Engineering Laid Bare
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Old TimersCompiled by Peter R March and Paul Fiddian A round-up of historic aircraft display and restoration news Engineering laid bare PHOTO: NIGEL HITCHMAN NIGEL PHOTO: The Shuttleworth Collection’s Annual Engineering Open Days at Old Warden on 28-29 December 2018 presented a rare opportunity for close public access to selected aircraft during their essential winter maintenance. The engineering workshops were packed with a fascinating cross-section of types, along with engineers, pilots and volunteers, all willing to discuss the skills required and challenges involved Scott Butler running up the rebuilt Le Rhône rotary engine of the in keeping the collection’s historic Le Prieur rocket-fitted Sopwith Pup aircraft flying. Sopwith Pup ‘9917’/G-EBKY, fitted with inert, display-only WWI Le Prieur air-to-air rockets, Funding is needed to overhaul new steel cylinder liners and new the Lysander's (and Gladiator’s) aluminium pistons to replace Bristol Mercury engines its Le Rhône 9C rotary engine’s crack-prone steel ones, was displayed outside. On the first and in 2018 the Shuttleworth day, once Chief Engineer Jean- Veteran Aeroplane Society Michel Munn had supplied freshly (SVAS) launched its Mercury cleaned spark plugs, ‘trainee’ Engine Appeal Fund to ensure rotary engine pilot Scott Butler the Lysander and Gladiator’s started and ran the engine for Undercarriage retraction tests were demonstrated on Sea Hurricane continued operation. The three minutes before heat build Z7015, mounted on jacks and stripped of its main access panels SVAS has been funding the up required it to be shut down. cost of Collection aero-parts Outside the workshop-hangar, but, for several years now, Spitfire LF Vc AR501 had its with insufficient income from engine cowlings and spinner membership fees. The difference removed. Just after its last flight has been subsidised with of the season, oil had been seen money from reserves which are dribbling from the air intake. being depleted and now both Wear to the seals on the throttle the Lysander and Gladiator’s spindle can cause this fault, Bristol Mercury engines need which was being investigated. major overhauls. Drawing from The Spitfire’s stablemate, Sea the aero-parts budget could Hurricane 1b Z7015, was jack- take the pair ‘offline’ for up to mounted inside the workshop three display seasons. To avoid Skilled workmanship evident on the Parnall Elf's fuselage, to give regular undercarriage this, SVAS has set a £100,000 laid on its side to allow the cockpit structure to be viewed retraction and extension funding goal, and by the end of demonstrations. The aircraft was quality of the workmanship on December the appeal was half- also extensively de-panelled, its bare fuselage was apparent, way there (www.svasweb.org/ allowing close examination of its as was the care lavished on the keepthemflying). unique tubular construction and many painted components drying Shuttleworth’s 2019 air display rare Merlin III engine. At the back on a ‘washing line’ that ran the season begins on Sunday 5 May. of the workshop, sole-surviving workshop’s length. See www.shuttleworth.org/events Parnall Elf G-AAIN’s extensive Keeping these historic for the full calendar. restoration was underway. The aircraft airworthy is costly Report and photos: Andrew March 54 | Pilot March 2019 | pilotweb.aero Old Timers Compton Abbas & North Coates New Year fly-ins PHOTO: HOWARD CURTIS HOWARD PHOTO: Compton Abbas welcomed in 2019 with its first New Year’s Day Fly-In for several years. Breaking the recent trend, the weather was agreeable, enabling some ninety aircraft to visit. Notable attendees included Beech D18S G-BKGL from Duxford−which gave a spritely farewell flypast on departure− and Popham-based Staggerwing NC18028. Perhaps the most unusual was former AAC Alouette AH2 2-ALOU (ex-XR379), complete with human and canine passengers. On the following weekend, 5-6 January the popular Brass Monkey Fly-In was held at North Coates. With over 100 aircraft attending over the two days, it was a busy season-opener for the historic north-east Lincolnshire airfield. There were several interesting vintage types including Tony Brier’s superbly-restored ex-Egyptian AF Kader Gomhouria G-CGEV. The Real This former AAC Alouette II 2-ALOU was a welcome New Year’s Day visitor to Compton Abbas Aeroplane Cub at Breighton, a great HITCHMAN NIGEL PHOTO: HITCHMAN NIGEL PHOTO: supporter of local events, provided Max Holste Broussard G-CIGH carrying six club members. The presence of three vintage Miles types in the hangar−Stuart Blanchard’s Gemini 1A G-AKHP, recently- imported Mercury OY-ALW/G-AHAA (on overhaul), and Mark Hales’ Messenger 2A ‘RG333’/G-AIEK−was a noteworthy bonus. Reports: Howard Curtis and Heliopolis Gomhouria G-CGEV, a licence-built Another North Coates visitor, this