Ferrymead News

[Dave Homewood]

Wow, great progress going on!

[Deleted]

The Hiller looks great! But the Mossie progress is fantastic!

[catcrew]

Looking forward to our visit with Torii Tours on 18th April to see all this marvelous work close up. Hoping to catch up with 5000 Dave as well somewhere on the tour.

cheers from Oz
Catcrew

[agile]

Been too long since our last update, although hopefully most of you have seen updates on the Mosquito on its Farcebook page. Denys is planning another Hudson update so I won't steal that thunder from him, but in between he has found time to knock this little number up:


This is of course the main gear for the F27.

The Hiller UH-12 is coming along nicely.




Look back there was a photo of young Tim with his newly finished Allison C20 engine. Turns out it wasn't quite finished, at least from his perfectionist point of view. Here is a little bit of his workmanship - this guy is still shy of his 16th birthday and he is a real asset to the group:


As work winds down on the UH-12 (pending the arrival of more bits) the FH-1100 project appears to have gotten underway today. Photos soon! 

Cheers
A

[Deleted]

Beautiful. Just beautiful! Bravo all!

[Dave Homewood]

Here's the latest update from Denys:

"Alex said that I was planning a bit of an update so best I do!

Things on the Hudson front have been ongoing but not the sort of things immediately obvious.

Way back in the 1970s we acquired a number of the rail portions of the "Universal Carrier Type 1 Mk3", otherwise recognised as the general bomb rack appropriate for such things as Mosquito and Hudson, but these were lacking various items of equipment to complete them, specifically the "slip release" or "bomb latch" and the electric release control therefore. A few weeks back a lot appeared on Trademe offering a number of each of said items which fortunately had a buy now price which we just couldn't pass up. Subsequently the seller also offered us more of the same which we naturally acquired.

Now we've divvied up the bits between the Mosquito and Hudson projects. The Mossie needs two racks and believe it or not a fully equipped Hudson needs nine so we're still in the market for more bits if anyone out there can assist but I've so far got nearly three complete units made up as shown.



You'll be able to clearly see the slip release and release controls in the centre of the three units shown. What we're short of is another 5 of the main rail components and heaps of the black legs (these are what I refer to as sway stays as they screw onto the bombs to stop them flapping about). Also at the right are two cables on each rack, that go into a circular junction box and we're after 11 of them.

Whilst not doing this, work has been on-going on the F-27 in the port nacelle area. I've now removed the upper "lid" (its actually a
fibre-glass item) to gain access to the upper skin areas of the centre-section so covered, and have been working from the forward face (right side of shot) rearwards down to the left. In the shot you can see the upper side now refurbished and resplendent in the green while the lower side is work in progress. Note the skin stiffener in the finished area that runs down from the right and off in a crook to the left while it's lower mate is missing. That's because its turn has come to be removed to get to the corrosion between it and the skin which is readily visible as either creamy powder or dark grey spots just forward of the curved frame.



Every instance of layered components has this corrosion in between them hence the amount of work to do. Once this is dealt to (god bless striptex disks and scotchbrite pads) it will be back down below to attack the area below those eight cut-outs as under there is where the undercarriage leg attaches. More to follow!

As always hope this appeals, regards D."

[Dave Homewood]

Great work Denys and Alex. I love these updates! You guys and all your team members are fantastic.

[agile]

Further to Deny's post above, the Mossie needs one more Universal Carrier Type 1 Mk III, preferably of this pattern (slightly different to those above):


Naturally we'll consider any carriers or parts thereof that might come our way. We are also after one of these wing hardpoint carriers, which have a similar release mechanism inside the aerodynamic fairing:


HUGE thanks to Anthony Galbraith for scoring this one for us. Incidentally, Anthony seems to go everywhere with the needs and wants of his friend's projects in the top of his mind - I'm sure we aren't along in frequently benefiting from his sharp eyes and his generosity.  

[skyhawkdon]

I bet Wigram has a few. Have you talked to them? They are currently in the process of transferring everything from their store at Weedons to Wigram and there is gong to be a huge clean out at some point in the near future. There just isn't room at Wigram for everything.

