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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 12, 2022 9:20:06 GMT 12
Thanks Denys. What a shame about the hangar and the loss of promised aeroplanes. At least ZK-AHS is safely preserved at MOTAT but what happened to the Miles Whitney Straight in the end?
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Post by agile on Sept 17, 2022 21:05:01 GMT 12
Today was a bit of a red letter day as we removed the cockpit door, now that the starboard side of the fuselage is more or less skinned (there's still the repair to do in the cannon bay, but we'll get there. To paraphrase HW Tilman, as the door was removed from the hole, Dagy and I forgot ourselves so far as to shake hands. We then went on and removed the dummy forward cockpit bulkhead and associated props. There was nary a creak or groan, which was a huge relief: It's a great opportunity to look back - we've come a long way: This view shows a bit of the mountain we have to climb inside the cockpit, now that we can access it again: In the meantime George and the lads have finished building our fireproof wing rib: And now they're cracking on with reassembling the ailerons. Cheers A
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Post by johnnyfalcon on Sept 18, 2022 7:27:27 GMT 12
Outstanding! You boys deserve a beer and a handshake!
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Post by baz62 on Sept 18, 2022 17:36:36 GMT 12
A great achievement. Certainly jaw dropping when you compare with the photo showing how much wood had gone! As Johnny says a well deserved beer!
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Post by ZacYates on Sept 19, 2022 7:13:23 GMT 12
Bravo gents, what a milestone!
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Post by denysjones on Sept 27, 2022 12:47:45 GMT 12
Since the last update on this front the long battle of tube bending has continued. With everything having to be done twice over, with variations, for the two engines I think you'd tire of blow by blow updates. The recent bits have been the feeds from the rear face of the firewall manifold through to the fuselage interior to link up with the gauges for oil, fuel, and manifold pressure. So it's a little different from the previous posts. In the aircraft each gauge has a line behind it which runs across the space there to connect to a right angle connector at the top of a member of a collection of vertical tubes. At the bottom of these verticals another right angle connector joins to a horizontal line which runs rearward. From each of those another line, with multiple bends in it, heads out of the fuselage and joins up with the final piece running out to the firewall manifold. Above is the current state of the port side where the upper one, the manifold pressure, has yet to have its final piece fitted. It is also lacking the fairlead which will clamp it to one of its two lower mates and then its left end will sit level relative to the lowers. The fairleads are another fabrication matter as we go along. You can see the fairlead clamping the two lower lines just left of centre of shot. That's five bits of tubing per instrument and so far that's six done! ttfn
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 27, 2022 15:02:08 GMT 12
Nice work Denys!
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Post by denysjones on Oct 3, 2022 12:06:00 GMT 12
This week's first job was the manufacture of two more pieces of plumbing which in themselves aren't that spectacular but I thought their use might well interest some people out there.... The decicing system for the wings and tail surfaces uses the tried and true inflating rubber boots on the leading edges system. The major part of said system, operations wise, is located on the starboard side of the floor of the radio operator's office. Here's a very old shot when it was going back in place. From the left are the oil separator and the two valves for the distribution of the pressure to the aircraft surfaces. This is all hidden in a box with a lid on it but very visible is the multitude of pipes running crosswise through the carry-through of the wing main spar. Air for the system is supplied from two engine driven pumps and is piped back from the engine nacelles, through the leading edge member of the centre section into the oil tank bay and then into the spar to connect with one of said multitude of pipes running through the spar. Missing were the pipes from the leading edge members' union to another union on the firewalls. Like so many of these things the pipes differ for port or starboard. The port one was nice and simple, starboard about three times as long and more convoluted but we got it sussed. Here is the port one...that simple little piece diving across from the top of shot down to make connection to the firewall union. Below it are the two pipes for the undercarriage extension and retraction mentioned the other week and below them two different sized as yet empty connections. Based on its size I've deduced that the upper of the two is for another feed back to the instrument panel where there are gauges for landing gear pressure, but I've yet to investigate what goes on in the undercarriage bay for that purpose. The lower of the two is, at this time, a complete dark hole to be delved into. ttfn
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Post by denysjones on Oct 21, 2022 8:55:57 GMT 12
Not a nuts and bolts matter to report here but something a tad different.
Some years ago I tracked down one Paul Panehal who was a radioman on VX-6 assigned to the crew of our LC-47H. Paul supplied some four A4 pages of write-up on the a/c service from 1963 to 1969 (the first three years when it was on the ice and the others when it was the "hack" in Christchurch).
Included in this were detailed crew lists, and the personnel assignments to the one starting in 1966 listed the co-pilot as "Lt RNZAF from Wigram" but Paul had forgotten his name and since then I've wondered who he might have been. This week I had a phone conversation thus
"Is the LC-47 still at Ferrymead?" "Yes" "Am I able to visit and see it?" "Sure it's publically accessible, what's your special interest?" "I used to fly it" "Forgive me but you don't sound american" "I'm not I was RNZAF and was loaned to the yanks as they needed a second pilot"
So yesterday I had a great afternoon as F/O Murray Crawford was re-united with 17221 and passed on a lot of interesting info about the flying he was involved in during the a/c's last three years of service here.
It was a case of being right place right time in that his role at Wigram allowed him to fill the american requests and he was already C-47 rated but currently flying Devons.
