richw_82Trumper –
There’s still a fair bit left salvageable, my wish for it if recovery was successful was always to see it displayed in a similar way to the wreck in the Berlin Technical Museum
TO23 –
I think that was the Facebook group approaching everyone in the aftermath of Jon Nichol featuring the wreck prominently in his documentary. There was the feel at one point it was ‘Everybody on the ferry, lets go get it!’
richw_82Hi Tony.
I have a couple of very willing helpers in the area, who managed to knock down a few more red tape barriers and between us we got everything more or less sorted for the third attempt. For once, everyone in authority was agreed it could and would happen. Then the local land management authority (not the National one) suddenly decided any work carried out on the land required a licence. Nobody can yet tell me what the licence is or how you go about obtaining one, so we’re looking into it. Further up the chain we were told no permission is needed to go on the land, other than restrictions on machinery due the environmental issues.
Efforts are still ongoing. If others can take what they want off the wreck illegally with no reaction, we will find the way through to recover her legally.
richw_82Hi Graham,
Sad that your guide didn’t know the significance of exactly what it is. Its Avro Lancaster NF920 KC – E, known as “Easy Elsie” of 617 Sqn, crashed on 29th Oct 1944 near Porjus after attacking the Tirpitz. I’ve been trying for a good few years to get through all the red tape to recover her out of there.
Regards
Rich
richw_82You’ve lost me slightly – I’m not sure where a hangar was mentioned in this thread? I mentioned funding though… and you’d have a hard time getting anything indoors without it.
richw_82What is the real likelihood of a Shack flying again?
I thought the CAA (or someone) has effectively grounded the type over an issue (I seem to recall that BAe wouldn’t support it, but I may be mistaken).
BAE wrote to the CAA suggesting as a type the Shackeltons were completely life expired, and with no evidence as to otherwise this was taken as their position. A few years ago through some friends at Gatwick we got hold of WR963’s fatigue data log; which proved that each aircraft was monitored independently, and also allowed an accurate calculation of the remaining life – with proof.
Shortly after we managed to get the registration sorted and approval of the type as eligible for a Permit to Fly.
Technically there’s nothing in the way other than funding.
richw_82The guy moaning on UKAR hasn’t a clue. There is an issue, but this time its one of Dad’s own making and he’s wanting ‘his’ toy back if the Shackleton Aviation Group CIC don’t play by his rules – despite not being in charge of things any more. So he’s been told to take us to court or shut up.. He’s taken option C, which is get on Facebook and claim we’re all being illegal in carrying on working on the aircraft, purely as he said not to. (its not illegal, as he’s not in any way an authority).
Expect a few rantings and accusations which will eventually tail off when he gets bored.
Work is continuing.
richw_82I believe the Sunderland in the video by Blueye Robotics is EJ138 near Trondheim. It has featured in a couple of other videos by ROV’s and on a couple of wreck dive sites.
richw_82Meddle – it is quite poignant and I’d love to see it preserved in a similar manner to the Berlin Technical Museum aircraft, or the East Kirkby Spitfire and Mustang to capture that. But its a bit shortsighted to let it corrode away or be broken up into pieces sold on ebay when it can be preserved for the future. I have to agree on the Pennemunde wreck as its believed some of her crew are still with her, and the family’s wishes was for it to stay that way.
TO23 – I thoroughly enjoyed myself at Newark last weekend. It wasn’t me I can only assume it was someone off the Facebook page when they were doing things like petitions without knowing exactly what they were trying to do..
TallyHo! – Thanks. Although Shackleton, and lately Meteor have taken up a lot of my time I have kept plugging away on Easy elsie trying to get through the red tape.
richw_82Thanks Grahame. I hope it succeeds… last time I got this far some silly so-and-so started a war and the Royal Engineers that were going to do the recovery got called off to go somewhere hot and sandy!
richw_82Hi all,
I’m not sure if the search function is broken, but if you can look back you’ll see various things about my attempts to get this Lancaster recovered; its one I’ve been working on for a long time. Its me that has set up the JustGiving account to try and raise some funding to help the recovery along.
I’m aware its not a Dambuster Lancaster, rather a Dambusters squadron aircraft, but its as significant for three major reasons – it is the last one extant in any capacity from that Sqn, its one of only a handful with a verified combat history (including Operation Paravane as well as Obviate), and its the last one with all the ‘Tallboy’ equipment and bulged bomb bay doors (all of which is largely intact). I’m not sure of the relevance of bringing the RAFM Halifax into it, as its not meant to be a competition or comparison. If that were how the world worked, we’d only need one Spitfire to represent the whole type and use!
Ownership doesn’t rest with the local community… the whole mess of worms that is ownership has been thoroughly explored, having gone through the Swedish MOD, Defence Attache for the MoD in Sweden, MInistry of Culture and about a dozen other departments to find and either verify or dismiss all the differing stories about NF920’s hostory from 1945 – 1995. Suffice to say those that can say ‘yes’ to this endeavour have done, and I’ve recently established that I won’t be breaking any laws or by-laws. I’ve no doubt some of the local population will be miffed about this but leaving it to the elements and vandals isn’t preserving it or doing it any favours, and more recently the family of the pilot have also expressed the wish to see what is left preserved.
