Ferrymead News

[denysjones]

A somewhat out of the ordinary day today with a morning visit from a team from AHSNZ to catch up on what we are currently up to and to talk about how our two groups can work together to each other's benefit. Quite a blast from the past sort of thing when we consider that FAS grew out of the AHSNZ, Christchurch branch, and its "young turks" of the early 1970's wanting to get into the physical preservation stuff.

After lunch I got into the task of the day on 2035 which was a result of homework for the week. This was centred on the makeup of cables for the aileron system originating in the control column. Therefrom a pair, one 88 inches long and the other 132 5/8 long, head off, the first to the appropriate ram on the Sperry system and the other down to the drum unit to split inputs out to either wing. These being A-1 and A-2 in this wee snip of the manual.



Translating this into the real world started at the top of the control column where years ago I had positioned draw strings leading across the column head, down the column shaft alongside the wall, then back across to the fuselage centreline and out of the structure as the diagram shows. Now at the top of the column we have the tie offs of the two cables.



The two lines then head off following the plan through the tunnel on the centreline and off through the forward wall of the bomb bay. They are the two runs seen here on the two large pulleys in shot.



Achieving this was a major exercise in contortion as the tunnel is just shoulder width and required appropriate effort to effect. We got there though and then the afternoon was gone!

[denysjones]

Today's afternoon, = day's major, task was the follow-on from last week's cable-down-the-control-column job.

To start here's a refresh of a previous post of the sprocket and chain sets cleaned and ready for the go.



First operation was the set of two sprockets and three spacers on a screw-headed bolt set. These had to be installed at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical column members and the only obvious way to do so was that each of the five pieces had to go in separately and after some experimentation and thought the strategy emerged to be two pronged.

However first up the ends of the two cables up the shaft of the column were retracted down out of contention but remained secured by the tie-offs from last week.

The scheme was that the spacers would be fed along the horizontal and the sprockets dropped in vertically at the intersection, all gently being fed onto the bolt one by one as they came in. The sprockets could be so done whilst gripped by a pair of small long-jawed vice-grips and downwards at the corner point. How though to deal to the spacers...ah modern age technology to the fore! A blob of blue-tack on the end of a long thin screwdriver had enough grip to do the job along the horizontal.

It is hard to take a shot of this area but here is the view down the horizontal arm with the 5-part set firmly installed at the end. The green string in shot comes into play next.



The two chain runs then were each in turn drawn along the horizontal by said draw string. When the end of the chain arrived at the sprocket point the retracted cable end was drawn up the column and the two joined with a split-pin fixed pin. The chain was then introduced onto the appropriate sprocket and drawn over it and down the column a wee ways by pulling the cable. Then the process was repeated for the other. Here's things half done.



Both chains were then drawn further down the column to bring the loop ends of the chains into the column end and to synchronise them before installing the components of the shaft sprocket set which are the control wheel bearer. This then firmly relates the two chains to one another on the wheel shaft. Finally was re-instatement of various items removed in the course of the whole process, thus we have.



So after all of that here, just temporarily mounted, is a sight not seen in 2035 since the early 1970s...a control wheel! The wheel came our way from a North Island supporter and while it might not be a Hudson one it looks right, fits right, and is much appreciated. Ta Mike :-)



If anyone out there has a typical US type gun fire button unit they'd care to donate I'd be very grateful!

Now works head into the roof of the bomb bay to complete the cable runs appropriately tensioned.

ttfn

[denysjones]

Miserable wet weather on site today, like most of the country of course, put a dampener on the first day of the 60th anniversary celebrations of our sister group Ferrymead Railway, hopefully things will improve for them for the next two days.

Various teams were beavering away nonetheless.

633Sqn are moving on with various aspects of final works on HR339's fuselage prior to the reorganisation of the workshop to make the wing pieces centre stage and prep work on those.

Rob and Paul have accelerated into top gear on the R22 in recent weeks as several work schemes have converged. The cockpit is now largely outfitted.



While the exterior is now done in a very distinctive green shade that HDB was finished in with Ahaura Helicopters and graphics by Owen of WizeArtz.



I spent the day on a workshop crawler scootering in and out under 2035 following on from the recent control runs out of the cockpit. Many years ago when I fitted the cable runs to the tails they were left terminated forward of the rear face of the bomb bay. Thus today was sorting out of them as they run forward and making up the connections to their rearwards facing mates.

The different systems, and hence cable sizes, run in two tiers. Those of the trim systems are above those of the control runs. All up there are some 14 cables for the control surfaces running down a box conduit along the bombbay roof . This manual snip shows the ones that relate to this.



Add to that others relating to things like flap control and it looks thus, at this stage the coils tied up to the side are the trim ones.

[davidd]

Board members may be aware that dark talk about factory sabotage of Hudson flying control systems was not uncommon in the RNZAF during late 1941, particulalrly after at least one fatal accident. Looking at the above diagrams, I would not be surprised that the odd slip up could get past the inspectors at the factory in California!

