Valance By ways update

Doughnut,

When I said that we will run on private occassions I was implying that we will be doing something similar to your suggestion.

So far we have not firmed up anything, still in the “planning” stage. But that’s the direction we will probably go in. All participants to sign a “blood chit” (As we always were told in my RAF days) to absolve GAM of any responsibility should something nasty happen. Obviously we spent a lot of hours and effort before any “public” run in trying to ensure that there are no accidents. This was clearly illustrated to us earlier this year when we lost the spinner from number four during a startup. Unfortunately it decided to head directly into the props of number three. This was doing about 1000 rpm at the time! It’s amazing how far the shredded spinner parts went! I saw the spinner wobbling and tried to shut down 3, but the slow running cutoff just doesn’t shut the engine down that quickly. This was not a public occassion, only our engineering staff were there.
That, it turned out, was due to the spinner backplate giving up it just cracked and fell apart. Then I guess it was probably nearly 50 years old.

A salutary lesson.

To Pmills

I can fully understand the insurance problems associated with the engine runs a public events. Could the insurance problem be over come by selling a very limited number, say 30, tickets to enthusiasts on the basis of it being a ‘photo day’ where the photographers can request either clear shots or set pieces with period dress ect. I know that I have said this before but given the right conditions I think I could be a money spinner, I would guess that the video boys would love it. Advertise it the photographic press and you will get the non aviation people as well.

We all know that photograghers are rich B****s so why not milk them for all their worth :o)

DOUGHNUT

ps If this idea takes off I would be very pleased to help you out. Contact me Off Forum if you wish.

Thats great news about the video

Pmills.
I can hardly wait to see that video! It would be neat to see all of those static aircraft doing engine startups with great sound recording of the whole startup sequence to go with it!

The Victor nose is sadly at the bottom of the list for resources.
Like most volunteer setups we only have limited engineering, people, financial etc etc etc. So its a question of who has the time.
We try to get a person or persons to “adopt” an aircraft, in this way some work will be done on them. We do not have a “Foster Parent” for the Victor nose. Or some of the others for that matter.
Just out of interest, Peter V has had a meeting with BA recently regarding a big white bird!

Originally posted by pmills
Concorde will probably be lifted over the fence

:p If only he could get one of those there! 😀 The piece du resistance in the collection

Pete, are there any planes to do something with the nose section of the Victor. When I saw it on Saturday, its still in the same state it was in one year previous, more or less with the cokpit still it in.

Are there any plans to restore this?

Once again many thaks for your help pete.

All airframes came by road
We are about 100 metres from the taxiway
Concorde will probably be lifted over the fence

Andrew,

The last public run was 23rd June 2001, Saturday.
We only founf out then that we weren’t covered.
So, no run on Sunday!

All the Griffons have been run this year.
We will be running all again soon.
This is to determine what work each engine
requires to improve its quality of life

We are in the process of putting together a video
of covering runs over about 4 years.

Incidently, we had an ex Shack pilot on Saturday
who flew WR982 “J” on her last operational sortie.
We will be trying to get him to give us his memories
etc on video. He doesn’t know this yet!

How have most of the airframes arrived by air..road..?

Not sure how close it is to the runway.

A good I dea Peter, which Im sure Peter Valance would be greatly interested in. If it means him being able to get more money to completely restore his collection, im sure he would consider it.

You can contact him via this email address: [email]pgv@gatwick-aviation-museum.co.uk[/email].

Wow what great pics!

The collection looks fantastic and a tribute to all of you efforts! I have to wonder though, is there any thought about putting together a video showing the colection and including engine startups etc on each of the runnable aircraft sometime in the future? It would be fairly easy to do and would generate 1000s of pounds in revenue as those of us that no longer live in the uk and cannot make the trip to see the collection real time would love a video showing it and the runnable aircraft..!

Pete many thanks indeed for setting the record straight. 🙂

Just one question though… when did they stop doing the engine runs on the j shack? I think the last time I saw it done was in 1996. They didn’t run it last year Im pretty certain of that.