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Post by davidd on Oct 21, 2022 9:18:14 GMT 12
Great story there Denys, lucky you, and fortunately you knew enough to realize the significance of this contact.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 21, 2022 9:55:03 GMT 12
Excellent to read that Denys.
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Post by tbf2504 on Oct 21, 2022 11:53:51 GMT 12
Murray was also an Operations Officer at Wigram during his flying of this machine. I worked with him on many occasions providing the communications support to flight plans, and radio watches with various aircraft. I remember on one weekend there was an aircraft departing Wigram and Murray slept in, so I sent the flight plan and monitored the ops radio frequency until the aircraft was clear of Wigram control zone. Entered all the relevant details into the Ops log, leaving space for Murray to sign on and sign off. He was most appreciative of the lowly LAC's endeavours!!
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Post by denysjones on Oct 29, 2022 20:23:42 GMT 12
Quiet day numbers-wise today but various fronts being progressed. Rob took the day off from chopper stuff to do some repairs to building spouting that had suffered weather damage and Dean leapt into the number two role on that. With summer time we have to all pitch in and get the R&M done before next winter. Gerry was a solo Team1058 on site but as you can see the work on that front is progressing well. You need to remember that the aircraft was disassembled so the cockpit region space frame could go away for blasting and epoxy painting so there's an awful lot of bits to be re-attached. Dag arrived with more tubing material stock for the on-going outfitting on 2035. During the week I'd prepped various larger size (as in bigger than the 1/4" instrument feeds I've been doing of late) 5/8"and 3/4" unions to complete the firewall manifolds. So with the new material the afternoon work yielded the two feeds to and from the port hydraulic pump to the firewall and a start on the fuel feed for the starboard. cheers
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Post by baz62 on Oct 30, 2022 9:02:57 GMT 12
58 is looking great and a credit to the team.
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Post by ZacYates on Oct 30, 2022 13:03:00 GMT 12
Hear hear!
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Post by agile on Nov 5, 2022 11:20:31 GMT 12
It's a good opportunity for me to pen a Mossie update as I am confined to quarters for a week or so. Inside the cockpit I have been plotting out where all the 'ferrules' where stuff is attached to the inside of the fuselage are located, and which ones are missing. Some of these aren't dimensioned on the drawing but instead require the part to be offered up to plot the ferrule positions. Here Junction Box B, containing the fuel guages and a lot of the nav's controls is offered up. IT's been a long time since this unit graced the inside of the cockpit: Here is Junction Box A. This was one we weren't able to find or swap for, so it has been a real community effort. The box was made by forum member and sim-builder extraordianaire Robb. The various switches and buttons were bought at great expense from the UK and Australia. Avspecs Ltd have helped out with sample photos and measurements of the interior and wiring, and with parts for some of the electrical connectors: Apropos Avspecs and Junction Boxes, recently Dylan Stace and I were trying to figure out an obviously post-war mod to Junction Box C (the main fusebox) and JB B. It seems that the RNZAF installed shunts and wiring for voltmeters and ammeters in the aircraft that were used in service NZ2328 and NZ2336 both had this mod, whereas HR339 and at least a few others didn't get it. The really interesting part while Dylan was looking through their examples was that they are almost always 'named' - I know I've nerded out about this in the past but I really love the thought of these ladies working away together, no doubt yakking away and proudly but discretely signing off each completed item: I'm assuming that they must have been at Standard Motors in Coventry or some associated facility, and the fact that Peggy did at least 4 of the 76 aircraft that were exported to NZ suggests quite a small workforce. While we've got the Junction boxes temporarily fitted Angus has been measuring up to rebuild the various wiring looms that join them together. We had the loom for JB A, but it was cut off at the back of the box. Another has been decapitated at the terminating 'Breeze' connector. Breeze connectors are like rocking horse plop, and come in at least 5 sizes and about a gazillion different pin layouts so we've been scratching to build up replacements. Here Angus is working on the loom for JB A: George and his minions have nearly completed one aileron: They're leaving the bottom skin off while they work on the other one, for reference purposes. The corrosion inside the other aileron is pretty bad: In order to progress the last repair to the starboard side of the fuselage, Dagy has removed the side panel from under the wing: This area hasn't seen this much daylight for a while! Cheers A
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Post by davidd on Nov 5, 2022 11:30:25 GMT 12
Great post agile (as usual), a real aircraft factory, but not much like the originals! Originals were filled with young men and ladies, present ones, well, they are "peopled by the mature!"
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Post by agile on Nov 5, 2022 12:55:56 GMT 12
DavidD, I was helping one of my colleagues with some Deeds Index reasearch on a certain property in Pigeon Bay the other day, and I smiled when I saw in an entry from August 1920 'leased Wylie to Duxbury'. Your Dad, I assume.
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Post by davidd on Nov 5, 2022 13:57:37 GMT 12
agile, would not have been my dad (Ivan Charles, born 1923 died 1984), more likely his father (Thomas Stanley). However there were some other relations about on the Peninsular in those days, including uncles, cousins, etc.
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Post by agile on Nov 5, 2022 14:14:46 GMT 12
Ah right. The deed didn't have any initials, I'll have to look at the actual title. I'm fairly sure it's the property where HR339's cockpit finished its days.
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