Shackleton WR963 and Nimrod XV232 Evening run Coventry Report

This event ran from 1pm till about 5pm just after dusk. The weather was not very kind to us although at least it did not rain. The air temp was good for the time of year but, why is there always a “but”, the wind was not playing ball. High winds and strong gusts persisted all afternoon producing a considerable wind chill on any flesh not covered. The wind and gusts did make conditions difficult for photography and video even when using a tripod.

Make my excuses now.:D This was my first night shoot and I had not made adequate preparations or thought it through and only had one tripod and a monopod intending to take both video and stills. Although the monopod may well have been adequate in still conditions the buffeting from the wind meant it fell short of the mark. So two tripods next time.

On arrival we were treated to a mug of soup and roll just inside the CAF hanger where Shackleton Preservation Trust wear, the new Airfix Shackleton kit and signed copies of the recent Haynes Shackleton manual were available for purchase.

For those of you who have not been able to visit CAF at Coventry the Nimrod is close to the fence nearest the perimeter track and runway. Although the boundary fence to the rear is some distance away it proves not to be far enough! The Shackleton is located more to the middle of a large grassed area and adjacent to the Nimrod.

Both aeroplanes were open for internal viewing.

As dusk approached the Nimrod MR2 XV232 was the first to light up her two starboard engines. To the laymen this seemed to take place with ease with no visible drama unlike props. Needless to say it’s a bit difficult to portray a Nimrod’s running engine from the front but running they were.

I understand that the engines were taken up to full power, although that needs to be confirmed, but the fence to the rear was starting to suffer so not for long. Even to the side of the aeroplane and with only two engines running the noise was something to be experienced.

As much as we may love the Nimrod the main attraction has to be the sight and sound of the Shackleton’s four Griffon engines slowly turning on the starter, catching and finally all running up to full power. It has all the visual impact you could possibly want.

The engine slowly turning over, the contra propellers performing their slow scissor like action, it catches with a belch of smoke, falters and stops. The process then starts again with that “will she wont she” sense of excitement. One wants to clap as number one picks up speed and bursts into full life. With relative ease the other three are then started and running smoothly.

By now it was fully dark and still blowing a bit of a gale with strong gusts, so again apologies for the camera shake but they do convey a bit of the atmosphere, I hope anyway. Hopefully somebody will come along with better.

And now of course what I believe they call in the trade the money shot.

Unfortunately I did not even get a reasonably passable shot of this, probably too excited.

So again sorry about the camera shake.

This effect appears when running at full power and soon disappears when power is reduced.

Hopefully next time with a tripod results will be better.

A hugely successful event brought about by the hard work by both teams. I know that the SPT team had been working all morning resolving problems and making checks. This hard work paid off with a very successful 4 engine run.

Many thanks to all of them.

Please consider supporting the Shackleton Preservation Trust’s project to get WR963 back where she belongs in the sky and hopeful joining at least one if not two sister Avro 4 engine aeroplanes. IMHO this project is one well worth supporting and has very high potential for success it being only a question of time and of course money. They recently had a Crowd Funding event, to finance the main spar investigation, which was over subscribed.

You can, of course, follow them on their thread on here and visit their website to join the Friends of WR963. (and see a decent pic of the glowing exhaust!!)

http://www.avroshackleton.co.uk/