Cheers once again. 🙂

As the webmaster and engineer at GAM I can confirm the following:
Only Shackleton “J” Runs, Kilo has kindly donated many parts!
“K” has been painted by Peter Vallance himself, he hopes to complete it this year! (We are NOT holding our breath).
We do not run on Public Open Days. This is due to the Insurance costs (It was covered by the public liability insurance for the show, now it requires a separate, highly expensive policy). We do and will run on specific private occassions.
The Harrier was used by the RN at Lee-on-Solent to train matelots how to wash a Harrier after a sortie, hence its markings. These marking were used when it was decided to start improving her appearance and as an initial process to putting it back into full 3 Sqdn GR3 colours. (We have all the marking from 3 Sqdn). These RN markings will be changed shortly. We do not have an engine, Pegasus is somewhat of a rare beast. We have been promised nozzles though, in fact we were hoping that they would have been fitted last week, but……
The Sea Vixen is runnable, both 208’s run OK.
The Bucc has a almost new Gyron Junior on the stb side.
The Port engine has a large crack in the compressor assembly.
We do have a couple of used Gyrons. It may be possible to make a good one out of three.
Sea Prince 572 has run, not for about three years. This will be made runnable again before the year end. Lots of hours left on this airframe! The Venom has also been run but not for some while.
The Sea Hawk was parked under the trees to keep the council from complaining too much. It may now stay out. It was painted a couple of weeks ago. Sadly the paint used was partly translucent, we have now been promised a new, better version by the maker. It will probably be painted again this week. The Bounemouth flying club sticker has been on it since it arrived. The Pembroke has been washed and will be further cleaned in preparation for a coat of paint.
The Bucc colours are authentic, she will be getting a new coat this year too. So too are the Vixen colours.
The part that has been “ripped out” of the Lightning has been REMOVED to allow some major restoration work to be done.
The highly corroded spine panels have been reskinned with Aluminum (Replacing the original Magalloy). I am in the process of updating the Lightning pages with a full detailed, illustrated account of the restoration work carried out so far. Coming “real soon now”.
The Ercoupe has been with us for just over three years. It arrived as a static exhibit and was found to have lots of hours and for a small sum could be made airworthy again. This was done, she has a minor undercariage problem at the moment.

Pete Mills

DOUGHNUT,

Thank you for clearing up the reason for that oddity. It certainly looks strange.

Regards

Pembroke

Valance

The Buccaneer and Sea Vixen colour schemes are quite original. The Bucc spent most of its life as a trials aircraft at Farnborough and Boscombe Down, and the Sea Vixen was a one-off TT.4 variant trialled at Llanbedr.

S.1 XN923, Buccaneer is a bit of rare one these days..apparently still has engines.. would these be the Gyron Junior engines used in the Mk.1 Buccaneers

Canuck — only the “J” shack is capable of doing engine runs, none of the other are, as they either have no engines or have components missing from the engines.

The only airworthy aircraft is the Ercoupe 415D, whixh he has just obtained.

Doyghnut – No the Harrier is still witout an engine. At the moment its in RN colours, but according to the site, Valance wants it back in the original 3 Sqd. markings. He has been given 3 sqd. transfers by the RAF, but he is still asking people for help on this project.

To Pembroke,

The GR3 is painted in FAA Sea Harrier colours because when the RAF replaced the GR3 with the GR5/7 several aircraft were allocated to the RNAS Culdrose for use by the deck handaling training school. Some are still used today. One aircraft appeared at Yeovilton for some reason (WLT or BDR ?) for some time it was acting as a gate guard, but I think has now been replaced by a FA2 Sea Harrier.

Has this aircaft been fitted with a engine yet last time I saw it it looked very odd without the jet nozzels

DOUGHNUT

Does anyone know which are runners..or at least capable of running if fuel was available and local H&S allowed it?

Quite a tidy looking collection. I’d say Peter Vallance deserves all the support he can get, especially for how he seems to be caring for those two Shackletons.

He’s got some interesting schemes there though; Buccaneer looks a bit odd, and as for the Harrier GR3 in a Sea Harrier FRS1 scheme. Novel… 😀