A bit of Christmas Cheer

And on the subject of taxi runs

My Lords, Ladies, Gentleman and Aircrew of this parish.

I can now officially confirm that the insurance company have come through and that the Nimrod live engine and TAXI runs will take place on Sunday 11th December :D:D:D

You are all welcome to attend and see Kimberley run at full power.

Hopefully the Victor will also partaking 😎 The powers that be are negotiating with said insurance company to try and make it happen.

OX–87
HYDRAULIC FLUID: Aircraft
Specification: DTD 900/6103A (AFS 1897) Nimor 87
Composition: Polyalkylene glycol ethers, polyalkylene glycols and inhibitors.
Characteristics: Density 20°C … … … … 1.01–1.03 gm/cm3
Viscosity at 40°C, min … … … 4.5 mm2/s(cSt)
Viscosity at 0°C, max … … … 22 mm2/s(cSt)
Viscosity at –40°C, max … … 1000 mm2/s(cSt)
Flash point, open cup, min … … 95°C
Cloud point, max … … … –40°C
Reflux boiling point, min … … 200°C
The specification also includes tests for pour point, ash, low temperature
stability and effect on standard IR rubber.
Uses: Hydraulic systems in Nimrod and Comet aircraft only. Known
previously as Nimor 87 and replaces OF–4 in both systems.
Standardized Alternatives: None.
Stores Numbers:
NATO Stock No Nominal Size Navy Army RAF
9150-99-770-2899 20 litre – – – – 34B
9150-99-617-3398 5 litre – – – – 34B

These are the specs I can find. May be worth looking at OF-4 if that was used in Nimrod and Comet before.

Regards,

Rich

Thanks Balofski/Rich. As you can see in the bit I have highlighted there is no alternative. Seeing as she is a museum piece now and will never fly again we do have a couple of tricks up our oily sleeves should it come to it.

In my time as a global megastar on the workhorse of the RAF, I used to carry the Shell Handbook in my nav bag which gave AeroShell equivalents of all NATO numbered POL Products. It also told me where the Shell Card was taken for fuel.

They were as rare as rocking horse wossits so I handed mine on to one of the lads coming through the school when I left, as they are invaluable when you are downroute in oomigooley land and you need to talk civvy not RAF.

Now sad beggar I am, I remember that OM15 relates to AeroShell 41 (but make sure it is the superclean version) and XG 293 is AeroShell 23 C or it might have been CF.

If you can get your hands on one of these beauties your problems will be lessened as you can get the AeroShell equivalents a lot cheaper, I have even seen the 5 litre tins of 23C for sale on fleabay.

Hope this helps.

Thank you kind sir. As a sootie on the support helicopter force for many a year, the Shell book was never far from our mitts when abroad.
However these days the tinterweb once again comes to the rescue as you can get the info online in seconds.

http://www.shell.com/home/content/aviation/aeroshell/technical_specifications/aeroshell_book/

However the venerable Shell book cannot find the dreaded OX87 for the Nimrod, and no alternatives are in place 🙁

Well a full weekend at YAM has passed by and I think we have just about recovered. First surprise of the day was a large bouquet of flowers on the jet, this I think had something to do with a certain Nimchick having her first wedding anniversary whilst Baldrik was off penguin spotting. The said floral gift caused a new and strange headache for us male groundcrew members, as we have never really had to figure out how to keep flowers alive in the back of an aircraft before! Problem was solved by opening the rear stbd door and leaving them there in a mop bucket all weekend (someone is bound to have a photo) :p

Saturday consisted of moving the jet slightly to one side so that the Herald would suffer slightly less during the EGR’s the next day and then some minor cosmetic and rectification work inside the jet. Also a lot of external panels were removed and the rainwater was let out especially in the tail and MAD boom area, drain holes were inspected and cleaned where necessary. The girls got stuck in with the Hammerite paint and re painted the jet pipe blanks which now look great, thanks ladies. By this time it was late afternoon and it was, as they say tup norf, ‘Cracking the Flags’ so a halt to proceedings was called for and we retired to Camp Nimdet for a bit of sunbathing, drinking the ‘odd’ can of refreshment, burning the meat on the BBQ and putting the world to rights 😎

Sunday started early (note the lack of bright) as the jet was de blanked and a before flight servicing was carried out. We insisted right from the start of looking after XV250 that we would only do it if we were allowed to do it properly with no short cuts, so the aircraft still has its own F700 and we adhere to how the aircraft should be serviced and maintained in service life. This may sound crazy to some people as it is now only a museum exhibit, but as serving and ex RAF engineers we will only do it properly or not at all. The Ground runs were delayed as a large crowd was expected (and did indeed turn up!) so we wandered over to the harassed looking Victor guys who seemed to be trying to find new ways of squeezing a human head and arm up into the nose U/C bay so that some washers could be replaced.

