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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 1, 2007 19:57:45 GMT 12
I have been talking via email this week with Mr Roy West, who is a member of the restoration team working on Bill Reid's Avro Anson Mk 1 at Wakefield, in the Nelson district.
With Mr Reid's permission, Roy has allowed me to to post an update here on the forum with info of where the project is at.
He says the Anson wings have been mated to the fuselage centre section, and the aircraft now stands on its wheels.
The main jobs left are the engines, and the paperwork. Once they're complete the aircraft is hoped to fly sometime this year!
Roy says that no decision has yet been made as to where it'll be based.
As for its colour scheme, the Anson will wear the early pattern RAF brown/green camouflage and will be painted to represent
VX-B of 206 Squadron, RAF Coastal Command, which was flown by a New Zealander in probably the first RAF combat of the War.
That will be great.
NOW THE BIGGER NEWS
Bill Reid's team are working on another bomber restoration. None other than Lockheed Hudson NZ2049, formerly with the John Smith collection at Mapua!!
Roy says that this is likely to be just a static restoration, unless they strike gold next to the hangar. Even with a static restoration, this is fantastic news to hear the poor old Hudson, lovingly stored dismantled and in poor condition for decades by various owners.
CAN YOU HELP???
The team are looking for any Anson or Hudson parts to assist with the restorations. If you can assist in any way with parts or suggestions of where some may be, please let me know and I'll pass the info onto Roy.
Awesome news eh!
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Post by xr6turbo1 on Feb 1, 2007 21:06:28 GMT 12
Thats great news on both aircraft. Good to see an aircraft from John Smiths collection will be restored. Great effort.  |
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Post by Peter Lewis on Feb 1, 2007 22:22:05 GMT 12
That's great news on the Anson - I posted a couple of pics on this board of the restoration - taken by a friend of mine about twelve months ago, and it still had a long way to go then. rnzaf.proboards43.com/index.cgi?board=Airshows&action=display&thread=1152066551One day, of course, the Smith collection will see the light of day. I was able to visit his property in the early 1980s, and after much discussion, was able to look through it. After a little hint dropping, I was even allowed to sit in the cockpit of the Mosquito! John Smith was not a young man then, and tended to be a bit short tempered with those he thought were out to take advantage of him. However, if you could convince him that your interest was genuine, he was quite helpful. |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 1, 2007 22:50:22 GMT 12
Indeed, I visited Mr Smith in 2004 with a mate who knows John as he's local there. Same routine as everyone else, stand nd talk aircraft on the doorstep for up to two hours, then when he's summed you up as a genuine enthusiast, he gets the key and lets you in. He actually offered me to climb into the Mossie, I never expected that much. He;s actually a genuinely nice bloke, very very knowledgable and I think very generous with his time as he said he's always getting people turn up hopjng to see his collection. I admire his foresight in collecting as much as he did, and I hope that in the future he'll allow a few more of his treasures to get restored. I do recall though he seemed adamantly opposed to people flying these old planes, which I found interesting as he was such an enthusiast, collector and a pilot.
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Post by denysjones on Feb 4, 2007 21:21:56 GMT 12
Just to be a bit of a rain on the parade...Bill came to see me last year and looked at NZ2035 and how Hudsons are built. I explained about when we wrote to Lockheed back in the 1970s and showed them how the c/s had been cut on NZ2035 (and that goes for all the NZ Hudsons) and they came back with the fact that if you want to fly one then you have to build a new c/s fron outboard of the engines side to side...that's big dollar stuff and it's not somethig you cam dodge around.
Lockheed sent us details of a repair admissable for spar destruction of 30% less than 18inch from the c/l. Cut\ off wings = 100% and outside of fthe fuse wall is new build stuff..not negotiable.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 4, 2007 22:29:43 GMT 12
Yes, I'd guessed that would be the case.
