Ferrymead News

[Antonio]

Just been re-reading the Society's web-page on HR339,
Link:  ferrymeadaero.org.nz/about/de-havilland-mosquito-fb-vi/ 

Never really paid much attention to the photo until now, it is a fantastic example of Marsden matting v levelled earth.
Must have save countless aircraft from incidents / disasters.



HR339 in transit from the UK to NZ in 1947-8. (Source unknown, via Anthony Galbraith)

[madmax]

I still encounter a lot of Marsden matting in use here in the Philippines usually for fencing however one or two innovative individuals have stood the panels on end welded several together then added hinges on one side to turn them into very effective security gates

[denysjones]

Dag is making progress steadily along the port outer wing panel and is now nearing the outer tank bay which marks where this panel was cut off.



Rob likewise moves on and now the R22 has received its mast which means in the next week or two we should see the R44 get the same treatment such is the progress in parallel on these two projects.



Team 1058 are making steady progress on the 1340 with push rods and their covers and front cowl supports being installed.



My day, by comparison, was less conspicuous with small jobs of cleaning and test fitting of several parts with nothing much to show for it but, all things going according to plan, the results of those labours should become apparent next week.

[denysjones]

After a morning of small assorted tasks such as go with the various matters of such as operation of the society I got down to the real stuff post lunch.

The persons(s) who liberated the control wheel from 2035 back in 1973 were kind enough to leave behind related materials which we retrieved from the depths of the fuselage at a later date. So after cleaning, and a couple of new pieces, here they are post cleaning



Which fortunately are what is required to mount the wheel (the brass nut being one of Dean's fabrications as the swine stole that!).

The top pieces at the right are pretty obviously the mount for the control wheel. The other two sprockets mount at the left (fuselage wall) end of the horizontal of the control column. The two chain unit loops go round the wheel shaft and then out over those other sprockets and through 90 degrees and off down the vertical of the column.

Part way down the column they attach to eyes on the end of cables which continue down the column before turning another 90 degrees and running towards the centre line of the aircraft where after another 90 degree turn they head aft to the autopilot actuator and the aileron cable drum.

Today's big challenge was to figure out how to get these to install in the confines of the column...hopefully we have a plan that will work as the E&M manual offers nothing more that simple directions such as "install cables on control sprocket".

Wish me luck!

[denysjones]

A decidedly chilly start to the day meant that some of the morning programme had to be rolled over to another day. However with the afternoon sun and the residual temperature in the hangar the opportunity to work towards the installation of the inboard flap segment on BXG presented itself.

The flap tracks are a steel channel member and all her years outside had of course led to rust a plenty breaking out thereon. Earlier we'd dressed off the worst of the rust and then treated the surface with a rust conversion product.

This provided a good basis to go forward today.

The inboard/fuselage track was in pretty good shape as was the surrounding skins so it required just a wee bit of tidy up here and there followed by a corrosion inhibiting epoxy spray paint which we'd found was a delightfully close match to the shade of white on the aircraft itself .



However outboard the area was in a worse state which is an interesting thing in its own right. The rust had originally set in more deeply and there was interaction between the steel of the tracks and the surrounding skin attachments. This meant deeper rust removal had been initially required along with the removal of the corroded skin material prior to the conversion treatment.

The resulting areas were then treated in the same manner as the inboard ones and now the last task is the making of a replacement piece of skinning to fill the curved cutout area above the track and after painting those surrounding skin pieces it's job done...time for flap install!

[denysjones]

Plans for the week got rearranged by higher order management on the domestic front and resulted in only a small window of opportunity to get some works done and the closest to hand was the compartment light that came our way last October (see here page 43 October 21st post).



The unit was without the glass cover and off and on since then I'd been trying different places to try and obtain one of the right size and shape as per the others through the aircraft...all to no avail.

Therefore this week some assorted pieces of scrap wood in the garage got repurposed to make a plunge type mould where a suitable piece of perspex could be induced to assume the shape by way of a trusty Black and Decker heat gun and some clamps.



After some fettling (lovely old pommie expression often heard used in 633Sqn land isn't it) and a light interior coat of white frosting it merged with the renovated donation so voila one roof light navigator's compartment for installation in.

[Antonio]

What is the future of NZ1058 scheme-wise?
Any chance it will be finished in TAF colours?

[denysjones]

Another Saturday of small jobs.

