Lindy's new coat & her work diary. 17-5-13

[ianf]

You may have heard on UKAR's second podcast, an interview with Lindy's owner Andre Tempest and Dano asking him what are you up to at the moment? The reply was repainting her. That simple statement is to put it mildly is an understatement! So 6 weeks into her repaint I thought you may like to see our progress and to carry the thread on as we continue to bring her back to her beautiful best!

Firstly I know folk will want to know what colour we decided on, I've heard the debates and wishes with overall white and camo favoured. The white option was never seriously considered because it does not last very long when your aircraft is outside all the time. We did want to do her in the colours she wore during the Falklands with this year being the 30th Anniversary, sadly we could not get the cash together to buy the paint, so we decided to retain her present scheme. Which I confess I personally like the most, and of course Lindy herself can stay in place

Due to the airshows I missed the first few weeks of the paint but at the beginning of July I was greeted with my first glimpse of the progress we had made.


We started on the Port wing first with the upper surfaces being the priority. Some parts had already been finished namely the slipper tand and pod.


Work was also done on the port intakes with Blue 2 prepping the intake for some white. This is a really dirty job and not for the squemish going down her intakes isn't as easy as it looks.


A conway's eye view of the prepped intake.


Work on rubbing down the port wing was under way, we only had 2,406 Sq Ft of wing area to work on




Port inner flap


Whilst most work was round the intakes I got started on the port outer flap

The intake looks much better now.

The weather wasn't great that weekend but we had made solid progress . The weather has continued to slow the project down. But the next time I managed to get over the weather was much better. and as I approached her I could see the intake was finished with the hemp applied and looked good.


A better view of the finished intake.


The port wing was now near complete prep wise, and I should mention prep consists of hours of sanding then more sanding and finally even more sanding!!












Andre starts painting all the leading edges of the wing.




The flaps are very labour intensive due to their size and complex shapes involved.


Port aileron painted.


To avoid causing dust problems for the painting I started on the starboard inner flap.

[Macc]

Nice progress Ian, hopefully I'll get a chance to come and see her sometime!

[ianf]

Bit By Bit the wing started to look good. Here the wing fences done.


Leading edge And tip done.



All in all a good days progress.

This last weekend (28 & 29th), with decent weather forcast we were able to get 2 good days progress in. The sight I was greeted with first thing in the morning showed the port wing upper surfaces painted and the difference to the fuselage certainly showed.


The wing still needs stencils and the wing walk and roundel to be added , these will be done last but the improvement is obvious.


The starboard wing gives you an idea of the work involved.

Port flaps finally preped for paint as I mentioned before they took alot of prepping.
















Finished and what an improvement!

Detail such as the flap guide boxes take a lot of time to prepare and not only did we strip back the paint we took the opportunity to remove any corrosion and general clean up. One thing I'm impressed about is how little corrosion we have found.


Both port flaps finished.




Whilst Andre and Blue completed the port wing i managed to get both starboard flaps close to final prep. a comparison of the colours are obvious.


Next day we were in a race with the weather the plan was to prep and paint both starboard flaps.
inner was soon prepped.


All the energy was switched to the outer so we could paint the inner after lunch.


We went to lunch on schedule, and returned to paint the top of the flap, when the weather joined in. One very sudden and intense shower sent us all under Lindys wing, fortunately the parts painted were under cover so no harm done. Thankfully it didn't last and the sun was back out drying her off rapidly. Mind you she looks good glistening when shes had rain on her.


We half won, starboard inner abley painted by Blue is finished.


The outer could only be 90% finished as when it rained I was working on the rail box and all the dust etc was turned to mush with the rain so was unable to dry out enough to complete the prep.


Wide angle shot of the progress. so far.


End of the day shot


The wing looks a 100% better now its uniform, mind you with all markings on she will look awesome.





No pics from today but Brian and andre has sanded down most of the leading edge of the starboard wing so more and more progress is made, we just need to keep sanding and sanding and yes sanding! Btw some is with hand sanders, but alot especially the tricky curves is hand sanded. You will have noted we are not going back to bare metal, but the pictures don't show how thin we have the paint back to. We have found her old camo scheme still on in places and some parts did go back to bare metal but the finished results so far is a very impressive finish not what you would associate with rolling. That's mainly down to master painter andre. Several of the museum's aircraft have recieved his attention and all look stunning. So its back to the day job for me and back to the museum soon to keep our progress going more to follow .

Ian

[Skyflash]

Stunning stuf mate, she's starting to look lovely...

Some excellent photography too, and an interesting record of the work.

[andyxm575]

Well what can I say Ian that i havent told you already. The guys are doing an amazing job on the old girl and properly done which to be honest is the only way Andre does things... Gannet anyone? Hope to come up there soon and see the progress myself.

[nigelblake]

Great record of a good job! But you guys really should be wearing suitable masks to protect your lungs from paint spray and dust!

[chrisward123]

Cracking to see my donation now in action with her new coat of paint.
I will be there on Sunday, hope to see you there?