[denysjones]

The usual crew were on deck today.

Dave was continuing reinstatement of the first crew position in the Sunderland which is coming together nicely now.



Rob and Paul were working apace on the R22 with more panels, stencils and things such as aerials appearing.



Meanwhile Dean was off in the darkest south on a roadie to catch up with a mate who just happened to have a heap of Robinson stuff. Rob had asked for a few parts which were duly promised but the shock was to find that they appear to be coming in situ with another cabin. When they arrive on Sunday more will be revealed!



I was still cable running as per last week. During the week I got two more sections of the rudder trim circuit made up and so today fitted them. I then turned my attention to the flap indicator run. I have to admit the first thing was..."where is the flap indicator?" well here it is rightmost on the bottom segment of the instrument panel.



In the manual it appears as the little fellow marked 8 hereon. This is showing the ram which is to be found in the centre of the cabin floor, being the annoying thing you have to step over half way down the cabin.



I then had to trace the route of the cables as they thread their way to and from it into the cockpit space, under the floor level, and then upwards outwards and to the back of the indicator. Our indicator was sans cable so I've removed it and its off home this week with a length of cable, and a couple of missing pulleys from the six shown in the diagram above, to be threaded to it and then we'll see where and how we go completing the system makeup next week.

My final task, who said battle?, of the day was the reinstatement of the four deicer tubes through the port centre section spar.

[Dave Homewood]

I had not realised that one of the original WWI hangars from Sockburn/Wigram was moved to Ferrymead in 1971. Great that one of the three hangars were preserved. I am guessing it must still be standing at Ferrymead?

canterburystories.nz/collections/archives/star/negatives/1971/ccl-cs-29966

[davidd]

No doubt Denys will have something to say about this hangar, but my recollection is that a (vintage?) car club purchased it from the RNZAF and they re-errected it at Ferrymead (in 1971 after checking the above web-site). Unfortunately (this based on some scuttlebut at the time, so Denys may be able to confirm/deny this) they failed to incorporate all the wall-braces used in the original hangar design (this was one of two more or less identical hangars, built in 1919 I believe, used for the DH 4s, Bristol Fighters, and Avro 504Ks) but whether it was strong winds, or a fire I cannot recall, and the hangar was wrecked, never to rise again (so far as I know). The semi-circular roof trusses were made in the criss-cross style, cannot recall the correct name, and the roof covering was malthoid or similar. I believe its time at Ferrymead before its destruction was short (less than a year?)

[Dave Homewood]

Agh, that is gutting to hear that it has not survived. What happened to the other two? Did the Ngai Tahu development simply demolish them? Or did someone buy and shift them?

[denysjones]

The first point is that hangar wasn't one of the very first set but was of the three erected either late or post WWI. It was the centre one of the three and eventually (1960s) was used by the MT flight. I recall some talk that it ceased use after the Wahine storm due to it exhibiting alarming amounts of movement due to the winds. It's the centre one of the three top left of this photo.



I don't know if it was tendered off or a direct offer was made but the Ferrymead Trust purchased it for $10 and entered into an arrangement with the Ferrymead Museum of Road Transport for them to effect the transport and re-erection in return for having use of it until their expected display building was erected.

The true condition of the building manifested itself when during the disassembly the back wall simply disintegrated from a structural perspective which then meant a new replacement was needed. Here's a shot of it being disassembled.



Here it reposes top left of the shot. The roof was moved in three sections of two bays (1-2, 4-5, 7-8) and the segments of two other bays (3 & 6) sat on top of two of them.



The progress on the erecting it has to be said wasn't as the task really needed but eventually the walls and roof went up. However the back wall was simply a frame and there were no doors. Thus it was when hit by a winter storm whose damage required a substantial cable restraint. Before any repairs could be effected a second storm completed the job and as they say that is history. My records date the demise as 1974.

After that the car boys threw in the towel. By then we had formed the FAS and the Ferrymead Trust handed over the scene of chaos and wished us well as we cleared the debris and built the first stage of our workshops. All that we really salvaged was the wall sections which we cut down in height for our use. The vast majority of the other timber remains were gladly put to good use by our colleagues of Ferrymead Railway through the fireboxes of their locos.

To answer David's query the trusses are generally referred to as Belfast ones.

[Dave Homewood]

OK, a sad tale all round.

[denysjones]

The flap indicator, I left the park with last week for homework, is based on a drum with a spiral track on it which allows cable to wind on and off at both ends of the drum, and a gear connected dial pointer which is turned accordingly to indicate the amount of flap deployed.

The cable doing all this is called out as 475 1/2 inches in length and the indicator sits at the middle it, as in the mid point of the cable is secured in a slot in the drum hub. Thus when the flaps extend one leg of the cable winds off one end of the drum and the other cable end winds on the other end of the drum. Then when the flaps retract the reverse applies.