On the flap section from the Chathams for BXG two access covers for were missing so a simple cut shape and drill job there. Whoever removed them had come up against several screws that wouldn't budge and had drilled their heads off. The easiest solution was to remove the old captive nuts and replace with new ones apart from one where the old nut was inaccessible, being mounted in a closed off section of the flap. That meant a drill and tapping job.

Then down on BXG itself the small panel above the flap track that was held over from the other took the focus. No great drama just a bit of time to make a card template and transfer the shape to metal.

Next it was onto the nose gear and installing the two faux pieces I'd made to which the gear door retraction strut attaches. These had posed another wee hassle in that the four bolts that hold them on proved not to be the run of the mill either 1/4" or 5/16" BSF found elsewhere over BXG but 9/32". Thus I'm now the proud owner of a die for said thread size which has been used eight times and may well never be so again.



Now we just need to make the eye bolts that fix the door struts to them.

Rob was busy on the R22 with the engine area progressing week by week (you'll note the supervisor keeping an eye on things from the parts shelves).



He also has been attending to a cockpit trim piece of which we had several, all of which exhibited differing amounts of the same sort of damage and/or repair. The best example was selected for use and this week was completed with signage from our supporter Owen.



Dean and Barrie have spent the last two Saturdays installing fan blades in the JT8D and this week were trying to make sense of the assorted plumbing and wiring items that came with it. They tell me that these items vary depending on the position on the 727 where each engine was installed (remember this engine is from a 727 not a 737) and they're now trying to figure out which position it is from and thus which bits are needed and which are surplus.





633Sqn's metal bashers (George, Oscar and Reid) have finished their interlude on Hudson work where they have taken the two undercarriage leg shrouds which were like this



and transformed them to this



Thanks guys :-)

[agile]

Jun 19, 2024 21:42:47 GMT 12 Antonio said:

What is the future of NZ1058 scheme-wise?
Any chance it will be finished in TAF colours?

I don't know whether there's a final decision on this but given that the grey/orange paint is generally in pretty good nick (cowls need a respray though 😂 ) and that the aircraft received its FAC mods while in that scheme I'd be surprised if we turned the clock back. We'd also then have to find the forward antenna mast, which ISTR are unobtanium.

[curtiss]

Jun 23, 2024 20:25:17 GMT 12 agile said:

Jun 19, 2024 21:42:47 GMT 12 Antonio said:

What is the future of NZ1058 scheme-wise?
Any chance it will be finished in TAF colours?

I don't know whether there's a final decision on this but given that the grey/orange paint is generally in pretty good nick (cowls need a respray though 😂 ) and that the aircraft received its FAC mods while in that scheme I'd be surprised if we turned the clock back. We'd also then have to find the forward antenna mast, which ISTR are unobtanium.

In days of old, the model aero club at Wigram was given a large number of the masts to cut up- they were made of Spruce and ideal for making models with.....

[denysjones]

This week was time for the members AGM and so a number of not often seen faces were on hand and reviewing the active team's endeavours.

However we did get some work done as well.

Having taken delivery of the leg shrouds for 2035 I thought it was time to deal to these rather forlorn looking items which have always been lurking on the shelves with the shrouds.



Obviously the two units to the right rear don't relate to the larger one so I've put them to one side for the mo. After some liberal application of CRC the cover was separated and some tentative panel beating augurs well for a recovery but the rusted materials I fear will put up a bit of a fight.



The unit fits on the undercarriage leg as per this snip from the IPC. At the moment its function is not immediately obvious and will be the subject of investigation as we progress through the week's activity but interestingly there is but one per aircraft mounted on the port gear, described only as a Control Assembly.



Watch this space

[oj]

Looks like a box housing for a ground squat microswitch. You generally only have that on one leg. I take it you know the purpose of the squat switch.

[Deleted]

As I said in the MOTAT thread, after a while away from the forum it's tremendous to see the progress on various projects. Outstanding work!

[denysjones]

The switch unit broke down into its assorted components with relative ease.



The rusted items were treated to some abrasion to remove the really thick flaking rust, then soaked for some 36hours in Evapo-Rust, and finally some areas got a light wire brushing. The cover straightened out pretty well also but the cold wet week meant painting was not a goer however now they've been etch primed and undercoated ready for the next warm day for top coat.