The plan – its the same as its been for years, albeit altered for the restriction imposed by not being able to take heavy machinery on the land. A site survey recording everything, no matter how small. Disassembly of the remaining sections according to AP2062A. Everything palletised that can be, and prepared for airlift, then out she goes by helicopter to a suitable nearby staging area where it will be loaded onto waiting flatbeds.
As for next month – that is this years window, its just how things have fell, I don’t have the luxury of time. If it can be done in that timeframe it will be. If not, it will be pushed back to next summer.
Kind regards,
Rich
richw_82This one’s been on its way for a while hasn’t it? I seem to remember a Youtube video of the parts (the engine in particular) in the lake shortly after it had been relocated, and the pilot was only recovered and laid to rest about 2011..?
richw_82Lately I’ve also been trying to condense things down a bit into a quick reference guide. I have several chapters of stuff like this for generators, instruments, engine services, radios, armaments and a number of other bits –
[ATTACH=CONFIG]261840[/ATTACH]
So instead of leafing (or scrolling, as I’ve now got them scanned as pdf) through page after page to find several pins from the same plug I’ll have it all in a neat spreadsheet where I can search it by cable number, pin number, or a number of other variables.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]261841[/ATTACH]
richw_82No apology needed, most of what I’m doing has been learned through trial and error, crossed with a little knowledge that transfers across from a couple of low voltage training courses I’ve done. But if I do something way off the mark I’d rather it get pointed out!
Rich
richw_82Hi Andy,
Thanks for the concern, you are right, but allow me to explain a little more.
With the sliding hood we thought we had the actuator declutched, it was only later we found the bowden cable had parted; so that one was a bit of an own goal. We knocked the power off almost immediately, as you could see it was pulling too much current (still fuse protected, but more than the normal operating current) and then investigated further. With the gun ventilation system we dismantled everything off the actuator before giving it one try on 12V, rather than the full 24. Straight away you could tell it wasn’t happy so we ceased trying to persuade it and moved to start pulling it out the wing.
Its sometimes a bit hard to get across on the forum as for clarity – and to stop people falling asleep – we try and keep the posts concise, but there was roughly a two hour period working on that one gun ventilation system in the starboard wing.
We have had the odd win – the gunsight frame being one component that behaved itself from the offing, with nothing more than a good oiling, a broken microswitch and the jettison locking wire being required to make it serviceable!
I suppose what it boils down to is we’re all terribly aware that one wrong move working with such a damaged wiring loom could spell serious and fiery disaster, so every step with the electrics is discussed and planned before carrying it out. Applying power to the aircraft first time around occured after we had done insulation tests, and disconnected every plug leading out of the cockpit to the centre section.
But nothing ventured nothing gained. All the effort will be in vain if we can’t get things to work on command, and 788 will be as dead as ever. As you rightly say, one step at a time… the damaged portions that can’t be repaired are being removed and replaced, and the ones that can be repaired are, albeit slowly (because I’m not the best at it!) being rejoined. It’ll not be long now before various things start happening when switches are flicked.
Regards,
Rich
richw_82Evening all, Blue_2 has asked me to explain a little more about the electrical side of things with our Meteor and why its being a bit of a pain.
As with most aircraft our NF splits into several sections for transport; the correct way involving disconnecting several wiring looms that run through the centre section. Being a pressurised aircraft, the cables run from pressure break connections at the electrical distribution boxes and underneath the rear cockpit before termination at section breaks such as the wing leading edges, outboard of the engine nacelles and on the aft face of the centre section rear bulkhead.
We’re in the unfortunate position where at some point every cable through the centre section got severed – in some cases twice. The ongoing task in the background is identifying and tagging each cable end we have (not easy given 50 odd years of deterioration on cable markings), identifying what is missing (complete cables or sections of) and what is intact or damaged. Working off the original AP we’re starting to pin a lot of it down, and just like the airframe is coming along, so is the electrical side. Various circuits in the nose have been checked out and tested – but the difficulty has come in getting power, and that leads us back to the problems in the centre section.
Although power is applied through either the batteries or ground power connection in the nose; it feeds into a cable that runs along the port side to the bus bars and generator/starting panels at the back of the Meteor, before being split into three feeds that go back up front to the fuse boxes and distribution boxes. So we have approximately four pieces of damage or missing cable to repair in each of those circuits before we can progress a bit further.
Last but not least is the issue of mechanical deterioration. Things haven’t been serviced or greased in a long time, and other things have been broken or damaged to gain access over the years. The sliding hood actuator wants to work and you can see it draw power. But the canopy chain is corroded beyond salvation and as we found the other week, the declutching mechanism has a bowden cable which has parted – so it won’t work as designed.
Its the same story with the gun ventilation actuators. Its likely they will work and you can hear them try and measure a current draw – but the gearboxes and driveshafts are frozen up. But like everything else they’ll soon get their turn and will end up free and functional again.
I know this seems a bit downbeat, but its not meant to be. The positive side to things is short of one more engine door and a couple of small panels, we are now as deep as we need to go. We’re all excited that we’re approaching the stage with WS788 where its cleaning, fixing and refitting, rather than pulling chunks off. This is where it all starts to become a lot more fun!
Regards,
Rich
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