mjrGreetings All,
We at ‘Lakes Lightnings’ have ladders for F1/F1a variant, F3/F6/F53 variant and TBird variant.
We’ve already offered folks to ‘BORROW’ them to make up templates or to just have photos and measurements.
The logistics of moving these large items to and from is there.
We are keen to help out anyones Lightning project but, YOU have to do the leg work … not us….. as some have intimated previously! 🙁
Each variant of ladders has different hooks which fit into the fuse recesses. They are not standard across the fleet!
Glad to help ….. Neil & Heather, ‘Lakes Lightnings’
Hello Neil, thanks very much for the offer. Were ok now though, manufacturing from stratch.
mjrJust to echo Peter Mills, I would like to thank everyone for their kind comments. We are all at GAM reeling in shock presently. Peter V was a unique man, with an unrivalled passion for establishing and continuing the dream. A man whom we shared our passion and good times with for decades. He has left us a legacy which we will be striving our very hardest to continue and excel at. We will continue to preserve and breathe life back into this collection as we always have done. We will continue the fight to overcome obstacles, and share our passion with all.
mjrYes, that’s probably the combined HP bypass and shuttle valve unit, with a 3 pin plug on the “L” series. It bolts to the chassis floor. The “H” has seperate valves and a different internal pipe work arrangement, so not interchangeable with “L”
Typical, I had one lying around 2 months ago, and sold it with a complete STAD “L”. I had spoken to DT at the time, but he never mentioned that you were needing spares for yours or I would have offered it. Sorry can’t help. L bits are tough to come by.
mjrFuel control unit? there isn’t one on the L, it’s just an HP pump with a seperate HP by pass valve, and a pressure activated shuttle valve to change from idle to fast run. Well that’s the way our H*S L is set up anyway.
mjrNice to meet the crews on Saturday and see your lovely Victor and Rod. You guys have a nice set up there, and some nice airframes in the hangar too. great to meet you all, and thank you again for the very useful help!! That bit of kit will make our lives sooooo much easier with the Frighting 😀 thanks again chaps. chocks away! 🙂
mjrdepends what’s in it, i.e. if it’s stripped or fully populated, even without engines, it makes a huge difference.
mjrAlan, yes it would be capable of flying when finished. Everything required to fly is there and working, although the air data system wouldn’t be trust worthy after so many years, so you wouldn’t necessarily want to trust your airspeed and and altitude readings!
mjrHello All, For those that dont follow the project via our web site , here is a sneak preview of the updates for next week.
Although all appears to have been quiet on the project front, it has been bubbling away under the surface quite happily (no pun intended)!. There hasn’t been any big leap like we had hoped this summer, due to various team commitments and a lack of ground support equipment in existence for various tasks, not that there was actually a big amount left to do on ZF579 anyway, since the old tub is impatiently waiting for it’s power plants!
Since the last update, the replacement air turbine gearbox has been installed, tested and passed muster. The previously overhauled unit developed a high frequency harmonic, which we were not happy with since it was pulsing high frequency harmonics through the rear stabilizers and fin. We changed it out. The mentioned unit’s vibration has been identified and will be rectified if we require it to be made serviceable.
As you will see from the previous update, the no1 jet pipe was then installed, leaving reheat (after burn for our pals across the pond) pipes and engines to go in.
No2 reheat pipe has been installed and plumbed recently, after its work shop strip down, overhaul and testing. No1 reheat pipe is nearing completion, ready for install in the next 4 weeks. These specialized brutes have sucked up aprox 500 hrs overhaul time between them!
Various other niggles and snags,which crop up as part of general maintenance and anti deterioration exercises, have also been rectified, keeping things ticking over.
All of the ground equipment required for engine installs, has been rallied up after an exhaustive search over the last year, apart from a jet pipe handling trolley, this remains a frustration. We can work around it, when required.
Various additional OEM air frame, engine and fuel system spares have been procured this year, including a rare find; An Avon 301 engine going spare.
A good engine strip, clean up, and an overhaul of the fuel control systems too, will see that as a nice spare for Zf579, should we ever have any issues with either of the new engines.
