(Month Early) Meteor WS788 Project round up of 2021
Well, to say it's been a funny old year would be a bit of an understatement, wouldn't it? We began the year in Lockdown (2nd one? 3rd one? I don't know...) so not much was happening apart from homework.
January Saw some very special homework in the form of the Flight Engineers panels out of our Halifax delivered to me for a full refurb and fitting of new placards and excellent replica 3d printed gauges
It also saw me complete my own "travelling exhibit" Meteor NF instrument panel
...shame it's not really had chance to travel far this year. Still, work progressed on the Hali FE's upper panel and a few other bits at home.
February was a non-event, as was most of
March. Until right at the very end, when we could come out to play once more!
We were mainly still doing stuff at home though, I was by now plugging my way through the Hali FE's lower panel
Into
April, and while the Hali panel was still under way at home...
We could finally come back and work in the hangar properly with some seblance of normality once more! initially this meant carrying on with the Halifax stuff, as well as sprucing up the FE's panels out of the Hali cockpit display we have
...before refitting them in the Hali cockpit section
But we did give 788 a thorough looking over, partly to remind ourselves where we had got to and partly to make sure all was well after her long winter break!
May saw us getting ready to reopen to the public, so it was all hands to the pumps to get the hangar reorganised and covid-compliant yet give it a fresh new look
We also were asked to get the Lightning's cockpit open as this had not been done for a while. This jet has featured on the 788 team's job list a few times this year!
Of course, we did have to power 788 up, to make sure everything we had got working still worked...
Bits started arriving for the Chippy, WK640, too...
But this was the moment we knew we were back in business!
My 40th birthday also fell at the end of May; my better half couldn't have organised a better cake!
June now, and we made a start on looking at the hydraulic systems on 788, namely the air brake and flap systems. The access panels on these had not been lifted for decades, so with fear and trepidation we ventured in...
Actually it wasn't so bad. All the major components are still there and in good order, and as a bonus we had some NOS examples of some of the access panels in stock ready to fit!
We also did some fabrication work, making a new canopy rail mechanism access panel for the port front side as the original was just too far gone to reuse
With the addition of Laurence and Kane to the team, we were able to start doing this sort of thing, getting on with multiple jobs at once. We could also start getting panels prepped, primed and painted as the weather was favourable now. Laurence learned the noble art of panel manufacture...
While Kane restored the second panel we acquired for WK640
More and more panels started turning High Speed Silver...
July saw another milestone reached on the path to normality; the return of the institution that is the Newark Aerojumble! A fruitful day out for both 788...
and 640
We also got 'Minion', my better half's daughter, involved in the jet during her Summer break by doing some of the stencilling at home on some of 788's access panels
A time consuming but very worthwhile job. And certainly one worth subcontracting out to minions!! I know a lot of people use vinyls these days, like a lot of people spray silver and don't believe it can be rolled, but we are doing it the old, time consuming way it would have been done in service. To me it just looks more 'right'.
We also had goodies arrive, in the shape of intake/jetpipe covers (here modelled by WL168)
and an absolutely minty brand new NF canopy cover!
The silver paint-athon continued
And we stencilled and refitted the canopy rail access panels, in readiness for a very special visitor
Keith Saunders flew his last RAF jet flight in WS788, and is always a very welcome visitor. He spent a great day with us, catching up on our progress on 788 and telling us some great stories of his time as a Meteor nav and instructor
We had both cockpits powered up and lit, with the instrument gyros humming away too. Keith was in his element, and as he said to me it was something he thought he would never get to experience again.
It's as much about the people as it is about the airframe for us.
there was still time to throw yet more silver paint around though!
August began with yet more panel prep, priming and painting, this time 788's original port wing leading edge after repairing the damaged cabin filter system
Much work later, and that's 2 shiny silver leading edge sections for 788
Other smaller bits were completed too, such as the screenwash tank
And yet more access panels!
I also did a job that had been bugging me for a while, opening up WL168's nosewheel doors as they should be
As well as donating to her 788's old battery bay door, to keep the weather and critters out of her battery bay.
There was also some black paint thrown around for a change, on stencils
...and on the 2 access panels which encroach on the anti glare panel
All too soon it would be back to good old silver though, with the windscreen frame getting a spruce up
Our focus then shifted to the other end of the jet with it being ideal painting weather. We began to make one of the most striking changes to 788's appearance this year
getting the tail end in paint!
We then worked forward, prepping and priming...
...and then painting the next section of fuselage forward!
This really has made the rear end of the jet look so much better. I can't wait to get the dayglo banding on there too, and then she can have her serial back on. Most importantly, it covers what had been the bare metal of the fuselage. The canopy chassis frame also got a lot of tlc this month...
At the end of August, aware we were about to move out of what the Yorkshire weather allows as a painting season, we then began looking towards mechanical work once more. Namely, removing the extended nose section to allow restoration of the steel nosewheel mounting frame, innards of the nose section, and replacement of the nose leg. Given this section will not have been off since the aircraft was a flyer in the 60's, this was going to be a challenge. So in August we started the process of working penetrating oil into all the bits of the aircraft which we needed to come apart, and routing the wiring looms back through the nose to the bulkhead
We also demounted the steel ballast off the nose section
This had been used to replace the radar set when she was converted to an NF(T).14. We also freed the nosewheel doors, as they were seized in position. Then, after removing all the retaining bolts, we trestled the nose and began the long process of convincing it to come off! We did get to throw paint at stuff too though
And Arno did a beautiful job of refurbing our cockpit fire extinguisher!
September saw the slow and steady job of persuading the nose off continuing, millimeters at a time
It also saw more paint being applied to parts off the jet
And I spent a day killing the rust in the port intake mounting ring
Sadly the steel section in the startboard intake is too far gone and will have to be replaced. We also dismantled our replacement nose leg ready for overhaul...
Which was a long drawn out process
October saw arrivals for 640
and the nose leg overhaul continuing
I also got to see the panels I had overhauled for the Halifax back in their rightful place, and powered up too
October 9th was D-day for the extended nose section; it WAS coming off!
After a LOT of blood, sweat and swear words, Scott and I prevailed
We then rubbed back and repainted the frame and the front bulkhead
Before 'simply removing' the old leg ready to receive the new one
sounds easy if you say or type it really quickly! We even found time to give our trolley acc and some of our other GSE a spruce up.
The rest of the month was devoted to painting the bits to go back on the nose leg, dressing and setting up the new nose leg, painting in the rest of the anti glare panel...
...and getting 788 ready to move. The hangar needed reconfiguring for winter, with several extra aircraft coming indoors, so 788 had to be moveable. As part of this we dressed the jet, fitting the majority of her panels back on and moving as much of our gear out into the container as possible over a very hard weekend's graft
November saw the hangar reshuffle, and 788's first venture outdoors for quite a while...
After a few hours returning indoors, on more or less the same spot just rotated towards the door
We then spent a few days helping to get the hangar tweaked and visitor friendly, while getting acclimatised to our reconfigured corner and trying to find where the hell everything was!
Once this was done, we decided to get the hydraulic pack out, jack the jet up again, and after a day's work we got the nose leg hydraulics working!
Very happy with that. We also charged the nose leg damper so for the first time the jet actually sits right
So there you have it. A potted history of (most of) the 788 team's year... I suppose you'll want to know what we got up to this last weekend now, won't you? Never bl**dy satisfied!!
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