immaculate Nigel Hitchman Bücker Bestmann, flew in to North Coates Broussard flew in from Breighton Meteoric mover AW Meteor NF11 WM167/G-LOSM made its final flight on 5 January 2019 in the hands of Dan Griffith. The 1952-built former nightfighter, TT20 target tug and air display participant left its Coventry home for Bruntingthorpe to join the Classic British Jets Collection (CBJC), a new operation at the Leicestershire site. After making several missed approaches it landed on Runway 06 and taxied in to be welcomed by a sizeable crowd. The CBJC intends to keep the Meteor running in fast-taxiable condition, like the majority of Bruntingthorpe’s classic Meteor NF11 WM167 landing at Bruntingthorpe after its last flight from Coventry jets. Its growing fleet also includes Gnat T1 XP540, Hunter GA11 WT806, Jet modified T7 ejector-seat testbeds put up for sale. This follows former Provosts T3A XM365 and T5 XW290, WA638 and WL419. Elsewhere, Meteor owner the late Marty Tibbitts’ untimely Sea Vixen FAW2 XJ494 and Venom T7 WA591, which left Coventry in March death last July while flying a Venom FB50 WR470. Just two Meteors are 2018 to join the World Heritage Air to Oshkosh. now airworthy in the UK: Martin-Baker’s Museum in Michigan, has recently been Report and photo: Paul Fiddian pilotweb.aero | Pilot March 2019 | 55 Old Timers First flights for restored Twin Mustang prototype… On the final day of 2018, radar operator was on the damaged in a runway accident the first North American right. First flown on 15 June on 25 February 1950. Prolific Twin Mustang flight in over 1945, the Twin Mustang was warbird collector Walter Soplata thirty years took place. XP-82 too late for WWII service. acquired its left-hand fuselage prototype 44-83887 was being However, re-designated F-82, and other components in 1965, fast-taxied by pilot Ray Fowler it did perform frontline Korean placing them in long-term when, with the aircraft rapidly War sorties. F-82Es equipped storage at his Newbury, Ohio accelerating and limited runway Strategic Air Command while farm. Forty-three years later, remaining, an intended hop radar-fitted F-82Fs, Gs and Hs Tom Reilly bought them and had and touch-down became a more were later employed as all- them relocated to his hangar. sustained flight around Douglas weather day/night interceptors Obtaining additional parts from Municipal Airport, Georgia. by Air Defense Command across the US and beyond−in Following this impromptu until replaced by jet fighters, Mexico, for example, a rare left- flight, formal air-testing was primarily the F-94 Starfire. hand turning Allison engine was planned to start before the end Two-hundred and seventy- sourced−Reilly and his team of January 2019. three were built, making it the spent 207,000 hours over the The Twin Mustang was USAAF’s last mass-produced next decade returning the Twin conceived as a long-range B-29 piston fighter, although none Mustang to flying condition. Superfortress escort. North served beyond 1953. The world’s last airworthy American achieved the required Used exclusively for test Twin Mustang was the 2,400-mile range by lengthening work, XP-82 44-83887 was Confederate Air Force’s P-82B and linking together two flown by North American 44-65162 which, after being P-51H Mustang fuselages, Aircraft, the USAAF and NACA active for much of the 1980s, each mounting a 1,860hp (National Advisory Committee crash-landed at Harlingen Allison V-1650 engine, and for Aeronautics). In the during ‘Airsho 87’. Since augmenting the fuel capacity. latter’s hands, it performed restored, it is now on display at The pilot flew the aircraft from high-altitude and Marquardt the National Museum of the US the left-hand cockpit and the ramjet trials before being badly Air Force at Dayton, Ohio. TANG TANG s TORATION PROJECT TORATION s RE PHOTOs: TWIN MU TWIN PHOTOs: The Twin Mustang wasn't supposed ... but, with its strong acceleration on the ... to become the first of its type airborne to fly on 31 December... runway surprising the pilot, took off... in over thirty years … and New BALCH ADRIAN VIA MOUNCE JOHN PHOTO: intelligence-gathering missions over South America. It ended Zealand’s latest up at Whiteman Air Park and became increasingly derelict Mosquito rebuild in the 1960s. Next owner Jim Avspecs’ third restored Mosquito Merizan, who retained PZ474 lifted off from Auckland’s until 2013, had its remains Ardmore Airport on 13 January transported to his premises at 2019. Owned by Rod Lewis, Yorba Linda. Eventual return-to- FB VI PZ474/ZK-BCV was flight efforts began at Chino but airborne for nineteen minutes, Coastal Command-schemed PZ474 is the world's fourth airworthy Mosquito did not get far until a new owner orbiting the field then performing moved it to New Zealand. a low approach and go-around 1945-built PZ474 was transferred to the United States Now part of Lewis Air Legends before landing.