Sea Vixen wheels up landing

Anybody have an update on the Vixen?
Have they found the cause of why two hydraulic systems failed? Or was it something simple like electrical failure.

Main upshot of the Airwork Tornado mess, was they ended up stripping the centre fuselages out of the F.2s that were in storage at St Athan. And rebuilding the damaged F.3s with that section. and sticking the F.2s back together with the section off the F.3s

TS

“No, thank you very much. You did it already.”

Agreed. Puts me in mind of the witticism “The biggest c*cks crow the loudest”.

So after a nasty bout of mutual fellatio, any chance that we could get back to some non-exclusive exchange?

No, thank you very much. You did it already.

And… at the risk of appearing stupid, what was the upshot of the Tonka/Airworks deal?

I wasn’t aware that asking questions was a sign of stupidity…

Any more non professional engineers going to make themselves look stupid?

Surely it would make sense to return the FAAM example to flight using the spares from XP924? I doubt she flew many hours.

Ex Brat, yes it will be expensive and require proper sheeties to repair it…

My favorite Cat 3 jobs were on XZ101 and XZ109 at Colt in 1990-91. Agreed, some of the repair schemes could be in the Vol 6 and as a mature airframe, however some will not. Not actually seeing the damage, one cannot say the scope of the repairs. I could do the surveyor job and did most of the work for the last Jaguar Cat 3 in liaison with the RSS Surveyor. It was a rush job to get the frame out of Colt and of course I knew the ways of RSS and the airframe.

Ahh sheared a few door hinges off those, indeed one at Cosford still has my artwork on the door saying no hinges fitted in bright ground equipment yellow. 😮

Ex Brat

My favorite Cat 3 jobs were on XZ101 and XZ109 at Colt in 1990-91. Agreed, some of the repair schemes could be in the Vol 6 and as a mature airframe, however some will not. Not actually seeing the damage, one cannot say the scope of the repairs. I could do the surveyor job and did most of the work for the last Jaguar Cat 3 in liaison with the RSS Surveyor. It was a rush job to get the frame out of Colt and of course I knew the ways of RSS and the airframe.

Dump it up at Newcastle and let Bluebird Mike and Bill do their magic.. They definitely have the fabrication skills and the knowledge to to repair the damage.. Nah, finish K7 first please.

I could do that now on my types on my ticket! No QA checks for cut lines, prefits, assembly or finals then?

Because the Aircraft Salvage and Transportation Flight boys did what it said on the tin.. Crash and Smash. The Aircraft Repair Flight personnel (whom had to do a primary structure repair course before they were allowed to carry out Category 3 level repairs) at Abo were the RAF Sheeties. The 2 ARFs and ASTF were combined into the Repair and Salvage Squadron (RSS). I was on 2 ARF from 89 to 92. You would say you were on RSS and people would say “you on Crash and Smash?” Only time I ever heard of any guys from the ARFs doing crash and smash duties was at Kegworth with the British Midland 737, seeing all the ASTF guys were still up Lockebie. The structural work on the Vixen sounds like a big Cat 3 that would be several thousand hours of work. It is not just the strip down, the repair schemes (that as there is no OEM, is likely to come under BCAR A rules and the CAA will be watching) and the fabrication and repair. I would have to look up the BCAR A regulations on repair of primary structure for PtFs with no OEM oversight. I know if it was my civvy type, it would be straight to the OEM with that damage.

I was thinking along the lines of robbing the booms and bulkhead etc, the may be cracked from the landing or distorted, but could be exchanged, subject to fatigue and paperwork as always, but they will no doubt have gone down that route.

Problem is to find a Sea Vixen in a museum that has paperwork and fatigue life left. I suspect they are very few after the drone massacre in the 1980s ! In practical terms it would be cheaper to get a Sea Hawk back in the air – a type that saw some action.

Probably Tech Charged, but if not supervised correctly possibly nothing…. Don’t forget Airworks and the Tonka farce either.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/crashed-raf-jet-damaged-by-repairs-1357449.html

I remember back in the 70’s we used to book out the odd tool kit and do a bit of moonlighting over at Lasham, you were given a job to do and when finished you would knock off… one of the guys was working on a 737 and noticed a Civi contractor de-riveting a panel, going to get a supervisor they were stunnned to see he was drilling around the rivets then punching them out.. little discussion later, it turned out he was a car mechanic and had been told by a “mate” the money was good, so had come along to see if he could do it…. he couldn’t, he left and luckily he hadn’t damaged any major structure, but it took some repairing.

I just hope someone stumps up the monies, shame they cannot swop the airframe out with one in the museum and add all the airworthy bits to that, then tart this up and stick it in the museum.

See, now I want to know what happened to the SAC!

Not unexpected, but still very sad news.

I don’t think money will be the biggest problem. Finding skilled aviation metal workers to put in the hours will be more difficult. Those types are already employed and always in demand for their skills.

Not at all. £18 per hour secures the skill, but they’d need to provide a repair scheme from the DA.

You don’t thinking raising 2-3 million pounds for a fairly unknown post-WW2 aircraft will be a problem? Sorry, you’ve got the completely wrong end of the stick. I fail to see how this is going to happen. Money makes aircraft fly, nothing else. I just hope they can at least make a decent static aircraft out of it and give it an honorable retirement.