After lunch it was time to run the jet, Trumpton said a 14:00 start was allowed so as the second hand swept to 14:00hrs on my action man wristwatch the APU was fired up. All four ECU’s were started in short order and the runs commenced. We had concerns over the No1 Engine from a previous run so we were allowed to accelerate ‘slightly’ the engine to check this out. Much noise smoke and 20 seconds later and all was fine, the smoke is reside rainwater lying in the engine doors etc and also the unburnt fuel from the collector tank on the burner rail, it’s all normal for a 40 year old engine and we were all more than happy with the performance all 4 ECU’s gave us, happy days! Flying controls were exercised satis and all is well with the old girl, so with a nod from Nimchick outside on the long lead it was time to chop back on the throttles and shut Kim down. After a post ground run brew it was time to carry out an after flight servicing and put her to bed. For a aircraft that is so old and lives outside all year she really is in good nick and does behave herself, just hope she keeps it up!

And finally. The number one question from the crowds over both days this weekend was undoubtedly, “how long would it take you to get her serviceable and back into Action?” Do they know something we don’t???? :confused:

Next Scheduled runs are pencilled in for Sunday 4th Sept. 😀

There are 4 servicable engines in BMI’s hangar awaiting collection and probably scrapping as the Aeropark one was bought less engines…. not a lot else they would go in, so would think they will be scrapped.

The 4 ECU’s are to collected shortly and returned to stock etc. Not sure what is happening with the bulk of the Spey 250’s. Wish we had some penny’s to buy one 🙁

And to follow on from the 2 previous posts.
Gad it was a tad warm, makes you sort of wish you were sampling a Falklands winter (Sorry Baldrick :p) to try and cool Kim down whilst we worked on the what is turning into a pig of a fault finding problem with the Nimrod’s intercom system, we popped every door and escape hatch to try and get some none existent breeze through the jet. To appease elf n safety we placed the escape ropes across the open doors to prevent us falling out, we work on the principle that if you’re dumb enough to go past the rope you deserve the hard landing:rolleyes:

The aforementioned intercom snag is proving for the want of a better word a mare, so many intercom boxes out and system tested and fuses still being blown so with a shortage on aircraft 3 amp fuses looming a halt was called, at least we now know exactly what stations work and which ones don’t so at least we have made some progress and we are safe in the knowledge that the flight deck comms work so there is no compromise to safety etc during ground runs. During said time fault finding Blue 2 and Ianf paid us a visit to try and escape the heat, judging by the beetroot faces on the both of them they failed in their task; have to say here we were getting a tad worried about Ianf, fair complexion Lancashire lads and the sun definitely don’t mix, he was sweating like a fat lass in a cake shop! 😀

As has been previously mentioned it was all hands on deck to try and make the Buccs wing fold, this unnatural act for an aeroplane was finally achieved with some judicious bouncing up and down on the wing by the now reddest of blue2 and the fat lads down below on the hide faced hammer and lump of wood, British engineering at its best, Thank you RAF Halton, I knew eventually all of those hours sat bored witless in the classroom would finally bear fruit.

As the quite frankly most excellent photo’s by Ianf hopefully portray, Elvington is not little groups doing their own thing, it is a load like minded bods helping each other to achieve the same aim, to ensure that the magnificent pieces of aviation history that we have been so very lucky to be allowed to work on, are maintained to the highest standard that we can achieve; this obviously is carried out with as much verbal abuse and banter one can muster. If one of the team see the slightest chance to wind the other teams up its game on, and none of us would have it any other way.:diablo:

The last Photo by Ianf is where the Nim/Vic teams are discussing a August social weekend at Tempest towers with drinking and the burning of the meat at the forefront of the agenda.

For those that want to see a real aeroplane with real history in action then bin the RAF Waddington flypast and come to Elvington this Sunday, anti det runs at 13:15hrs, (once the fire-fighters have had their dinner and Nimchick has put her lippy on)

Nitwit & Duck from the Nimrod team at Elvington are intending to be at Newark tomorrow, can’t wait