Guys, Can we leave any speculation out of this especially finger pointing at this time!
A terrible tragedy has seen us lose not only a machine(ZU-BEX) but a gentleman in every sense of the word. Honestly my heart goes out to all those who at Thunder City at this time. Please keep them in mind when you post ok? You never know who may be watching the forum….
Peter, Moderator.

Thank you peter. and I don’t think we need to see pictures of the moment of impact either!! have some D**ed respect people!!!!!

crickey! hes lucky to be alive. the u/s ones we have are operating at 1 crack every 4-5 seconds. the types we have the issues with are fitted to Lightning and HunterT7, all tritium types unfortunately. I’ll get some part numbers and pictures.

ok m8, when our radio man is back from us in a week or so, will get him to dig out what he has for you. is it just pin out letters on the arc52 and ic’s you want, or the pin to pin schematics?

matt, both types are not much cop really. the later solid state is less trouble some, but neither provide sufficient gain really. do yourself a favour,modify the the solid state amp to provide 50% more gain, it will save you having to hunt through the IC system every couple of years to eliminate noise. with the extra gain, you can just turn up the vol and ignore the interference. All the relays sit on JB154 box, which is buried behind the arc 52 gear on the inside wall, cockpit bulkhead. to get at it you have to strip half of the avionics out, and pull the observers seat too. sod doing that every couple of years, when you get missbehaving relays and Tbs!!

Hi, XS422 will remain in her boscombe experimental colours.

indeed, Nasa/Stennis airport in fact, not that Katrina didn’t try her best to relocate 422 further North to Alabama!:p

That option has been looked at, but the terms are never very agreeable for test bed work, especially when it comes to control of the airframe. apart from that, first you have to have an actual flying airframe before you can go cap in hand to NTPS and the like.

very nice Peter, top job:D

Alu prep or metal prep is completely different, they are simply surface cleaning/prep products using phosphoric acid, after which a normal etch primer should be put on. The clear etch is actually and etch primer, acid chromate I think. You can tell where you have sprayed it, because it turns the metal a uniform dull finish. granted its not the easiest stuff to use, when you can’t see so well where you are applying it. I would suspect that it’s usually applied with an electrostatic spraying kit to make sure it’s covered.

Dow thwmselves still do it. you want Mil-M-3171 Type I and III. The proper way to treat it first before Dow#7 dichromating, is with Celeneous Acid, but at approx £50 per 150grams at last check, phosphoric acid solution is just fine! Dow #7 is expensive and I dont believe much more effective that a good allochrome or Alodine treatment. we etch ours by submerging the parts in Allodine, until they have turned gold. Then a good few coats of non etc primer, followed by several top coats, then laquer. no corrosion has returned yet.

If you want to know about magnesium treatments, Dow themselves do a very good book. “Operations in Magnesium Finishing”, 1990 The Dow Company