Shackleton WR963 - [Official Topic]

[AndyXH558]

I was at Woodford in 1989 i think the year was when they had 4 of them land the second loudest noise ive ever heard. and it resonated through the ground shaking it too. what an experience.

The loudest was a Vulcan QRA

[AARDVARK]

Excellent..well done all.

So realistically what needs to be done to get CAA approval to fly,does she need to go thru similar process of most restorations,being taken to bits and overhauled and put back together?

[hunterxf382]

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.

http://www.avroshackleton.co.uk/

[Andover]

Is it now a 'when' rather than an 'if' she takes to the skies, and any idea when?

[hunterxf382]

We're still negotiating a gap in our commitments etc to get the vital NDT checks on the wing spars done. The result of those checks will either give us the green light to go, or give us more work to do etc. That elusive green light to go would then need fundraising to step up a gear (we are currently active in seeking help on the anticipated figure via a Heritage Lottery application). From there the process would move to the final engineering phase to airworthiness... A lot of variables there - which mean we can't really say an excact timescale as yet? Sooner rather than later of course - the entire team now want to push to that first post-restoration flight as we surmount all the difficulties along the way just keeping the old girl allive as it is now

[Maisie]

surprised this hasn't been put on yet -

Taken off their Facebook page.

Hi all,

Occasionally you get the odd time when somebody does something that can really hurt a project.

In our case, persons unknown have taken 4 x new rear propeller blades from our deep store. As a result we now only have enough new blades to fit to three engines on WR963 when the time comes to make her airworthy. As such if anyone is offered or sees for sale any Shackleton propeller blades; please let us know.

We have a control sheet listing all our blade serial numbers, so can match any that come from our stock - and there are only a couple that we have let go legitimately due to being time expired or damaged.

[hunterxf382]

I'm getting to it Maisie
It's rather frantic at the moment on the fund-raising front and post ground run communication for forthcoming working weekends - this theft issue will be widely publicised as soon as we get the chance across all media - it's not a project-stopper entirely but a serious problem for other users of the secure storage not just ourselves, so it becomes a Police matter too.....

[hunterxf382]

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.

[AMB]

I was at the show on Saturday and was delighted to talk with all your guys and be shown around inside. But the 4-engined run was something else - just fantastic and a big 'thank you' to everyone involved. Was told it was hoped to fly in about 18 months, which would be a nicely timed replacement for a certain 'tin triangle' on the air show circuit. I understand it has already been allocated G-SKTN on the civil register, although the CAA can be notoriously difficult when it comes to registering an aircraft that has never been on the civil register before, so was told perhaps it may go on the FAA US register for the first two years. Can't wait!

[flashman8]

surprised this hasn't been put on yet -

Taken off their Facebook page.

Hi all,

Occasionally you get the odd time when somebody does something that can really hurt a project.

In our case, persons unknown have taken 4 x new rear propeller blades from our deep store. As a result we now only have enough new blades to fit to three engines on WR963 when the time comes to make her airworthy. As such if anyone is offered or sees for sale any Shackleton propeller blades; please let us know.

We have a control sheet listing all our blade serial numbers, so can match any that come from our stock - and there are only a couple that we have let go legitimately due to being time expired or damaged.

OMG........ are these individual blades of complete sets of 3 and a hub?

they must have taken a bit of moving which involved a lorry of some kind...............hope that they have a conscience and give them back......

[Pringles]

Just donated to get my name in the bomb bay Can't wait to visit it some time soon, when will the initial batch be put in place?

[Stagger2]

[/quote]
OMG........ are these individual blades of complete sets of 4 and a hub?they must have taken a bit of moving which involved a lorry of some kind...............hope that they have a conscience and give them back......[/quote]

For clarification these were reported as [/i]"rear blades"[/i] as opposed to a prop' assembly. There are only 3 blades per assembly & @ around 4 metre (13 feet) diameter would only fit vertically on a lorry? Safe to say, they could fit in a Transit as "blades"
Despite the stoic response, there is a very limited market for serviceable right-hand blades? I believe these blades don't fit a contra Spitfire or other Reno specials? I'm slightly worried that the 'duffers' were released & not the 'good-uns'!!
Here are the short spec's...
De Havilland 13 ft-diameter counter-rotating, constant-speed, fully feathering units.
FRONT: Left-hand tractor DF 1 60/3 34/1 or DB 171/334/1 with basic setting and fine pitch 23 deg'... 90 deg' feathered
REAR: Right-hand tractor DF 1 60/336/1 or DB 171/336/1 with basic setting and fine pitch 24 deg... 91 deg' feathered
Chances of having them returned, somewhere between Bob Hope & No hope.

[flashman8]

@Stagger2........

have corrected my numerical error.............

thanks for pointing it out..........

[richw_82]

As posted on our Facebook page, these are four loose blades, not a complete prop assembly. Even a complete prop comes disassembled in a large blue box, so you don't need a particularly large vehicle unless you have it built up.