More to follow in the next 8 weeks.
mjryea right:rolleyes:!! either he’s a crew engineer, a BSh1tter, or the operating company blatantly broke their permit. 558 doesn’t have a pax, Nor would any of the jets on a permit these days. I belive a bonefied flight engineer is allowed to transit from one location to another under specific service or flight test conditions, such as they do now and then with the Vixen. you can’t just stick a passanger in and display.
mjrYes, my understanding too. Although, all of the Lightnings were grounded..
mjrall 3 Buccaneers are still owned by Thundercity, and the one flying last week most certainly was theirs. They could not have done that without a valid operating license and a permit to fly for each aircraft.
All 3 are not. A valid operating license for Bucc and Hunters is a different one than that for the Lightning. Lightnings were grounded pending investigation
mjrThat doesn’t seem to gell with the ownership of atleast one of the Buccaneers that was always quoted as in private ownership . Regards the statement from Thunder City -it was posted on their site circa November 2009 -maybe they need to update their website!
Exactly. ZU- BCR was simply operated by the AMO, it’s privately owned. Just becasue the Lightings were not operated properly, doesn’t mean that the Buccs are not. They are after all, an Ex SAAF type, so some of the personel may be very familliar with the type. What ultimately lost them a Lightning, apart from sloppy practices, was a lack of type experienced personel and understanding of the type.
mjrThe canopy has an accumulator for the jack in case of hydraulic failure, though i’m certain that in this instance there was such a catastrophic hyd failure that accumulator pressure was rapidly lost followed by undercarriage failure and loss of control.
John.
That is the Services accumulator, and it does nothing without at least 550psi line pressure behind it, because it’s nominal cylinder pressure is only 1500psi, 250psi less than than the wheel brakes accumulator. It’s simply there to take up large system demands, hence why in a hydraulic loss it will give you a very small number of “gentle” system demands, and perhaps 2 canopy raises on a twin tub, where the fluid integrity is STILL there. Ever tried opening the canopy with less than 2000psi indicated on the services Acc gauge? It will do zip, especially on the T5 lid.Once you have both HYD warnings up, and a catashrophic loss of fluid, which 451 undoubtedly had, YES, he would have had a hand full of turns out of the accs as the HYD resevoirs emptied to atmos through the burned up lines, and that’s it, since no recuperation could happen. This was borne out by the sequence of events in the report. Im sure tha had they found all of the engine driven pumps, all would have been proved to be serviceable.
He couldn’t have got Hyds to the canopy jack anyway, since the locking handle was jammed engaged, and the selector button withdrawn into the sleeve. Undouptedly the last 6-700 psi of the Services pressure and the 1500psi of the Acc were dumped into the U/C selection, before the u/c became totally aireated. This was only enough for 1 main and the nose. He quite rightly attempted to blow down from Controls1 and Controls2, but Im sure he probably knew that would be ineffective, since both Con1 and 2 circuits were well below 1850psi by now, hence the SWP captions, and by this time circuit integrity was completely gone, and controls ineffective. All very very sad, and Im sure if he knew the systems, he also knew he was in a very very serious situation, all be it not knowing egress was going to let him down after all of this. Again if he had followed SOP and climbed 5k-10k to straight and level immediately on the captions, he may have had other options with the 3-4 minutes he had left, like go by the FRC’s, it’s difficult to say, and easy to criticise. Personally I think a veteran liek Brian Carrol for instance would have got out, but thats just my opinion.It was his airfield though and the runway was in sight, so I can see why he went that route. Not knowing about the fire undoubtedly coloured his thinking. If he’d had RHT1 and 2 fire captions, Im sure he would have landed immediately, and none of us would be debating this now.
EDIT. Good one Phantom Phil :-). lets remember the early days, when it was a Rosey set up.
mjrI notice from the report photos that both restrictor cables are severed but still in place. Im quite amazed that the pilots side restrictor cable was still in. With that impact, it’s surprising that it didn’t get pulled away and the gun go off. Im struggling to visualise how both the restrictor cables were severed but left in situ in the impact.
mjrIn that case then, had Dave Stock managed to release the rear fittings, and the lid had lifted away, all be it with probably half of the port screen pillar still attached to it, the seat would have gone immediately without a second pull?
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