Christian

[Blue_2]

Just a little addition to Ian's post, (and with his wide angle lens!) one I took on Sunday. A view not often seen...

it really shows the colour difference with the new paint.

[ianf]

Thanks guys for the comments and ty Blue for that pic I wondered how it would look. Nigel we do indeed wear PPE I can add safety glasses/goggles to your list, especially when your on initial sanding. In fact a pic thankfully not taken was myself after working on the starboard inner flap when we went to wash up and I had removed my glasses etc, I apparently looked like I was wearing foundation One thing I forgot to mention is by all means visit the museum and come and say hello to us, we have had many folk chatting to us of late. Including quite a few ex V force crew & groundcrew, some of which worked on Lindy so always good to hear story's of her in service. Also last sat we even got a salute from the reds with smoke! It may have had something to do with the event on the airfield but as they came directly over us we will take it!

Ian

[iainpeden]

A great job and not one erk on jankers to help.

A serious question - why use such a small roller for so large an area?

[ianf]

Iain on the large open bits we do use a larger roller, but for curves such as the flaps leading edges etc a larger roller isn't accurate enough to give us the finish we now get. Simply put we would miss more than we paint with a larger roller.
Ian

[Maisie]

Being an ex-RAF painter, I feel your pain using a roller! Done plenty of VC-10 flaps, undersides, wings etc! Wish I had the spare time to come help!....Doing a good job...

[Sven]

Looking great Ian.

[ianf]

Hi another good week of progress to report on, the weather still got upto some mischief but we got round it in the end.
With the weather being more settled last week Andre and Brian got on with sanding the leading edge of the wing whilst on friday blue went aloft of the tailplane and sanded and painted the starboard elevator.


So saturday morning it was the port elevator's turn. I admit I wouldn't do what blue did, even with the safety harness and second man cover!


Andre and Grant continued prepping the leading edge.


I continued final prep on the starboard outer flap, and several hours later Blue asked me to see his handy work, port elevator sanded and prepped to paint.


I then put my wide angle lens on my camera and gave it to blue, as I was not taking this shot!


The starboard outer flap sanded but only partly prepped, At this point we could see a storm approaching so we touched up the essential and moved all our gear under cover.
.

Andre doing the same getting us ready.


We wern't a moment too soon, We were just retiring under the wing when we had a huge flash and a near instantanous double bang! It appeared that the museum site had been hit with Lightning just behind the T2 hanger! and then it rained!


Did I mention it rained!!


We were stuck for about ten minutes before it slackened sufficently for us to make a break for it to the Naffi. about 45 minutes later we were able to go and see what if anything we could do.
The storm we just had.


Out came the sun and the humidity shot up but it also dried the aircraft at an phenomenal rate. Not before I shot some interesting patterns on the newly painted port wing.


And elevator.


One and a quarter hours after the storm the harrier looked a lot dryer!


Dry enough to paint in fact!


Tony (middle) came looking for his two co workers on the mossie and found them working on Lindy


Port elevator finished.


Starboard inner flap finished, after blue painted it. a very tired looking blue stands at the side. He had put in 8 1/2 hours hard graft in very hot conditions on top of the tailplane and then the flap.




Saturday was a productive if draining day with the heat and humidity but we made progress. As we left I took a shot of the next storm approaching .


Sunday I wasn't able to attend so no pictures, but I can report that the wrap round portion under the port elevator was prepped and painted. The leading edge of the starboard wing is almost ready to prep and the starboard wing tip has been prepped and painted. more sanding of the centre section has also started. So a very good weeks progress, its good to show the progress paint wise but what the pics don't show is the amount of time we have been sanding her, another hand sander died on us saturday bringing the total to four deceased. I've no idea how much emery paper we have gone through but we at last can see the results and the finish is looking good in my ever so slightly biased opinion Hopefully more pictures next week.
Ian

[AndyXH558]

Well i dont blame you on that with the tail section. its looking really good, there is a thunder (not that type of thunder lol!!) day soon, is andre thinking of putting lindy through her paces again?

[Blue_2]

Some nice shots Ian. I've come back to work for a rest after that weekend!

[XL391]

Was up there last week for a look around the museum for the first time, you're doing a fine job of the repaint! I was struck by how well she looked in general, condition wise. You can tell she is very well looked after.

Keep up the good work!

[ianf]

With the weather again pretending it was summer we had another 2 days good progress. Saturday Blue, myself and rich turned up to continue prepping the starboard wing and blue to complete the centre section of the upper tail surfaces. Not many pictures were taken during the day as most of the work simply consisted of sanding and sanding even more!

However the airfield had a large model airshow on and Lindy remembered this shape as one of her regular customers! An impressive sight, simply a pity it wasn't a real one.


Whilst rich continued on the outer centre section of the wing I decided to start the starboard alieron. It took all day to complete, because Lindys ailerons are huge and long so took longer than I thought.


Blue was also making progress on the tailplane.




