Yesterday Dad and I made the 5 hr drive down to Trenton to see the progress on the Halifax restoration. The crew was very busy working on the wings,cockpit,engines,tail,gun turret,ammunition containers and tracks, amopngst other areas as well.
We met Bill tytula and he showed us around the project and we came upon a Halifax escape hatch from the cockpit. Bill said that this hatch was found by someone on a mountain surrounding the Lake and that it might have come from a halifax mk2. it turns out that the only halifax in the area was indeed NA337 so this was the actual escape hatch from the cockpit of NA337!!
Bill also showed us the various instruments and panels from the cockpit. I mentioned how they did such a great job rebuilding the bombaimers panel. He said that this was original and not only did it survive the destruction of the nose section during the crash, but it remained in the aircraft hanging by its wiring looms!
If anyone can help the Halifax project with Bristol hercules engine parts or tools especially starter motors can you please contact the group via their website(http://www.halibag.com)
Cheers,
Peter
PS I have posted some pics here showing the progress.
By: Peter - 19th April 2003 at 12:23
NA337
Steve,
The hercs are capable of turning over by hand or starter but unfortunately due to deterioration in the magnesium interior compnents, they will never be run unless they are totally rebuilt. However all is not lost as the group would love to acquire a useable starter motor to use on one of the engines to turn it over electrically.
You don’t happen to have a starter sitting on your mantle piece do you??
By: Arabella-Cox - 18th April 2003 at 22:54
Originally posted by Paul Cushion
Bristol Hercules engine parts and starter motors? Are they going to run her up then? I hope so, that would be cool!Paul.
Sorry to dash your hopes Paul, but I don’t think any of NA337’s Hercs will go again. Runnable Hercs are rarer than hens teeth (as both Steve Grey and Tim Moore will tell you!), so I doubt that they’ll be attempting to fire theirs up. They’ve been searching for bits for a while now; we sent them a batch of nut plates for the gill ring assembly, so when she finally goes on display I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that there’s some bits on there that I cleaned up and packed. 🙂
By: Peter - 16th April 2003 at 22:45
Halifax hanger
Hello Ant.
They hope to start in on the ofundation for the hanger this year. They are still looking for funds from the federal government who so far have shown no interest. The provincial govt donated a check for 766,000 recently towards it. They do hope to have a 5 million dollar building built to house the aircraft. The crews are getting very cramped now as the aircraft takes shape. We barely had room to walk around the aircraft assemblies without bumping into them
By: Ant.H - 16th April 2003 at 21:06
Thanks for the report Peter,nice to see her making such good progress. 🙂
What’s the situation regarding housing the completed aircraft?Last I heard,she was going to be displayed in a hangar that is only just big enough for her and will in effect entomb her.Have they given any thought to raising funds for a bigger hangar?
By: Paul Cushion - 16th April 2003 at 18:25
Bristol Hercules engine parts and starter motors? Are they going to run her up then? I hope so, that would be cool!
Paul.
By: DOUGHNUT - 16th April 2003 at 08:53
Then sell the B*&%! P-51d to generate funds to do it.
By: dhfan - 16th April 2003 at 01:56
Magnificent job on the Hampden.
I agree about the Hendon Halifax, but didn’t they say that to restore it would use their entire restoration/maintenance staff and budget for 10 years?
By: Peter - 15th April 2003 at 23:21
halifax
another pic
By: Bluebird Mike - 15th April 2003 at 18:22
Never mind new buildings full of twirling Mustangs, Hendon should REALLY take note. 😡
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April 15, 2003 at 5:06 pm