Was the RNZAF Museum's example rebuilt to airworthy condition regarding its centre section? They have a policy to rebuild everything to airworthy condition where possible.
Denys, apart from the Temora example, do you know of any other airframes in the world that could be made flyable again with respect to spars and centre scetions, etc?
For me, just knowing that another ex-RNZAF hudson is to be restored back to a healthy state is fantastic. What with the Wigram one, the Motat example which is to be restored again (has this begun yet?) and your own Ferrymead one, this fourth one will be excellent. Especially as it has a genuine combat career with a famous pilot as it's regular flyer.
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Post by kiwi on Feb 5, 2007 7:06:02 GMT 12
There is another Anson under restoration near Dairy Flat .
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 5, 2007 11:17:35 GMT 12
Under restoration? I knew about one stored with the Subritzky collection. Have they begun to restore it now? Or are we talking about another one?
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Post by kiwi on Feb 5, 2007 14:44:02 GMT 12
Yes thats the one , when there last year it definately had new metal on it .
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 5, 2007 14:45:51 GMT 12
Cool.
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Post by beagle on Feb 5, 2007 18:57:59 GMT 12
Hey Dave
I am going to Blenheim and Nelson next month as I finally got a couple of weeks off work. I know where mapua is roughly but can ya see his collection from up on the hill behind mapua or is it under cover.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 5, 2007 19:27:43 GMT 12
Beags, Mr Smith's collection is largely indoors. And I doubt you'd see anything from outside the property as it was surrounded with large tree hedges from memory.
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Post by beagle on Feb 5, 2007 19:40:51 GMT 12
so it is probably visible on google earth
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 5, 2007 21:04:23 GMT 12
Kiwi has asked me to post this photo of the Subritzky family's Anson that he took about July 2005. That's five months after I'd seen it, and the progress looked great. Does anyone know how it is now?  |
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Post by denysjones on Feb 6, 2007 18:48:05 GMT 12
Re your query re Hudsons and the integrity of the c/s Dave here's the list as as I know it (s) = stuffed
RAF Museum
Canberra War Memorial
RAAF Museum
Temora
(as a wee aside consider that these aircraft were the ex-Adastra ones)
MoTat (s)
Wigram (s)
Ferrymead (s)
Bill Reid/John Smith (s)
Gander (Canada)
Atlantic Canada Aviation Museum (s)
I've seen pix of two crashed a/c in Canada but it's the issue of what the c/s looks like in a pic and what it really is.
On your query re Wigram's. They had the c/s off the a/c so they had the issue of the gap left by the gas torch. Alan Woodley told me that in some places it was an inch wide. So he had a huge job to the jig the aircraft and the c/s to allow for the gap, getting separation and angle right, and then plate across it....tell me now how that can ever be flyable.
When I did ours I was lucky our c/s had been docked off 2039 closer to the fuse than 2035 had been chopped so I took vertical rivet lines and put a step join through them and then face plated that.
cheers
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 6, 2007 19:09:00 GMT 12
Thanks Denys.
"tell me now how that can ever be flyable."
I was asking, not telling. :-)
I wonder what the overall condition of that Gander Hudson is, living outdoors in Canadian conditions cannot be too great for it. Especially on a pole.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 8, 2007 10:57:04 GMT 12
The latest Classic Wings magazine has just arrived and there's an article within on the Anson. I've not yet read it, but the photos are awesome, the aircraft looks absolutely fantastic! Well done to the team.
I see they also have a Sabre and a Sikorksky S-55 waiting to be restored.
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Post by 30sqnatc on Mar 10, 2007 19:40:46 GMT 12
I am glad to see several Ansons reappearing as I've always been interested in them after my father, who was an RAF ground Wireless Operator, told me of several flights he made in Coastal Command Ansons of 500 Sqn when he was based at RAF Detling from just pre-war until after the Battle of Britain. He recalled at least one of their Ansons had a 20mm (he thought) cannon fitted in the bomb bay.
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