Can anyone tell me where Jim Pearce operates from, please? Has he a website, or a company?

He’s a museum owner, SADSACK, and paid far too much for it (though he did buy a lot more secondary stuff with it), so he’s understandably seeking to recoup some of his expense. Time will tell, and he might relent one day… 😉

Vega ECM – Each channel was rolled from flat through an array of rollers, each altering the eventual C-shape into a curved length that was pre-set into the micrometer gauges on each adjuster wheel – effectively, the rolling machine was the “Grandaddy” of all CNC-type machinery in use today… designed, built & used in mass production long before computers were even invented. There were about 10,000 drawings of the complete Wellington – no idea how many for the airframe alone – but every section was made separately in the rolling mill, then fitted into a jig and rivetted together.

Those butterfly connectors were aluminium pressings, and the outer connector plates were stamped out by the thousands…

The old joke of “300,000 rivets flying in close formation”, eh? 😉

Thanks, chaps – all comments very much appreciated!

Well, I had set up that Facebook Page nearly two years ago, but left it quiet until we got our house sale & move dealt with. During that first unpublicised year, it gained a tiny 32 “Likes” from friends…but as soon as we had settled and tidied up, I edited its ‘mission statement’ to: “Can a Wellington ever fly again? Or is it just a flight of fantasy?”, and started sharing the Page to other Groups and Pages across that website as far and as fast as I could manage, just to test the public waters on a bigger scale than I could here; effectively, a discussion topic and a taster – that was all I had in mind, to begin with…

Amazingly, after less than one full year, it’s clocked up just under 2000 “Likes” – a figure that has staggered me, somewhat, but continues to encourage me (and my mad mates) to dig deep and cast around for help right across the globe, seeking advice and even spares, crash site locations – anything we could think of that might bear fruit, somehow – and I have to say that I have been greatly encouraged to keep going and trying, no matter how large or small this “project” may become, so much so that I later set up a Facebook Group, “Wellington Preservation Group”, to take care of those with a more enduring interest overall in the background interest in all the other smaller targets that we have in mind. That, too, has gained members at an astounding rate – 560+ at the latest count – and not all have crossed over from the other Page, to judge by the names lists.

Thus far, I have made contact with a decent technical adviser in CAA, received copyright permission from BAe (very recently, after a long search for the right person), set up ‘alliances’ with all manner of very experienced and helpful aviation restoration experts & technicians, metals suppliers, manufacturing companies – especially a firm that’s happy to roll off the channel sections required for the geodetics, which will bring down the overall complexity of our own rolling mill design somewhat to that of a channel-curving machine, effectively (though we’ll still be able to roll our own, if you’ll pardon the expression!). We’ve also established very good relations and moral support/working rapport with Brooklands Museum and others (with particular thanks to JT at Brooklands, for their ongoing support as things are progressing in ever-bigger stages between us), so we’re looking very positive for technical advice and support as we go.

The Facebook Page has listed a few ideas that have floated through my mind during this past year, ranging from a small to big ambitions. The initial idea of a mock cockpit for taking around to various events and shows has been gradually developing in my mind, and is aimed to give people an idea of what it would have been like to ‘fly’ a Wimpy – to be achieved, partially, by building-in a flight simulator set-up with one (or more) LCD screen(s) covering its canopy, using something like Microsoft’s FSX simulator (already donated!) fully connected to the control equipment, so that visitors can have a go at crashing a digital Wellington 🙂 amongst other things; I’ve even got a dummy front turret in mind to keep the kids (and smaller persons!) entertained by having a go at “daggadaggadagga!” playing…

I mentioned developing a serious interest, too, in a large-scale radio-controlled Wellington; there are several out there already, and the new owner of a fully-geodetic 1:4.5-scale Wimpy has expressed great interest in the idea of supporting the ‘project’ as well as he can manage…and another fully-geodetic 1:5th scale (all aluminium) Wimpy is on another drawing board, ready to go in a couple of years’ time. My interest with those stems from an idea that I had when watching US Air Force drones in action, recently – why not fit out such a large scale model with a set of cameras, installed in the pilot’s eye-view, and in both turrets? Make those cameras also movable on R/C gimbals to be operated by others on the ground, while the pilot is left to concentrate upon the delicate task of flying safely – and add to those cameras, another smaller one right up on the tail tip, all being projected on TV screens on the ground (perhaps inside the mock cockpit) for spectators to really enjoy a “flight”, as near exactly as it would have appeared to the crew in a real aircraft – in my mind, a very good “fall-back” option should a real flying Wellington prove to be unattainable, after all; indeed, it might prove to be the ONLY way we might experience what it was like to enjoy a Wellington in flight…