The Shack prop blades will happily fit on anything that is equipped with a Griffon 58, I'm not sure of other compatible hubs they will fit, but it may be worth looking as the for rear blades are the correct rotation (counter clockwise when viewed from in front) for many piston engines as opposed to the front blades which don't fit much at all. Its also suspicious in that only four of the five blades in the same location in the store were taken, and a lot of other kit was left lying around. Opinion of both us and teh Police who came out to site is that it is not an opportunistic scrap metal theft.

If we do find them, the chances are high that we will be too late and they will have been cropped for another application, or stripped and chromed as decorative pieces. We don't hold out much hope.

Ultimately it looks as if we're going to have to find another set of blades.

Kind regards,

Rich

[richw_82]

Hi all,

This Saturday saw us get stuck in on WR963 removing some of the AEW2 components to start putting MR2 components back in, as we're finally at a stage where we have enough to be able to carry out a large proportion of the work. It was thought that some of the removal of parts would be fairly easy but it turns out that despite Airborne Early Warning only being a temporary use of the aircraft, it was very well put together, adhering to the British tradition of "Why use one bolt when nineteen will do.."

As for making sure the retrofit is genuine its surprising what parts crop up through eBay finds or trades, but the good news is there's plenty out there that will allow us to do the job properly. As well as several new acquisitions over the last couple of years, we've requested the return of some long term loan items, so watch this space for more interesting bits of gubbins showing up.

Starting at the front; the oxygen crates in the nose were depressurised and removal started by Mark and Curtis. One side is out the other remains to be done, allowing access all around the area for fitting of something a bit more in keeping with a gunners position! Two of the bottles will be making their way back into the leading edge of the wing and the rest will probably be disposed of as the MR2 carried its oxygen in a bomb bay mounted crate as and when it was required.







One recent acquisition was a rather battered but recoverable sonobouy plotting table. I arranged to collect it early on the Saturday morning, delivering it to Coventy mid morning. It had the frame removed and is now safely stored inside WR963 though to fit it will require some more component removal over the next few weeks. Its missing a few parts such as the lighthouses and the GPI, but we'll find those in time.



The low voltage power pack/radio rack in the beam seemed to be fitted with more bolts than the spar booms but was eventually removed, it is stored under the aircraft while we raid it of fixtures and fittings - in particular anti vibration mounts which will be used to fit the plotting table mentioned above. The racking is redundant in our case and will be replaced with flare and photoflash stroage, and also we'll be fitting some ASV parts and hydraulic rams in the beam so we need all the room we can get.









We traced the wiring through for the removed AN/APS20 and while there's more to finish up (wiring removal and excess pipework for the most part) we've taken the first small steps to putting our aircraft back to an MR2; and it will no doubt surprise a few people how much we get done. Most of it is easy to get to, as shown under the bunks here.



We've also started having a look at the bomb bay jacks, but to refit them up at the front will require removing a few packing pieces up at the front end that were put there to space out the bomb bay floor longerons once the mount was removed.

So there you have an idea of whats coming over the next few weeks. In amongst this we have a few engine run coming up, one on August 15th (possibly an evening run) and then again for the 'Farewell To the Sky' Vulcan event in September.


Photo credit for this week's update - Gareth R Morgan.


Regards,

Rich

[flashman8]

thanks for the update Rich.......

any news on the stolen blades yet........

[richw_82]

Unfortunately not. We've had a few leads on other blades that may be available (which we're following up) so although it seems unlikely we'll get ours back, we are pretty optimistic about things.

[richw_82]

Subject to serviceability WR963 will be going for a taxy around -

http://www.farewelltothesky.com/the-day

If she behaves, there'll be a few more over the coming months.

Regards,

Rich

[hunterxf382]

Fantastic achievement on Saturday 15th when a very large turnout of volunteers saw much feverish activity in the morning getting many jobs carried out on WR963 in readiness for our advertised full ground run and forthcoming taxy...
The ground run went so well that the decisin was made by the onboard crew to opn those mighty Griffon up a lot more than we had imagined, resulting in that infamous Griffon Growl resonating around the Coventry area as all four engines ran up to high rpm with the brakes holding her back well

Thanks to Dom Vickery for this great album of the day's activities which also saw our neighbouring Nimrod run her engines up to 95% in spectacular fashion!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/50682457@N02/albums/72157654994754094

And how about this for our new onboard camera view - this clip shows how much she shakes the crew about at high rpm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzBzvHLSygA[/youtube]

[hunterxf382]

Hope you like our new onboard camera

[richw_82]

Well,

As many will have seen on Facebook, Sunday 13th September turned into rather a good day for us.

During the week leading up to the event, WR963 was positioned at the side of Dakota House to make room for the rest of the fleet. The purpose to this was that the hangar was needed to seat the large amount of VTTS Club members for lunch and entertainment, so with the Shackleton towed off the grass there was now space for some of the smaller aircraft of the CAF fleet. WR963 must have been liking the idea, as half way off the grass there was a towbar malfunction and she was rolling free and off towards the concrete by herself! Thankfully, as we always maintain a bit of pressure in the system, the brakes were applied and she came to a smart halt within a few yards. The towbar was fettled, reattached to the tug and the aircraft behaved herself for the rest of the move.

