Interesting debate for sure… and if I may inject something from my own personal experience?
I’ve long been a ‘jet’ man after many years in the RAF surrounded by all that noise and jetblast, and since returning to aviation in civilian life with my various hobbies, I never had reason to doubt that would change…
It did however, when after meeting the long standing crew on the Shackleton Preservation Trust at airshows, and following the progress on this very forum; I took up the offer of a close up visit and onboard ground run experience at Coventry last September. I have to say that I have never looked back for one minute, such is the infectious addiction that that wonderful “Old Grey Lady” has had on me. There is just something about her that drew me in – I’m old enough to have seen them in service so they are not unfamiliar to me, but being able to work on her and enjoy the spectacle as she runs and indeed now taxies around is wonderful! I maybe biased due to being lucky enough to be a member of the team, but when she returns to the skies, there are two groups of airshow followers out there who will be smiling:
1)Those like me who hanker after that infamous “Griffon Growl” again harking back to the golden days…
2) The younger generation who may have seen clips on youtube from the old days, but will be quite surprised at the performance abilities of what may appear to be similar to a Lancaster, but has quite a different presence in the skies! Bearing in mind too that once WR963 is ready to fly again, she will be somewhat lighter in configuration than ever before, carrying much less fuel, and not have a full crew onboard for displays – something of a hot-rod version perhaps? This old clip from 1991 (final year in service) brilliantly illustrates what awaits our loyal supporters – wait until the end for something of a surprise if you think those old Shackletons were sluggish..lol 😉
It was fun… that’s me doing a spot of showmanship out of the rear door thanks to our pilot’s permission to open the door once we had returned the Griffon’s to idle speed 😉 On Flickr Paul I asked if I may have a high res copy of these please? Also I run our website so if you are happy for any of your set to be used on the site could you advise please?
Update on the Bomb Door Names offer, from the Chairman himself:
Thank you all for the fantastic response to the Bomb Door offer, Many of you donating more than the £10 requested. The introductory offer for the first 100 has now been reached but we will honour payments up to 12 am today 8th July 2015, to ensure this is placed on all the forums. You can still have your name or that of a loved one on the doors of 963 but unfortunatly after 12am today 8th July 2015 it must be at the full price of £25, still a very good deal as the name will remain there for the life of the Aeroplane, and yes that includes when she is back in the air. Once again thank you all for your support , The Chairman.
It’s an evolving process with the whole project 😉 Fund-raising work is increasing all the time – we have new merchandise ranges coming in so fast I can’t keep up with the many website updates on the shop page alongside my engineering work on the aircraft…lol 😉
The Bomb Bay Doors idea had been discussed amongst the Trust a short while ago, and will include the major company sponsors too, so negotiations were ongoing at many levels before this went public today…. and by all accounts the donations are flooding in tonight!
Thank you so much – if you haven’t already done so, our website includes videos of flying and our ground runs / taxi run… the noise in the air with the infamous Griffon growl through the contra-rotating props is quite distinctive 😉
It’s a nice thought certainly, but for now, and with a limited space available for these names, the chairman set the price competitively to encourage take-up in the timeframe available 😉
By all means if anyone wishes to donate more, we are eternally grateful, but £10 gets the name on the door 🙂
Firstly, a quick update on recent events 😉
All the hard work by team members paid off when we carried out a full four engined ground run to close the show at the Baginton Air Pageant last Saturday – with a very appreciative audience being treated to a ground shaking performance in lovely weather… Website updated to cover that under “Latest News”
Secondly, and this is a rather special one……..
There is an opportunity to have your name on a piece of aviation history. You can have your name on the bomb bay doors of what will be the only airworthy Avro Shackleton in the world. Once in the air will be the largest cold war bomber in europe. With the vulcan coming out of active display service and limited to the ground for good its a chance that will run out.
For the first 100 names a low cost of £10 will get your name in the air and history.
Click the “Donate” button on the homepage!
Come and have a look yourself at the vast area that used to hold up to 10,000 pounds of weapons nuclear and non will now hold its sponsors to keep her in the air.
Only 9 days to go! Please have a look at this Kickstarter link and check out the unique rewards on offer for pledges of support! Every little helps, and achieving the target means we can move forward another step in the return-to-flight project for WR963 🙂
Positive thoughts are what we are all about. And entirely realistic given the initial visual inspections carried out recently courtesy of a team member’s endescope camera. The wing areas we looked at were far cleaner than we could have hoped for – almost factory fresh in fact!
By the way, here’s what we did on Saturday towards the end of the day after replacing the Gits Seal in record time – one engine run, no more leaks!!!
Yesterday Saturday 4th proved to be another one of those days when things just clicked and raised the spirits of all the team.
With a replacement “Gits Seal” found by one of the illustrious team, and a plan of action sorted, it was an early start for some as both props had to come off No.4 engine (again) to access the leaking seal which was a 5 minute job to replace. Over 5 hours later, the entire job was completed by the hard working team, and the chairman and chief engineer were so impressed that a quick test ground run of No.4 engine was carried out – it worked!!!! No leaks, and huge smiles all around as we’re all getting rather too familiar with prop removals this last winter :eagerness:
I went onboard for the test run to do some hydraulic leak checks plus I needed to test a new headset I had been working on 😉
In other news – the website was updated this morning with the addition of the Kickstarter page plus an engineering update. More will follow as I receive some additional photos.
Nice to see a big turn out of volunteers and as the sun set we were all chuffed at the day’s result.
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