Tail Removed

Hi All,
Up extreamly early again yesterday as we all decended on a breezy Teeside Airport,our aim to remove the Tail section. Armed with Stan , MSD Cranes, and SAS Access they made quick work in removing the last of the waste metal and cutting through the spars and at 2.30 in the afternoon with a steady lift the tail section was removed and lowered to the ground. Another major step completed…Bring on the wings .
We also managed to remove the galley from the sevices of a cutter from hendersons engineering in the middle of the aircraft which will now give us a lot more access to greet people onto the aircraft at the museum and make access more accessable .
More work was also made on the two engine bracket assemblies for the removal in the near future.
Obviously with paying for contractors to help us at each occasion does incur costs that have to be paid for these services and even with these companies giving us very competitive prices we still need donations to move to the next stage of the wing removal. This we anticipate will be over 3 days and will be the last maor works before moving to Sunderland ,so would like to ask everyone to help as much as you can hear for us to continue with restoring this last aircraft for everyone to enjoy

Hi Scott
We are going to move it as soon as it is broken down but it is important to cut it right to make sure we can refit it all back so a move before xmas is highly unlikely given the weather we will no doubt have. But it will not put us behind long term ..
cheers tony

Hi All
The team were back up at Teeside on Thurs 30th sept and we picked the best day weather wise for it, beautiful warm sunshine for most of the day being buzzed by red admiral butterflies. The day started with a crane from MSD cranes being hooked up to the horizontal stabilizer and an access van sponsered by Warren access of Burleigh . Newcastle . We continued where we left off and used an impact wrench to try and shift the 8 bolts that hold it on.Unfortunatly this still did not work so we had to resort to plan c ,to disk cut off the bolts so we can then lift the stab free. This was a very labourious job as the bolts are cased hardened meaning that it took an average time of an hour a bolt to cut off.Stan from MSD cranes was given this task and a great job he done. At 3.15 pm we had to make the decision to stop where we were leaving 2 bolts out of the 8 still to cut. This is due that we cannot work much past 4.oclock as SERCO are finishing there day. This ensured we left the stab stable in the air until we return soon to cut off these two remaining bolts and it will then be free to lift down.
More work was done around the port and starboard landing gear in losening some areas in preparation to when we fold the landing gear for transportation. Thanks to Julian and phil and Neil .
Matt had the responsibility of filming and snap taking while Peter sorted the surplus metal out that was cut from the rear into the skip that we had delievered from Alex of AC metals. Peter also ensured that all our work areas are swept and kept very clean.
Neil did a vast amount of restoration in the cockpit as well as directed the works shedule for the day using his vast experience with the Trident .
To sum up the day…. We came away with a feeling that we are moving in the right direction and with the removal of the stab at the next meeting the progress will increase quiet rapidly..Obviously the last two visits we incurred some costs we were not expecting as we were hoping to get the stab down on our first attempt but some times they say good things comes to those who wait and we know it will be third time lucky as we have found the solution to removing it.
Tony Jarrett

13-17 sept

Hi All,
Well the week flew by ,and a mixed week we had. The first 3 days we were hampered by wind and rain which did not allow us to use the cherry picker lorry. That aside ,on those days we still managed to remove the engine cowlings on either side as well as a lot of cutting took place in the rear tail area of the aircraft so we could start to expose the spars .All of the insulation that we could get to was removed inside the aircraft and neil fitted the ram horns in the flightdeck.Driftwood joinery did an absolutely superb job with making the trestles on wednesday despite some heavy showers.
Thursday the weather improved enough for us to be able to use the lift and we brought in extra labour on the cutting side to try and recover the time we had lost in the previous 3 days.Neil Lomax and Stan from MSD managed to cut and remove all the s ducting and a fair amount of pipeing and other ancillery componants although more still needs removing out from that area. The skin where the tail and the fuselage meet was cut through all the way round in readiness for the tail to be removed and all the access panels were removed at the top of the tail and stabilizer. Julian and phil managed to remove the port side inner wing flap which was very time consuming because of the time factor of it being left to the elements for 27 years.
Friday was the day that we thought we were going to make some progress in removing the stab and the tail. We bought a crane in from MSD but dont matter what we tried the bolts that hold the stab would not budge so we had to call it a day until we can come back with an impact gun to work them loose. The starboard wing was also removed this day
To sum up the week we all felt we acheived quite a lot but despite the British unpredictable weather but still felt a little disapointed that we didnt at least get the stab off. We shall return in a couple of weeks with the gun and all being well we will remove the stab and look to see if we can remove the fin.