Sunday rolled around and with the addition of some temporary fencing we were ready to face the 2500 plus people arriving on site. Interior tours proved as popular as ever, with the queue from the door reaching back to the fenceline for most of the day.

But while people were enjoying their tours, we were busy with the spanners again, as the gremlins had struck. The first things we do when we know we are running later in the day is test and prepare various systems on the aircraft as early as we can. Priming pumps, pneumatic pressures, fuel drain checks, booster coils... oh. There lay the problem - No 2 booster coil had decided it wanted the day off! Ground power on, master start switch on, No 3 booster coil on, and no angry buzzing from the back of the engine. Drat.

So with the cowlings off it was time to start looking into it, with three hours until we're due to start up and taxy out. All of us were now hoping it wasn't going to be a repeat of the failure of the booster coil on No 3 a few months ago where the coils had packed up; as the nearest known working spares are 15 miles away through roads now jammed with cars and people. With the top off the booster coil box, inspection showed a little corrosion on the contacts, so a thin probe was inserted into the points and they were given gentle encouragement (If anyone has ever had an SU fuel pump apart, you'll be right at home, as these are just a bigger version of the same old pain in the arse.) Still nothing. Time for the big guns and head scratching, the multimeter goes across the terminals. Nothing. Double drat.

Back into the aircraft and with polite use of elbows to move visitors, the main electrical panel and fusebox are opened. Each of the booster coils has its own fuse, and No 2 is PP-1. Unsurprisingly, this little 5 Amp fuse couldn't handle the stuck points and blew. In goes a new fuse. Back out onto the port wing and clean the points. Flick the switch and... BZZZzzzzzzzz!! Angry noises from the points, and the multimeter showing lots of volts heading for the spark plugs. Everybody breathes a sigh of relief, and now we wait for 12.45 to roll around for the taxy run.


Taxy run

For those watching us start up you will have seen No 3 and 4 start as normal then No 2 attempt to start, cough, die, turn on the starter for about 20 seconds, then we start No 1 instead. You then see me hurtle (or as close as I get to that..) out the crew door, round the back and up to No 2 engine, before getting back in the aircraft again. No 2 then turns a few blades and starts.

There was a problem, but it wasn't the aircraft. It was me. Nervousness really got the better of me, and I overprimed No 2 engine. We then had to get rid of the excess fuel, and check that what our outside man saw coming out the bottom of the cowling was excess primer and not something more serious. Once we were sure that we wouldn't have to shut down, we had a second attempt at No 2 and with the throttle open and no primer, it behaved as you would expect and fired right up.

Then the magic happened, and I can't wait for the next time. We received clearance to taxy, the brakes hissed, and Jon Corley opened up the throttles and away we went. Pneumatic pressures held, the brakes worked superbly, so we stopped alongside the Nimrod on the return and opened all four engines up to 2175rpm and around 40" of boost to get a good 'growl' for those filming. Pneumatic pressures still holding, we made our way back to our parking and shut down.

The only snags were a volume problem on the Pilot's headset while switching between VHF and intercom and a slight amount of backlash on the No 1 throttle lever. Oh, and as we turned around on the way out we managed to blow our gazebo inside out and most of our stall away. Oopsie. Somebody said it would be okay there?!

As you can imagine, there were big grins all around from the SPT team, and we do plan to do a couple more runs again soon so those that couldn't see it this time get their chance.

The rest of the day was a blur of visitors, and then towards the end, what may be our last time seeing the Vulcan fly past and display. A little sad watching it from on the wing of WR963, as we'd all hoped we could get the funding together to get her flying and join her younger relative at least once, but getting our aircraft this far has been a monumental amount of work, even so we think the effort was well worth it.

Thanks to VTTS and CAF for setting up the event and letting us be part of it. Thanks to the Classic Flight Ground Support Team for keeping it running, a lot of who do far more than people realise at the Airport for not a lot of recognition. Big thanks for Jon Corley for taking the controls of WR963 on her little wander about the airport. And thanks to all that came to see not just Vulcan, but another old Avro aircraft that we all are very proud of.


Next taxy dates TBC...


Regards,

Rich

[richw_82]

A couple of videos.

From inside, the gunners position.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSC30ztXVYE

From outside. Slightly shaky camera, blame the Griffons! Yes, we know all about the poor safety drills by the chap at the end of the video, and he has been told.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BnR4SOv638&feature=share

[Alanko]

I donated today, finally. Great to see those videos, though the chap in orange did look a bit nonchalant around those props. The gunner footage is fascinating, and presumably truly unique!

[hunterxf382]

One week on from our historic first public taxy demo of WR963, the website has been updated covering this and more... please take a look

http://www.avroshackleton.co.uk/

[richw_82]

No real updates as we're still awaiting dates of crew availabillity for our next two taxy runs. Some minor work has been done on the aircraft, but we're trying to hold off getting stuck into major work until we've got the last few 'active' days out of the way. Dates will be published as we get them.

In the meantime, have something from the archives...