Alas no real progress on the restoration of G-AVCN, after some intial work the project stalled due to funding issues. ‘VCN currently in external storage at Bembridge, pending a decision on her future.

Chumpy.

Photo credit Mark Shepherd

The original asbestos ‘mill board’ as it was called, is about 1/8″ thick, bog-standard hardboard makes a very good ‘non-airworthy’ substitute.

The top-hat stiffener rivets right through the lot, though I think there are a few double flush rivets that hold the sandwich together before the top hat is fitted. These pitched in between the holes in the top-hat.

Chumpy.

..Just to add a splash of colour, this of interest perhaps?

An original set of Dupont paint chips to MAP standards, these individual pasted in samples, not a Dulux style printed colour leaflet. I presume intended for U.S. manufacturers building aircraft destined for the RAF?

Chumpy.

PS Please adjust your monitors to suit your own particular taste!

A couple of shots of Poling, scans of small snapshot’s from my collection..the masts in 1958. View of buildings and mast bases taken in 1960.

Chumpy.

Hi Nils,
As I mentioned before, I do not have a detailed knowledge of the wing structure of the Wellington. As you can see from the list that I sent there are many different sections. Inner / Outer..Upper / Lower mainplanes etc. The list was drawn up in the 1930s to cater for biplane construction hence the many mainplane sections.

In this case Top Outer Main-Planes means the section of wing outboard of the engine nacelle on the Wellington. The photos look to my eyes like a joint in a main-spar boom. So could well be where they join the Inner section.

Hopefully there is a Wellington expert out there who can confirm this. Might be worth you starting a new thread with a ‘Wellington’ title, to attract a suitable expert!

Chumpy.

Mine is the 1987 edition…

Whilst I dot not have a detailed knowledge of the Wellington, the data plate is ‘standard’ Vickers. Similar plates used on Spitfires, the Supermarine company also using the Vickers method of part numbering.

As previously mentioned the first three digits denote the aircraft type. The next two digits the particular section of the aircraft structure eg ***18 Tailplane…***44 Petrol tanks.

In this case the ***03 denotes Top Inner Main Planes, the last three numbers denote the idividual part or sub-assembly.
In the case of Spitfires this sort of plate was only applied to major sub-assembly items, hence the ‘61424’ serial number, so I suspect the same for Wellingtons.

Thus the full Drawing Number for this item is 28503-808.

The ‘BQ3’ is a factory date code, again similar found on spits.

Cheers, Chumpy.