But .... some of my endeavours prove wasted as yesterday I decided to conduct a recce of where things mount on the leg. For ages now the legs have had a protective wrap of foam around them and when I removed that there I beheld a partly complete major bracket assembly.



I now can't figure out where the other one came from but it is going to donate the cover and the other now primed clamp unit which secures the bottom of a conduit slightly above.

Other activities around the place included Dean and Barrie working on the JT8 and eventually I was proudly told that "we now have reverse gear" as they had succeeded in getting the reverser clamshell open which is how we've decided to display it.



Rob was doing a trial fit of the R22's rear to see what pitfalls might loom for him but none came to pass.



Dag's handiwork on the mossie wings is looking good.



I selected for my homework this week a junction box which lurks in the spar gap in each undercarriage bay as per this port side one.



It's starboard buddy, and associated conduits, definitely needs TLC, but amazingly the four cover screws and three mounting ones all undid with just a whiff of CRC.

[denysjones]

The first task at home this week was to make sense of those two brackets that I put aside from the squat switch the other week. Putting them on the bench you can see that they are virtually mirror images of one another and are obviously short by the cutoffs at one end which presumably were to remove them whence they came.



After a quick whisk over the bands I located they were both stamped with P/Ns 75995-3 and a check with the IPC confirmed that number is from the undercarriage legs. Visually the two match the mountings around the upper part of the leg which I've shaded yellow here.



According to the manual the number 26 upper one is a -3 "used on LH side only" while number 25 lower is a -2 "used on RH side only" so some more investigation was called for.

I came to the conclusion that the whole collection that I grabbed the other week has come to us as a job lot from a now unknown source seeing they were all in the same rusted state. Going on from that assumption I'm now leaning towards the notion that, dash numbers being ignored, these two satisfy the need on the upper half of the leg and I toyed with the notion that the other two pieces that were with the spare switch unit were meant to go with them. But no, as offering them up like this



showed that they are different sizes which makes sense as the leg is different diameters on its top and bottom halves.

We are then left with the other pair which don't show in the manual but are the right size for the lower portion of the leg. Looking at photos of other aircrafts legs they suggest that they might make a mount on the lower half of the leg and the clamp on one of them secures the squat switch circuit conduit before it bends around the leg and out of view in the diagram. So that's what we're running with.

The other home project was the junction box which has come back to life nicely.



It is rather interesting in that there is no terminal block piece in it and thus it must just be a housing where a loom of cables breaks out into runs off in various directions. It appears that said feed either comes from the engine accessory bay and splits off elsewhere or vice versa..something else to suss out!

Now that the box is out of the road I removed the four tubes that run above it, being the pneumatic feeds to the wing deicer boots, and launched into cleaning the faces of that area which all those items prevented being done to date.

All exciting stuff as you need to remember that this is the starboard side and this centre section is one retrieved from the Dunback farm cess pool :-)

[agile]

Down in the fashionable end of the establishment, Dagy has been working on radio racks while patiently waiting for me to finish the bulkhead repairs mentioned in a previous post.

The GEE system in the Mossie sees the CRT indicator shoehorned into the gap behind the pilot's seat (a space otherwise occupied by the intercom amplifier). The kind folks at Avspecs loaned us their super-rare GEE indicator rack (even delivering it by hand to my door which was above and beyond). It's quite a complex wee beast, with tubular steel legs:


Joined with folded plates, and the indicator resting in a tray suspended from two channel sections with a weird bulge in the middle:


The whole assembly is mounted to the 'navigator's floor' with two welded feet at the rear shaped to clear the cabin heat controls:


The channel sections are mounted to the tubular frame by four 'Lord' anti-vibration mounts, and even here there is weirdness with the folded brackets straddling the edge of the channel:


Trial fitting to get the spacing of the mounts right:


The finished product and the exemplar:


The craftsman with his handiwork. While construction was going on Angus gave the indicator a spruce up too:


Next up is the R.1355 GEE receiver. This is mounted on the wing deck behind the pilot, close to where the R.1155 recever would otherwise be fitted. The rack consists of two bearers:





Joined by a couple of channels. The receiver is mounted offset to one side of the bearers, presumably to clear the curved side of the fuselage. This is to some degree guesswork as the drawings are limited:


In the meantime Angus (with help from Dagy) has been sprucing up our R.1355, along with a spare Radio Frequency unit. A spare was carried so that the frequency could be changed to avoid jamming. The spare is mounted on the forward cockpit bulkhead behind the centre instrument panel, so I assume navigators must have been good at yoga in addition to all the radio-wrangling!