On the subject of “real” aircraft – flying or not – I have conferred with many technicians and engineers about various legalities and issues regarding design, building, flight and other connected, important issues, and everyone agrees that firstly, a full-scale exact reproduction of a Vickers Wellington would be extremely expensive (as everyone knows, anyway!), but technically ‘doable’, given umpteen years and sizeable donations from someone like Richard Branson or maybe Sir Peter Jackson, etc; not impossible, but certainly stretching the realms of possibility and probability…Until I mooted the notion of a scaled-down replica – say, about 2/3rd size – built to original design criteria & shapes to look exactly the same, but be constructed of modern composite materials in representation of the original design – things like honeycomb sandwich boarding, latticed carbon fibre, higher grade but thinner alloys, etc., etc. – and all of a sudden, I started getting “Hmm, yes…now I like the sound of that – much more achievable, given today’s technology…”
Well, that last notion is bound to upset rivet counters and purists, but still, it’s a workable option if an exact replica in original materials becomes unlikely… We’ll see – I’m in no rush to push that boundary.

…Leaving us with the growing likelihood of a ground-rolling replica, developed from copying existing parts, artefacts, wreckage (for patterns) & drawings – probably ending up with a MkIV, as I’ve been reliably informed by very knowledgeable sources that there are still plenty of Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp radials around the world – some still new in crates – thanks to the continuing maintenance and use of DC3s and a few C47s (plus a whole pile of other potential source airframes). I’ve also found a good reference source for parts universally-used in other aircraft similar to the Wellington, too, so we should be able to find enough non-airframe parts and piecemeal sections of geodetic panels to furnish it out (says he, hopefully, with fingers crossed…).
Maybe, perhaps, possibly, other establishments might offer to provide us with those wings & bits elsewhere as the project progresses – it’s a nice dream, but you never know – so it’s increasingly possible that we could construct a rolling memorial using many parts from crashed Wellingtons, each piece fitted into a structurally-sound tubular skeleton (as originally conceived from the very outset), and every bit commemorated and identified with a small plaque dedicated to the memory of those who perished at whatever crash site the relevant part came from.

L7775 has been espoused several times; as you know, the wings are at East Kirkby, and although I’ve contacted the museum, no promises have been made in any way, except initially for purpose of measurements & copying. The tail section at Moreton-In-Marsh…actually isn’t there any longer, but is now in Stratford Armouries Museum – and is NOT, in fact, from L7775, but from a crash site in Yorkshire. However, although the current owner offered the entire collection of tail-end parts recently, he wants a King’s Ransom for it, so unless he changes his mind, it’s out of reach… 🙁
Maybe, if we need a substantial lump of a tail section later, we might ask the Laird of L7775’s resting place if we might acquire it, as it’s still up there; maybe an option…but it isn’t that important; patterns and drawings are available for the tail section, etc. (though it would be nice to have such a chunk in place from an original).

Anyway – enough of the goal-setting; it’s been one heck of a brain-storming twelve months, and a colossal amount of discussion and negotiation has been going on in the background as more ideas have been floated, mooted, discounted, modified, expanded and discussed, and useful discoveries made – but we can do very little indeed until we get that base workshop, so that is our absolute priority, and we should be attending to that goal very imminently.

Thanks for your time and interest – please keep in touch, and keep your fingers crossed! 😉

Is there any way of contacting him, or perhaps he has someone here assisting with ‘business’? Or is it closed down for the winter, now?

Odd, that – I’d seen a thread via Google that declared that the B25 had been sold to Barry Parkhouse for £15,000 when it was shifted to his current abode…?

…And you’re right, Blue 2 – “you don’t ask, you don’t get!”, and my favourite old chestnut quote, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”…unless, Sqdn Leader Jack Ruskin, you know for absolute 100% rock-solid-certain that it’s absolutely definitely not for sale…and can prove it? 😉

The way I see things is that if there’s history in an airframe, and if enough people are interested in supporting such a project, then it could be well worth enquiring if it MIGHT, possibly, maybe p’rhaps be acquirable, IF Mr P’ might be amenable to such a wild notion. We’ll see…

XF799 is currently listed for sale here – gog get it!!!

http://www.rainbowaviation.co.uk/aircraftsales.html