In fact by the end of the day he was applying paint.


This part of the wing is finally looking good.


Sunday the team was slightly different with andre joining myself and rich. First I went up and shot Blues impressive paint job on top.




Several hours later we had finished the centre section and the leading edge so time to paint. first up the leading edge.


Whilst andre did that I helped in the painting by painting the wing fences all 23 of them.


Then the centre of the wing to just before the end of the aileron


Centre done. We left the aileron unpainted as a little more work to the trim tab is required


Next for the paint was the section from the aileron to the carrot.


Finaly the carrot was started.




And at the end of the day we had made decent progress. Carrot finished.


With luck the rest of the wing won't be long before its done too. It was also great talking to a lot of the public, especially the veterans we see regularly these days its alway great to chat so don't hesitate to say hello if your at the museum.

Ian

[ianf]

Another productive weekend on the jet, with the weather playing ball for once. Except it was too hot we can't win!

Outer wing prepped for paint, note the uncovered do not step markings.


The intention was to get the leading edge of the wing and the outer wing prepped and painted by the end of play sunday. No small task but by the end of saturday we had made headway on the sanding and prep work.




After a long day the outer wing was painted.


Sunday we had a full team in so we decided to also sand and prep the slipper tank as well.


This was inspite of a forcast of rain in the afternoon ( Which thankfully did not materialise.). I finished off the leading edge and wing fence at the wing root, this is were I learned just how subtle the curves are unless you look closely you don't notice how the intake lip changes shape. Meanwhile Blue continued his impressive work on the tailplane finishing the underside leading edges and starting on the fairing itself.


Our resident intake specialist Ollie was also on hand to get the intakes sorted


He does a very good job, I can't wait to see him painting them too


Slipper started


And done.


A couple of views of blues work. The bullet and fittings have been removed to allow some work and TLC to be applied to them.


The top looks good.


Not a view you get so often.


Intake No4 looking much better.



Mission accomplished for the weekend.








Until you've tried sanding down a Victor you don't appreciate how big she is But we see good progress and along the way we have done quite abit of general maintenace on her too. Hopefully it won't be long before we are on the fuselage.

Ian

[Blue_2]

Following on from Ian's update, a few pics from today to bring you all bang up to date. The fairings down the port side of the tailplane were prepped, primed and painted by my (not so) fair hand yesterday, and the RWR exhaust vent (inside and out!) and all bar 2 panels on the starboard side recieved the same treatment today.













It's a good thing heights don't bother me! Although the novelty of climbing up and down that bl**dy giraffe has now well and truly worn off, trust me...

[ianf]

Looking good blue! The RWR vents really cleaned up well. You've done very well! Doing a tail the size of Lindy is equivalent to most fighters main wing! All we need now is to get the remainder of the wing done and progress will speed up.

Ian

[adamp89]

this may sound stupid, but where is she 'based?'

[ianf]

Hi Adam, she lives at the yorkshire air museum at Elvington just outside of york. The airfield is directly at the side enabling us to run her. The mus has got several live aircraft and do mini thunder days the next one is the 2nd sept so if you want to come thats not a bad day to be there. I doubt we will run with the work on the intake not completed, but you never know, we may finish it (the intake) by then.

Ian

[adamp89]

@ian,
cheers for the help, i was at elvington last year actually (about October time...) but i didn't know it was Lindy as they were just preparing to move her to another part of the airfield as they'd had what i think was a remembrance event on the next day. i had guessed it might be elvington from some of the photos (it was the static mirage and tornado that sold it for me)

[Blue_2]

Ian was elsewhere on Sunday , so he asked me to provide an update of this weekend's activity on the jet.

More progress to report this week, even thought the weather wasn't on our side. Sunday saw the starboard side fairings under the tailplane finished off and the fin leading edge begun! It's nice to not have to climb quite so high now... It took a while to sort the panels; I'd done all but 2 on tuesday, the remaining 2 I'd left for Sunday as they had evidence of corrosion. With a lot of elbow grease the 2 panels had all corrosion removed (eventually!) and after priming, a good coat of hemp added.



Given this side of the fin gets the worst of the weather it was a nice surprise how good condition it is actually in though.
Andre and Rich were very busy with the painstaking work of prepping the wing, more on that later.

A view along the fairings

I ventured down onto the wing to record progress there, seeing as our resident recorder of such things had gone AWOL to Brunty to play Buccaneers. Rich busy cleaning out a seam

And Andre taking some surface corroded fastenings back to bare metal

These 2 shots should give you an idea of just how seriously we're taking the prep on this job. We don't want to be doing it all again in 2 year's time, so it's being done once and it's being done right.
Bare metalled



And primed up

A rare sight on Sunday, as the sun snuck out briefly so I got a quick shot of my handiwork on the tail. The colour difference is very much evident! The bullet fairing is off site for restoration; I hear this is going well and the bullet will be ready to re-fit in the next couple of weeks.

Finally, we've started down the (vast) tailfin...