Update time.
You’ll notice we made it into this issue of Flypast in the news section, and we were pleasantly surprised to see the “Q Call” article on the Shackleton.
4th June
Work has slowed a little on WR963, but never does it stop. The next big work day is after the next engine run when all the engines need their filters, plugs, cam clearances and many other things checking. There will be lots of photos of oily Griffon bits for those that like that sort of thing!
As to those of you wondering when the next engine run is, we intend to run on Saturday 9th July. There is a significance to this date, as it is 20 years to the day since WR963 and WL790 arrived at Coventry, and 20 years since her last flight.*
You may remember me talking about the air system a couple of weeks back, and the installation of the pneumatics crate. We had a leak on the bottom pair of bottles, but it was soon rectified. We won’t know just how well the compressors are doing on the engines are doing until our next run, but the bottles and system are doing well having held what little pressure we had in the system for a fortnight.
The interior has been cleaned and partly repainted and I will post pictures of that in the next couple of weeks. I couldn’t get any at the moment as I really don’t want to get in the way of Vic and Rich Marriott, the members of our team that are doing the task. There’s no room to really get past the hoover, and all the bottles of cleaning products for floors and chairs, but I can say that 963 is looking very much healthier inside.
Our prop is currently at the workshop of one of our team being built up off site. We are in desperate need of an intershaft bearing, it is classed as an engine part not a prop part and as such the kits we have don’t contain it. We also have none on our spare units, they have all been used in the past – probably on WL790.
One thing that has been spoiling 963 for a while was the smashed nav light lens on the starboard wing. Vic Marriott took the smashed remains of teh old one, and set to manufacturing another. Vic being the perfectionist he is, by the time we arrived this Saturday it was fitted, with the seconite sealing and repainted too! He still wasn’t satisfied, research having revealed a telltale piece that you can see from the cockpit, so he made and fitted that too. I envy people’s skills sometimes but it does look the part:
There is no stopping him! He is scouring our spares holding for cockpit windows and any other glazing he can find, and has started muttering about replacing the clouded windscreen eyebrow pieces.
We’ve had some other cleaning work going on, and some more niggling maintenance tasks. The priming line we replaced was checked again and while we were in the undercarraige bays the landing gear hydraulic rams were cleaned and greased.
We also found that the external locks were seized (the red struts in the photo) so we set to and persuaded them out. We managed to revive the spring action on three of them, but one of them was too bad to repair. Thankfully we had a spare, so we gave it some lubrication and fitted it.
For those that wonder about other locks.. the Shackleton control locks are all internal. There is one mounted in the tail (elevators), one in the trailing spar (ailerons), and a big red handle over the throttles on the pilot’s side (rudders). They are all connected, meaning the rudder cannot be released until elevators and ailerons have been unlocked.
This is the elevator one on the end of the little red tag:
And here’s how it normally appears, when I go down there to take it out:
Not my favourite job, but a regular place I end up; as you can guarantee a visitor will try to use force to move the rudder lock so they can play with the throttles. :rolleyes:
Peter asked me a couple of weeks ago about the bomb bay – we haven’t had the front open again yet, but I took these shots of the bay as they’re better than the ones I posted before.
Looking aft:
Looking forward:
In these shots, the flat portion is the centre section. The middle carrier position is rated at 12,000lbs, a legacy from the Lancaster. The small row of bolts you can see before the ‘egg crate’ style construction starts again is the transport joint. The unsightly brown tubes either side are remnants of the heater system – this being one of the few areas of 963 that has succumbed to being outdoors.
After a cup of tea or two, a few of us boarded and attempted to see if we can get 963’s radio behaving She had many parts robbed, changed and chopped around. Unfortunately the best we managed to get out of her was we could hear the tower but no-one can hear us! If anybody out there is a radio man, we could do with your services for a while.
It’s a shame it doesn’t work, as there’s much on the old Shackleton that still does. The Orange Harvest for example still lets you see what radar is looking at you and where from.. so while 963’s hearing’s gone, her eyesight is still pretty good even with the radar scanner long since removed.
WR963 will be open to all during the upcoming Jaguar Enthusiasts Club day on the 12th June, but the update next weekend will be from another member as I’m away (again.)
Kind Regards,
Rich
* We aren’t counting the 8 seconds or so Dave Hencken managed to sneak in a couple of years ago 😉
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