[agile]

Hi Don, yes Wigram are aware of our various wants and we are in fairly regular contact. Hopefully they are able to find room for all the treasures from Weedons - of course we'd happily rehome all the Mossie stuff if necessary :-).

[Deleted]

Good idea, maybe the Ferrymead Mossie team could be contracted by the Museum to restore one for them? ;-)

[baz62]

Jun 11, 2017 18:58:19 GMT 12 agile said:

HUGE thanks to Anthony Galbraith for scoring this one for us. Incidentally, Anthony seems to go everywhere with the needs and wants of his friend's projects in the top of his mind - I'm sure we aren't alone in frequently benefiting from his sharp eyes and his generosity.  

Yes Anthony has helped with the airworthy Mosquitos too finding some new old stock parts for the undercarriage for one. Not much gets past old eagle eye Galbraith!

[agile]

Jun 12, 2017 16:20:46 GMT 12 @zacyates said:

Good idea, maybe the Ferrymead Mossie team could be contracted by the Museum to restore one for them? ;-)

Let's just get our one finished first eh? I suspect by the time it is even I might be too old to start another one.

[Deleted]

I've said before I'd love to help but the commute would make it rather uneconomical!

[Dave Homewood]

A new update just in from Denys Jones:

"I've been a bit worried about the paucity of project news appearing here of late sadly following on from the PB debacle so I threatened Dave with some stuff.

Here's where things on BXG have been going of late.

The first shot, was here before PB, but is a view looking forward in the mainwheel bay of the BXG...pretty grotty for sure. Shot two is where we're at now, having started at the rear and working around the left of shot and now across the view. Just forward of the frame/bulkhead lurk the main undercarriage attachments.

Shot three is the reverse of said frame/bulkhead and you'll see the u/c attachments at the top of shot either side. Cleaning of the beast has begun right of shot and left is as found.

Its all very slow slog stuff with the accumulation of grease, and manifold types of operational detritus set like concrete. People may
question the colour but we've found zones in several shades of green and equally several of grey. Back sanding suggestes the green to be the original so we're running with that...Resene Paints Roulette which goes with the gamble of the decision perhaps.

As always hopefully some stuff of interest from a manky old airliner!

cheers

Denys"

[denysjones]

A passionate plea post here folks.

Work on the main u/c bay continues and am at the stage where I somewhat desperately need to locate the water methanol and fuel tanks that go in the bay as it will be a heck of a lot easier to install them at this stage rather than later once the gear is in place.

As a "before you suggest this" comment please no one refer to Airwork or the guys in the Chathams as emails to either location have gone totally unanswered.

Hopefully someone out there has either or pointers to ....

cheers

[denysjones]

test

[madmac]

Email sent Denys.

For everyone else.
The water meth was in two different locations on the ZK-PAX & ZK-POH. On PAX they were located on the forward side of the aft bulkhead (Frame 5720) & on POH they were located on the aft side of said bulkhead.

[Dave Homewood]

A new update from Denys, who is still struggling to work out how to post photos. If anyone down in Christchurch can give him some lessons we'd appreciate it. He says:

Hi Dave,

Sorry it's just been a matter of time to get around to experiment again, part of which is pressures I've had of late in my role as chairman of the Ferrymead Trust responsible for the whole Ferrymead Park.

Things however have been on-going of course.

Refurbishing of the undercarriage bay of BXG takes forever. As the first shot here shows the initial condition is pretty sad and a good day's work is the cleaning of perhaps one half of the bay between two frames.



Then there is the issue of corrosion such as the damage to the right sill of the bay and that is just what is between two frames and there is the same between each pair.



Of course there is the items that have to be stripped out and dealt to such as the pair of straps that hold the fuel collector tank in and as you see they were also in a bad way.



However just so your passion for Hudsons isn't dampened I can report that I've also got the second bomb door on now. The hold up was that the guys who took the doors off back in the 1970's somehow lost one of the pivot pins the door swings on and also some of the pulleys for the cables. So after a fruitless search for those I had to make and get made replacements for them but now the door is on.



regards for the festive season

Denys

[kiwi285]

Great work Denys. Love to get the updates on this aircraft and to see your workmanship.

All the best for the festive season and we trust that 2018 will be a great one for you all down there.