I have it on good authority that steps are still being taken to secure a Type Responsibility Agreement between an approved organisation and the CAA to ensure that Austers retain their status as CofA aircraft. I think the closing date set by the CAA is the second week of December, so the sands of time are slowly running out.

If a TRA is established, I think it will go right against the wishes of possibly the majority of UK Auster owners. Time will tell.

WJ244 – as a sprog corporal based at Honington in 1972 I was sent to Foulness a couple of times to plunder Buccaneer Mk 1 bits for use on the ex-Navy cab we were tidying up for use as the station gate guard (XK532 from memory). On my first visit to Foulness in approx Feb 72 we managed to get across to XR219 and have a look round it. At that stage it had not been used for explosives testing but it was being prepared for a forthcoming trial.

We were told that the trial would involve detonating a Red Top/Firestreak warhead in close proximity to the centre fuselage of the aircraft. In preparation for the trials the fuel tanks were being filled with water to simulate the presence of fuel and the hydro-dynamic effects that might exacerbate damage to the structure from detonation of the warhead.

When I visited for the second time a few months later I could see across the marsh that XR219 was leaning over at about a 30-degree angle. I asked the natives what had happened to the old girl and had the damage been caused by the warhead trial. They said no – they came in to work one morning and saw it had taken on a list because one of the undercarriage bogie beams had broken off overnight. The winds had been very low and the failure was attributed to stress corrosion cracking in the material used for the undercarriage legs. This was no doubt a precursor to the sort of problems the undercarruage would have presented during the aircraft’s service.

Barnstormer: I think you will find that the Chippy neg was taken by Peter Russell-Smith – note the CPR-S typed onto the neg bag. Like many historians, Chris exchanged photos with many other like-minded souls including myself. Chris was remarkable in that he was taking photos and making notes from the late 1940s and he had a wide band of like-minded contacts. Chris served in the RAF, I think mainly in the Kipper Fleet, ending his career on the Nimrod at St Mawgan.

I know that many of his books (such as a huge collection of Jane’s etc) have been disposed of through a couple of major auctions although I am not sure what has happend to the whole of his photographic collection. If his collection has been broken up this will be a great pity because Chris was a very knowlegeable and generous man, one whose loss I feel greatly.

There’s a short article in the new Pilot magazine. Something to do with internal corrosion within the steel tube which forms the main spar of the main rotor blades. Seems likely that the CAA will have issued a Mandatory Permit Directive to give effect to the restriction, although I have not checked their website myself (in CAP 662 I think).

BULLDOG AIRFRAME LIFE LIMITATIONS

We seem to be getting all screwed up here, so better set the record straight.

Like it or lump it, full-scale fatigue testing of the Bulldog for the RAF caused a reinforcing strap on the main spar at the outer/inner wing to snap. BAe at Prestwick schemed a fix, embodied it on the fatigue test specimen and continued to test it to clear the expected (RAF) service life of the aircraft. Analysis of the fatigue data resulted in a life of 5000 flying hours being allocated before this modification should be carried out. The modification is called BH193 and it requires replacement of the reinforcing straps with items which are longer and made from an improved material. The many attaching bolts are replaced with oversize items, allowing the bolt holes to be reamed and examined by eddy-current NDT for latent cracking. When this modification has been embodied the airframe is good to a total of approx 8760 flying hours. There is another life limit on the tailplane attachment fittings, but that does not cut in until 15,000 hours.

For ex-RAF Bulldog T Mk 1s, known as the Series 120, Model 121 in civil parlance, the score is different. These aircraft operated with a Fatigue Meter and they were lifed on the basis of Fatigue Index (or FI). The CAA has allowed the aircraft to continue to operate on the basis of FI in civil life, I think the first certificated aircraft to do so. The limit of 114 FI was calculated as meaning the same amount of damage as 5000 flying hours in an unmetered aircraft. If you use a fatigue meter it counts the number of times certain ‘g’ steps are exceeded and FI is accrued only at the rate you thrash the aircraft. Handle it like eggs and you can fly for thousands of hours before reaching 114 FI. Hurl it round every corner at more tha 3g and you will probably hit 114 FI at about 5000 hours. Many of the ex-RAF aircraft are in the region of 8000 flying hours and still have plenty of life left before the modification needs to be done. These aircraft are required to have their FI calculated every year (it is done by DH Support), and as they get very close to 114 FI it has to be done every 25 hours. There is one aircraft still flying at 113.5 FI, and I am told that it will give its owner many more years of happy flying because he does not thrash it death with endless aerobatics.

As for the modification itself, at the time the Bulldogs were sold BAe estimated that the cost of parts was £10,000 per aircraft and it would take 500 manhours to embody. I suspect that these days the cost of the parts could be reduced somewhat, especially if a group of owners could come together to make the production run economical. Similarly, a single ‘production line’ for the batch of aircraft would allow the learning curve on the first couple of aircraft to be offset against the later aircraft in the production run. So, the mod is difficult and expensive, but it certainly will not cost more than the aircraft is worth, especially if you can pick up a life expired aircraft at the right price. The £13,001 paid for the one at Witham was too high for a Brit who knew anything about the aircraft. It was probably bought by an American where they fly Bulldogs on the Experimental category and just wait for the first set of wings to fall off. In contrast, here in the Uk the aircraft is Type Certificated and they all operate on a CofA – except one, I recall, G-ASAL at Prestwick, which is on a PFA Permit (and the Bullfinch of course, also on a PFA Permit).

So, a Bulldog WILL break at some stage, with 5000 hours/114 FI providing a safe limit before embodiment of a UK-designed and CAA-approved modification. Full details are available in Bulldog service bulletins and a Service Letter or contact the guys at DH Support who now look after it. From what I have been told, not enough aircraft have yet hit the buffers to make it economical to set up a small run of modifications. Perhaps in the next few years the situation will change.

I thought their photo collection was bought by Brian Pickering of MAP – Military Aircraft Photographs – up in Lincolnshire.

Probably quite a bit from lawyers acting for BAE Systems!