The gear has all come up looking nice:


Meanwhile, when not rebuilding Hudson leg fairings George and his young charges have been reassembling the resoted engine cowlings, replacing any missing rivets as they go:




I have got bulkhead 2 tidied up and the fabric applied:




Got it painted and started replacing hardware:


The bracket with the lightening holes in the middle of the bulkhead is for the immersion switch which was intended to automagically release the inflatable dinghy when the aircraft came down in the water. If the mod sheets are to be believed, the dinghy was also prone to releasing itself when there was a bit of dampness in the air, which no doubt caused great excitement in the cockpit. Eventually a second immersion switch was added to the roof of the bomb bay to subdue the dinghy's antics.

On the front of the bulkhead is the mounting strip for the removable panel covering the outside cannon recoils. Bit of a bar-steward to install with loads of tiny woodscrews in a confined space:


In preparation for removing the port side panel a bit of last minute fettling saw a tapered strip of spruce glued to the bottom edge to account for the mismatch between the hinged cannon door and the side panel (presumably our door is not off this fuselage). Gotta love hand-built aircraft eh?


Cheers
A

[planecrazy]

That scratch built radio bracket is wonderful, the Mosi is progressing along, well done to all!

[denysjones]

I left it a couple of days so folks could digest Alex's post as there was also steady but not spectacular progress on a number of fronts on Saturday.

Rob and Paul were active on Robinson stuff with Paul delivering the latest batch of parts from his home paint shop and collecting the latest prepped parts from Rob. Dag, Alex, George and Angus were chipping away at their various on-going mossie stuff. Dean was busy removing aged preservative from the JT8 and then polishing the areas before he and Barrie progressed matters around the re-organising of the Harvard project work area.

That bit of work was also of benefit to myself and 2035 as for quite a number of years the tail of 1058 has been supported by a jack that I've been coveting to support 2035 so I can fit the undercarriage jack rams. Now I just await Dean's having taken the jack off for a long overdue deep service.

I can forgive him as during the week he'd made good the one legged mounts for the squat switch conduit and returned them for fettling and finishing....duly priming now done.



Saturday coming I'll see how we go on sorting their definitive positions up the leg and then how the conduit run will work.

My afternoon work consisted of more cleaning of the current focus area in the centre section and the making of some of the electrical tubing that will run off that junction box from recent weeks reports. Both centre sections need these and so its always easier to get in the swing of things and do jobs like that in multiples. In this case it was the runs to the undercarriage position switch and next up it will be the ones to the fuel tank sender units.

[Deleted]

Outstanding work on all fronts team! I always enjoy seeing the latest updates.

[denysjones]

Mission one of the day today was the u/c leg straps and during the week a bit of study of various sources set the scene.

First up I measured the spacing of the three straps on the leg fairings and then put temporary markers of their positions on the leg barrel so I could figure out where the others went with certainty that they were clear of one another. Next I offered up the two pieces from last week based on the indications of their positions from the parts book illustration. Then I made a guess where the one we have which doesn't show in the parts book, but clearly has a clamp on it for the conduit, would most likely fit. I then loosely attached all three to the leg.

Next I worked on the alignment of the two conduit clamps with the switch at the bottom of the leg and secured them. The final one was aligned by the already in situ hose and its fit to the clamp on it and the other clamp. They then were tightened as hopefully permanent.

So hopefully we have it all right. It is hard to get a clear shot of the side of the whole of the leg where all the action is because it is inside the nacelle bounds but here it is as it hangs below and you can see the two conduit clamps on the bottom and top straps along with the two bits of masking tape markers for the shroud clamp positions.



From the other side this shot gives a view of the forward clamp for the brake hose



and you can see how it all fits together from this.



As a final note...during the week in my manual trawls I found out that what we've accepted OJ's term of ground squat switch" as is in fact in Lockheed speak a "scissor switch"

The afternoon was filled up with the final clean up and first paint coat of the in-spar area which next week should get to see junction box and other refits.

Finally I thought it long overdue to show the work of a one man team. Dave is carrying on with Sunderland fitout material and here's part of table/bench/desk that he's currently on which is being outfitted with switches and rack gear.