So yesterday saw myself and Cliff on site picking up where left off with the bomb frames.

First off was 13, which took a bit of persuasion to fit followed by 14 which by comparison was a doddle. Being at the very end of the bay with better access certainly helped. This just leaves us with 8 and 12 to fit  and will be progressed once the remaining bomb beams are finished.

Talking of access we removed the outside of the bomb bay jig as these were serving no other than getting in our way.

Meanwhile, we have taken delivery of the 6 bomb beam covers and support doublers that have been made by Chris Bunn. They look fantastic and Chris has done a great job with them and they work exactly as advertised with refurbished and remade Simmonds type T fasteners. Chris and his brother Andy have also donated some air tools and gripper pins to the project. Thanks Guys

A bit of an update from the midweekteam at Gravely. 

We have received some new manufactured canopy cover tie down points which have been 3d printed in metal. We have recovered some originals from BK716 but not nearly enough as these are dotted throughout the fwd fuselage.

We’ve also started stripping down the bomb door operating transverse torque tubes and door opening mechanism. Not need just yet  but certainly in the not too distant future.

John

At the risk of boring you kind people, yesterday was more Frame tinkering. It wasn’t quite as cold but was still brass monkeys in the workshop.

Cliff and I finished up fr10 by picking up the pilot holes, then made a start on Frame 11. This took a bit longer as it took us a while to get everything lined up ready for drilling.

Once this was finished we made a start on Fr13, which should be ready for drilling next weekend. As with Fr 8, we’re going to leave fr12 for the time being whilst we’re waiting on completion of the remaining bomb frames.

As an aside Cliff also undertook his favourite hobby of deciphering pieces of wreckage and found yet another part of the jigsaw that is the bomb aimers compartment 

Cheers

John

Yesterday was frostbite Saturday, with only Cliff and myself braving the elements. After a warming brew we cracked on with fitting the frame 9 outers, the two of us getting into swing of fitting these now. 

9 was a relatively straightforward activity, just requiring a few tweaks here and there. With 9 fitted, we had just enough time to pin 10 into position, with all the holes drilling next weekend.

We’ve left 8 for the time being as the 2 bomb beams at stations 1 and 3 aren’t quite ready for use yet and these set the distance between Frs 7 and 8.

John

The Wednesday team have been working on the remaining bomb beams with 2 out of the required 4 now in progress.

Andy, has been getting some of the various smaller parts made for the bomb bay  including bomb door brackets and the myriad fairleads that are needed

Chris B has been working remotely on the covers and skin doublers for the bomb beam access. In typical Shorts fashion, they’re over engineered for their purpose and for a small assembly, they’re quite complex and require a lot of work to make and put together.

Just myself on site yesterday, so I got a niggling job out of the way by replacing the facsimile of the autopilot controller with the original that we had donated from Vraux. I also started on the first of the lower bomb frame attachment brackets. There are 2 of these at the foot of each one and took a bit of fettling to get them right. 2 down, 34 to go…

Cheers

John