We would like to thank all our sponsers for the week who include
The St George Hotel who gave Neil and myself free accomadation for the week with brekie
ES access platforms for the cherry picker truck that was free for the week
HSS hire who gave us 50% of the scaffold tower and generator
Hire Station of Middlesborough for a reduced rate on the Petrol Disk cutter harness and lanyard
BHP Law that did a publicity shoot
Driftwood Joinery who made the trestles
MSD Cranes
SERCO for the Trident
Also for all the support and kind comments from you all.

insurance

We now have taken out the airside insurance that we require in order to meet the requirements for us to cut the aircraft. A lot of work to clear the rear service area will begin shortly in order to access the rear to cut the tail. This insurance policy is with Haywoods Aviation company who specialise in airside insurance and airport related cover and have kindly sponsered us with some of the premium. We thank them very much for their kind help towards this project.

If you require very competitive insurance for airside and museums speak to Haywoods first and mention us .Ask for claire http://www.haywards.net/Home/

Steps

Cosford have donated one of the BEA steps that was used for the trident 1c G-ARPH for our Trident which is great in light this project was started initially because of the loss of PH.The steps will need to be transported here and also painted so please if you can help with a donation to the cost to get them to Sunderland or for the new paint job just put on your correspondance ‘for steps’.
Also Neil has now completed the abbrasive wheel course that HSS kindly sponsered so he is leagally qualified to cut the plane ready for transportation., thankyou HSS , simon collier and David Brannon.
Our next visit will be in a couple of weeks where we will wind down the inner wing flaps, vent the wings and do some more restoration inside.
We are now in contact with all three members of the flight crew which flew in to Teeside on PO,s last flight .
Keep watching our site and be very grateful for any donations you can contribute, cheers tony

wash down

Hi Phantom…..Yes the days shots and story has now been put on our website, http://www.savethetrident.org , Take a look, she has come up rather well considering the years of grime etc…
tony

latest

Hi all
What a great trip we have had to Belfast to strip out the parts of The Trident 2 there to use on PO.
We would like to thank all the Belfast Airport fire service for the great time we had and allowing the removal of the parts and making the day truly memorable and worthwhile. We would also like to thank Stena line for the sea crossings , Intack self drive for the van, Gil good lodge (lisbon), Swan inn (Stranraer), St George (Teeside) for their hospitality and for all the people who donated money for fuel for the trip .

Out of the £150.00 in cash we took for the fuel , we spent out of that £70.55 + £64.00 for fuel payments and £11.17 for an insurance policy with the van hire company to reduce the damage excess from £500.00 to £100.00. We felt that was a wise payment to cover the 4 days we had the van .
It leaves £4.28 in cash that will be returned to the account.

The parts are now in a container (sponsered by spacewise)
On Friday we met with the contractors who will be doing the lifting and moving of the Trident and we have all agreed to how and where we will cut the trident and what will be required and their final prices will be with us in 2 weeks approximately.
At the start of June the Trident will be washed in readiness for neil to cut her up in to transportable sections. The fuselarge will be on one low loader followed by three flatbeds for the wings ,fin and stabilizer.

We now are at a stage that we need to ask for donations to cover the cost of the hire equipment, and insurance for neil working at airside to cut the trident The sum we need to raise is approximately £1000 so please can you help us as much as you can in reaching this target. The quicker we raise this the quicker we can look to get a date for the move.
regards tony