys.
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