02/11/2019 Update
Yep, I battled across a slightly soggy Yorkshire this morning to spend the day mollycoddling that old jet again! To be fair the weather this morning was good, as you’ll see in the following picture of the wing trestle trolleys we spent last Sunday morning overhauling doing the good work of supporting the wings of our new arrival, ex-Linton On Ouse Jet Provost XN589
After some TLC she’ll be resuming gate guard duties for us at YAM.
Anyway, back to 788, where our day started well with another donation to the jaffa cake stockpile!
I spent a chunk of the morning finishing the rub down of the inside of the starboard inner undercarriage door, and while I was at it one of the port nose panels which had been overlooked. I then replaced some blown rivets in the door, before treating both items to an etch prime
While I had the compressor out, and the gear set up for riveting, I got on with replacing the rivets in the port aileron trailing edge. This job was completed after lunch
So I then continued the afternoon throwing silver paint at various bits of the jet…
So not an unproductive day really. All being well… more tomorrow!
28/10/2019 Update
…I’m afraid it’s not that exciting really. As well as carrying a knee injury I have also been laid low with a proper stinker of a cold, so Sunday was never going to be that productive. Still, I showed willing, having been asked to get a pair of wing trestles serviceable in readiness for a new arrival at YAM this week. This I did with a lot of help from Danni, Eloise, Scott, some big hammers, penetrating oil, and interesting vocabulary!
This took the morning, and most of my energy. So in the afternoon I decided to have a gentle tidy of the shelf under the bench…
…and soon wished I hadn’t! It did mean I found some more goodies to send to East Midlands Aeropark for their Meteors though, and a NOS port aileron access panel which I soon fitted. Means there’s one less to make!
Then, some panels got a bit of paint added. Primer for the underwing access panels and NOS fuselage access hatch
More primer for the outer skin of the inner u/c door
And a couple of coats of black for the cockpit rear decking and the hyd tank access hatch
Now I’m off for a mug of hot chocolate with a slug of something “medicinal” in it!
I have some Flea news! Since I got busy with WS788 I have not had chance to pay any attention to G-AFFI sadly. She has been safe in the hangar, tucked away under the wing of the Halifax where, apart from getting some oil dripped on her by the bomber, she was safe.
Now, she has emerged, been de-winged, and is now in the hands of the chaps who run our SE5 and Kitten who are restarting the work to return the little beast to life!
I know ‘AFFI gathered a bit of a following on here, so I’ll share what news I can, when I can, from the chaps now seeing to her needs.
Cheers chaps! It’s nice to know this thread is still being followed. The forum is still not the most user friendly (though there have I admit been improvements) and it’s nice to know it hasn’t quite scared you all away…!
Anyway, I know what you are all actually here for, so I best get on with it….!
20/10/2019 Update
And it’s a double update today, covering Eloise and I working the jet on Thursday, and myself yesterday. It’s also an update which highlights the importance of playing nicely, featuring as it does essential items which have come our way from 4 different museums or organisations, plus a very generous individual. It shows the value of talking to people when you are trying to get along in the restoration game…
Neither day was hugely productive in terms of physical work on the jet as I am now carrying a knee injury which is slowing me down somewhat, but both were productive in other ways. Read on…
As regular readers know, we are a resourceful lot. If we see something discarded which we can use, we aren’t too proud to claim (or as we say yoink) it! Last week I yoinked a whiteboard out of the skip. It has now been set up and re-purposed as a status board for the jet, so we can keep an active record of when maintenance has been carried out on 788 and her support equipment. You’ll see all the important stuff is recorded!
On Thursday, we had a group of visitors from East Midlands Aeropark. You may remember they donated us a new pair of lower nacelle assemblies for 788? Well on Thursday we got to repay their kindness. They have an NF.14, WS760, in need of a lot of love. As well as some old handling damage, they have to contend with the fact that theirs is missing a number of vital parts due to theft which occurred a few years ago. I spent most of the morning with them as they photographed and inspected WS788, particularly the bits they will either have to make up from scratch or restore. One very good thing to come out of this is the likelihood of them solving our canopy woes, by borrowing our front section to use as a template we can help them and they in turn will help us. With this in mind I pointed Eloise at our canopy and set her on continuing the extraction of the many unwilling screws still holding the perspex sections captive!
After our visitors had gone for a look around the rest of the museum, I also got in on the canopy dismantling game
While progress was made, there’s still a lot more to do. I see drilling of screw heads in our future…! Once we were both thoroughly fed up with that game, our attention turned to the underwing tanks which were donated to us by NELSAM last year. More specifically, the huge dents in the top of them where someone has clearly ignored the instruction to not stand and, well, stood… I decided a while ago to try and blow the dents out so, after making a suitable blank for the fuel discharge pipe, my trusty compressor was fired up and, slowly and carefully, we blew the worst of the dents out of the tanks!