You can see the ends of the two legs of the indicator cable run at the top of this view of the ram in its housing across the floor of the main cabin. They are the two obviously thinner cables both of whose ends are attached to the pulley gang on the ram shaft that does the business of moving the flaps but with differences to the ways they run before disappearing through the floor over two pulleys at the left of the shot and down into the roof of the bombay to begin their journey forwards.



A quick sortie on Youtube revealed to me the mechanics of the drum winding process in all of this so I could do the job of the windings (actually the video was in the context of a similar system for steering in power boats).

Our installation isn't the proper 475inch single cable as when I cabled up the flap ram I had no idea of where the indicator runs should go and the workings of the indicator and so took the option of providing the runs as far as the bombbay roof. This week I provided sufficient length on the drum and away from it so as to be able, hopefully, to then make a connection to those tails. So first up two connections had to be made to complete the said 475inch loop.

Then it turned out to be the major accomplishment of the day was several iterations of tensioning each leg in turn while checking that the indicator was positioned as "flaps up" :-)

Next up there are the corresponding drum and cable systems for rudder, elevator, and aileron trims to be dealt to. Ah well onto next week.

[davidd]

I just don't know how you do all this, Denys!

[denysjones]

On site work this week was a bit of a bitser day. Rob and I started off doing a bit of a tidy up during which a very welcome item turned up that I had feeling that we should have but which had eluded me for some time, so much so that Dean and I had discussed that perhaps we would have to fabricate one as we head to installing the flap on BXG.



It is the fairing that goes over the outboard flap track on the F27 wing. Somehow it had made its way in amongst an adjacent assortment of Wessex parts. It has a split pretty much the entire length of the top surface from the right of the black to the trailing edge. As it is a resin piece its nothing a patch glassed on the inside followed by some external filling won't fix along with a simple replacement for the missing cover plate.

Dean arrived on site with his week's homework being an engine frame for a section R1340 that we were recently gifted by the RNZAF Museum. He and Barrie were on the case to join the two items, albeit with a wee bit of a hand from Rob and I.

On the Hudson front I only got a couple of small things done. There was a small bit of time on reinstating some plumbing in the port wheel well before some investigation on the topic of the cable runs for the elevator and rudder trims.

During the week I received a present from our globe-trotting member Bryan who had paid a visit to NASM Washington and from their archives he'd acquired some 303 JPG image files each showing two pages of the parts catalogue for the RA-28/RA-29 US bomber variants of the Hudson. I've been after this document for many years to no avail. However it is a disappointment in as much as it isn't illustrated (very unusual for a US parts book) but it does have a numeric parts list referencing table call outs of assorted assemblies.

You might recall the other week I'd found two parts stamps 168664-2 and -3 on a junction box but couldn't find them in the parts book for the AT-18 I had. So this was obviously a good test of my new info. I could find an entry for the -3 but not for the -2 however the former led me to this.


As you see my box was exactly what is called out in that a -2 has been modded and given another P/N.

What now is confusing is the title of recognition lights box located in the fuselage when in fact our one is in the wheel well spar area where it has two pairs of connections, one for the forward well bay and one for the rear, and each pair makes a connection to an undercarriage position indicator switch and another to a fuel tank level sensor. Very puzzling stuff!

[denysjones]

A day of small bits on several fronts today.

Rob was progressing matters at the tail end of the R22 including embellishments such as more warning decals on the under fin.



Dean and Barrie, plus a couple of ring-ins, were in action in the area whence liveth a cache of assorted engines. Two emerged on their way to the burgeoning displays down in the hangars, the first will be this interesting, but different, R1340, being a geared version best known in this country as being from a Ceres top-dresser. Its headed for a tidy up in the next few weeks.



Following it will be our Allison V1710 project. This was recovered from the same source as the Merlins for HR339 way back in 1978. Like many of the powerboat people who started out using Merlins in their power boats Mr Patterson moved over to Allisons and this one was left with the surplus unused Merlins. It will be a WIP for a while yet though.

Back in the land of 2035 ... you may recall in 2022 ChrisM passed over to me this find from his diggings in the Rukuhia dump



well today it completed its journey and the installation of the control wheel as per recent weeks. It is fantastic to have such as what other use for P/N 166021 would you have if you didn't have a Hudson, so you can't imagine many were kept?



Later in the day I started sorting out small jobs for the home front. We're facing serious disruption to our works in that physical access to our end of the Ferrymead site is going to be disrupted from now basically through to mid February next year as a new major water main is run through the southern part of the park on land owned by the CCC and which we cross, by vehicle, to get to the workshop. This will restrict us in taking certain sized items off-site for the duration as the gate access will be dug up in these works.

Normal visitor access to the park is not affected by this as the work as it is in the southern area where the public don't go.

Hence these two small "what the heck are these" items are the first two "small enough to carry-outs" off home with me.

[kiwiwreckdiver]

WOW you certainly brought that relic back to life !!! well done!!!

[Dave Homewood]

Agreed, an amazing restoration on that control lock.