12jaguarA couple of weeks ago I dropped a hint that we will be in receipt of some original parts. Well this has come to fruition and this week our good friends from the RNLAF Team that assisted the recovery of BK716 made good on a promise made last year to bring over the remaining parts that we had sorted during our trip to the Netherlands last year.
Tuesday dawned bright and very, very cold which benefited us later on. The Team of Major Hubert, Marco, Emil and Coen pitched up with an 8 wheel lorry with an ISO container and accompanied by a crew bus. A short time later, the container with Stirling parts was safely delivered and was resting on a bed of sleepers; aided in no small part by the hard frozen ground.
To be honest, the contents of the container were a bit of a mystery to us, as we had such a short time to sort through the wreckage last year and we weren’t allowed to take any photos of the parts we’d set aside. Some items came to mind, namely the complete armoured door to the cockpit and the Navigators and Observers floor structure.
A massive thanks again to the guys for bringing the wreckage over and the donation of the container itself.
Onwards and upwards, hopefully starting on some structure this weekend
John
12jaguarUnfortunately not much progress to relate from this weekend as we’re still dealing with some of the fallout from the move.
It took an age to level the jig up as the floor in the new workshop is not particularly level. That said we are now with 20 Minutes of level across all planes so not a bad result given the conditions. Time was also spent in reconnecting the airlines to the Compressor, not easy when it was blowing a gale and pouring with the rain.
We did however, manage to clamp the piece of keel structure that was donated by Johan Graas to us to the jig. this is stbd frames 7 to 9 and is an indication of how the structure will look on the jig but also to give us a visual key for when we soon make a start on the keel girders
John
12jaguarHappy New Year all
Getting there with the new workshop now to the extent that we’re unpacking work that was previously ongoing and thinking about next steps for the bomb bay.
First off is a self contained little project which is the Fire Extinguisher and Morse ident panel which is located next to the 1st pilots’ left elbow on the cockpit wall. We have been loaned a damaged example of this from BK716 by the Municipal Authority of Almere in the Netherlands. Whilst this is obviously damaged by the impact from the crash, it is complete enough to take measurements from to enable a drawing to be made. To assist us in this we have been given some facsimile Fire Extinguisher Button covers which have been made by long term friend of the Project, Carl Proctor. Having already cosmetically refurbished our R1155 radio, Carl has become a whizz at making replica instrument panels without the hassle of radioactive instruments etc. You can follow some of his excellent work here: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235112722-avro-man…
We’ve loaned Carl some of the rarer morse switches and other sundry items to help him and as a thankyou for his kind help. Work in progress is below; see if you can guess which out of the 3 is the original
Dare I say it but the team have been whispering about starting to form the flanges to the bomb frames, so I hope to update you on that soon.
Towards the end of the month we hope to have some exciting news on getting hold of some original parts, but I’ll update you on that at the time :o)
All the best for a happy and healthy 2023
John and the Stirling Team
12jaguarHi Ben
Thanks for that well spotted by all
Following your lead I saw it posted on the WS788 thread so will be in touch with them. Hope they can look after it until we can divert that way to collect it :o)
Must get across to Sywell, been a long time since I’ve visited
Merry Christmas
John
12jaguarHi all
Still sorting out the new workshop after our move, so no progress as such to relate at the moment.
I can report that thanks to a fantastic donation from Elger Abbink in the Netherlands, we have just received the lower rear escape hatchwhich is believed to be from Stirling W7442 of 1651 Conversion Unit which was lost on 26 June 1942 with all crew. 1651 CU was based at RAF Waterbeach at the time so a local aircraft to us, so we are very grateful that it has been donated to us.
take care all and have a great Christmas
John
12jaguarBlimey, has it really be 2 1/2 months since I last posted on here?
Apologies but as I’m sure you’ll realise that we’ve had our hands full with getting ready to move our workshop. Should be used to it by now as it’s been our 9th move since I joined the Project some 20 something years ago and we’re all 7 years older since the last time.
Needless to say, our move takes place this weekend so it’ll be all hands on deck. The downside of this move is that we have a much smaller space to work with so storage is an issue, but we have a cunning plan with the delivery of an ISO container to take up the slack. It will still be a bit of a squeeze though.
Biut every cloud has a silver lining so they say; due to the lack of space we have placed our flightdeck build and front gun turret on medium term loan with the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum in Flixton. This means that the turret which was previously only viewable by appointment with the Pathfinder Museum at RAF Wyton and the Flightdeck which could only be seen with us is now on public display. The museum is a cracking place and is now the only place in the UK where you can publicly see large parts of a Stirling.