Before:
and after:
Much better I’m sure you’ll agree!
So a productive day as far as networking was concerned, the EMA chaps left happy with info and parts to help make their poorly jet better, and we got some jobs done! One other thing which happened during the week which raised a smile for several reasons was the arrival of a photograph. As you may have noticed, I have a collection of original photos of NF’s in service amassing. After a chat with Paul Wright, Phantom fettler extraordinaire, at Newark last weekend, he offered to send me an NF pic he had. Turns out it’s an original print of the aerodynamic prototype for the NF-series, pseudo NF.11 VW413.
This raised a smile not only because of the contents, but because of the interesting way Paul addressed the envelope to me…
It certainly helps to have a sense of humour in this game! Now onward, to yesterday’s doings. And again, not that much went on, as I spent much of the morning entertaining a guest. Brian is one of our facebook pages’ avid followers, and came bearing gifts…
This automatically makes him A Decent Chap. He got to spend a good bit of time with 788, and was thoroughly good company. Before parting, we promised to return soon, with a boot full of very useful tools and engineering equipment. I won’t go into too much detail but, it’s all very good, very useful stuff both for ourselves and the YAM engineering effort. I did get on with a few jobs. Firstly I test fitted our £20 bargain wing root fillet acquired from Newark Air Museum’s own stall at the Aerojumble last weekend to ensure it fits; it does so, perfectly! Even all the screw holes line up which is a novelty…
I then rubbed it, and while I was at it our cruciform fairing, back ready for a silver topcoat
After going for a hot chocolate to give them chance to cure, I came back and decided the best place for now to keep the wing fillet safe was on the jet…
Not a bad result for 20 quid and a bit of Elbow Grease!
More next week…
13/10/2019 Update… Part 2!
Ambassador, with these updates you are spoiling us… (readers of a certain vintage will get that…) Yep, I’m home early enough to get today’s update on before beer o’clock, despite the forum still being about as user friendly as your average angry honey badger… So today Simon, Scott, Eloise and myself were in, and we decided to tackle clearing the equipment, plumbing and wiring out of the bottom of the engine bays prior to the lower nacelles being removed and replaced with the shiny new items procured yesterday. Seeing as for once we had bodies aplenty, I also asked Scott to make a start removing everything from the bottom of the fuel tank bay prior to it being rubbed back and painted. So, Simon took the starboard nacelle, Eloise and I the port, and Scott in the centre bay…
Lunchtime saw some progress…
Obviously everything was carefully recorded prior to removal!
After lunch, having raided Engineering for a suitably large spanner, we removed the fuel lines which run through the bottom of the engine bays from the drop tanks, and the fuel feed lines to the engines. This banjo off the starboard engine fuel feed won’t have been off since 1965, yet it’s immaculate!
Close of play saw both engine bays de-cluttered up to the rivet line, and wiring etc secured out of the way as much as possible. You can see in some of these shots the corrosion which makes replacing the nacelles with brand new items a very attractive option.
And Scott making great progress in the fuel tank bay
It could well be that next week we make a start on the de-riveting festival that will be replacing these skins…
13/10/2019 Update… AKA the “What I plundered from Newark Aerojumble” edition…
…which wasn’t that much really! It was good to catch up with a number of people, (Paul Relight9, I did spot you at a distance briefly!) and that a good number of people saw the crew t-shirt and figured out who I am and asked how the project is proceeding, as a result of being made aware of it by my posts on here, so thank you all for taking the time to chat and show your interest!
The main aim of the day was to pick up the new lower nacelles we tried to gather last aerojumble, but Scott’s van was too short. So this time my boss very kindly let me borrow the transit from work, which proved ideal! These nacelles were very kindly passed my way by the wonderful chaps from East Midlands Aeropark; Huge thanks guys! Here they are safely delivered to Elvington, to meet the aircraft they will finally be attached to probably 60 or so years after manufacture!
I also acquired a starboard rear wing root fairing, in much better condition than 788’s. Here it is with the nacelles
The other pickings were, sadly, slim. I did get some rather more age appropriate maps for the cockpit map pockets, as the current ones in there for ‘set dressing’ are 90’s items! This one I bought because it has one of 788’s former bases, RAF Thorney Island, on it…
I also bought one covering Yorkshire, because you should always acknowledge the finest county and 788’s retirement home, and some more NF photos for my own archive
Today is a workday; we’ll see what mischief we get up to!
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