Hopefully not too long before we’re cracking on with the build but please be patient whilst we’re getting our heads back on right
take care
John
12jaguarIndeed Beermat
Fantastic progress
John
12jaguarAfternoon all
As you may recall, we had a visit from the RAF this week. Prior to this our Treasurer Andy though it would be a good idea to lay out the recovered parts from BK716 as per a crash investigation. This would enable us to gauge how much of the structure we currently hold. As the photos show, including various parts from LJ628 and LK488, we estimate we have approximately 50% of the structure of the aircraft forward of frame 9.
We’ve mentioned them on here previously, but it has to be said that without the efforts and assistance of the guys from Stichting Aircraft Recovery Group 40-45 (notably Johan and Cees (CEBRO on here), the final resting place of BK716 would remain unknown and we would not have access to this incredible resource which will take years off this project. Their investigation and persistence led the Dutch Air Force and local authorities to commission the recovery of the crew and aircraft.
Thanks again gents :o)
It’s a real shame that we’ll soon have to pack these parts away for some time whilst we sort out our new workshop; unfortunately with this activity it does set us back some time as we have to pack parts up in a logical sequence and have to relocate and unpack it all again (or not) and try to remember where we had left off.
In the meantime, we are reducing as many bomb beam parts down into usable spares as possible; I’m happy to report that I’m calling the first one done although it does need a couple of c/sink bolts. It all works as originally intended and although I say so it really looks the part. If you may recall this is the one that we bought from Alan (Air Ministry) and is a great working pattern to take forward to the remaining 5 beams. We’re pretty sure that this is Bomb Station 5 which is on the aircraft centreline between frs12 and 13.
take care
John
12jaguarBonus update today
I received the first batch of fuselage window frames in the post today. These were machined from solid in 2 halves!
Next batch will be the oval fuselage windows
12jaguarNo thread creep at all AM, it’s all good Stirling info that’s being captured :o)
John
12jaguarHi all
Cliff and Graham were busy stripping usable parts from the bomb beam wreckage on Saturday. In the meantime, having got the machined brackets I decided to complete our intact original beam. I’d hoped that all the holes would line up but unfortunately this wasn’t the case; new drawn up parts vs 80 year old original parts was hoping somewhat LOL. That to say they mostly lined up and just needed some minor fettling to get them to fit.
By the time I’d prepped the kit of parts, primed and painted them, I only had time to to fit one adjuster and steady arms to the rear of the beam.
The photos below show the adjustment in fully open and fully closed position, the latter one also shows an original Armourers adjusting tool which is used to drive the barrel of the adjuster.
Finally, we have a visit from some RAF Regulars this week
John
12jaguarA quick update, the ‘castings’ mentioned in the previous post havenow arrived, therefore the first beam assembly can now be completed.
These are actually machnined from solid aluminium rather than cast as per the originals as it proved to be a more cost effective means of manufacture in this instance. More pics after the weekend :o)
John
12jaguarHi all
Apologies for the lack of updates recently, but the real world intervenes and we’ve been busy sorting out new workshop accomodation. Hopefully some firmed up news soon on this front.
In the mean time, we have been slaving away stripping down the bomb beam assemblies that we recovered from BK716 in the Netherlands. This has 2 benefits, firstly it has given us a spares source for the 6 off beams we need for the bomb bay and secondly it reduces our footprint and gives us less physical items we will have to take with us. If all pans out our new workshop will be a fair bit smaller than what we currently have so space will be at a premium.
If you recall the complete beam that we aquired from Air Ministry, this has been fully stripped down and is now being built back up with working components. The locking mechanism for the Light Bomb Carrier spigot has been freed up and now works as advertised and next weekend I’ll fit 2 working bomb crutch adjusters. All we’re waiting on is some new castings which provide internal reinforcing and a pivot point for the adjustment screw. It would have been nice to have some originals for this but unfortunately they are made from magnesium alloy and have dissolved away to nothing. Only another 5 to go after this but these will need a lot more fabrication work than this complete one.
Lastly we recently hosted a retired RAAF Group Captain and I came in yesterday to find our flightdeck suitable zapped LOL
take care
John
12jaguarOn my tod yesterday so concentrated on recovering useful items from BK716s bomb crutches.
Managed to get some steady arms and hoist blocks removed, but more to the point managed to get a second bomb steady adjuster mechanism fully working. It’s always nice to get something operational again especially as these have been buried in mud for nearly 80 years. If nothing else we will have at least one working bomb beam to show visitors.
till next
John
12jaguarHi, there are no Nacelle items in the photos only fuselage. We sorted through plenty of wing and rear fuselage structure but this had surprisingly faired less well that the forward fuselage, with much of the former barely recognisable as such.
I’d estimate that there was approxiately 80% of the aircraft that was physically recovered by the RNLAF, I assume that a lot of the remainder was recovered over the previous years by other organisations
John
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