Shackleton WR963

[MOD]

Thanks Rich. Very interesting documents.

So flying WR963 was never really an option (without a huge Heritage Lottery Fund grant) but our being able to get up close to her during EGRs and possible future taxy runs is, in my opinion, every bit as good.

Ian

[Richw_82]

No not really. WR963 might have had two seasons at best, looking at the component life register. She's old in every sense of the word!

Thats one of the reason WL790 was chosen as the flying aircraft for Air Atlantique's attempts; it was a younger aircraft in terms of hours. When they both arrived at Coventry in 1991, '963 had also suffered a couple of problems on the way. WR963 has 15483 hours flown, WL790 was on 14720 when she left for the USA.

If any aircraft out the four that got away was to have had a chance, it was WL747. That aircraft was the youngest of them all and was the last to have had the respar work in the 1980's. Now its wasting away in Cyprus.

Nobody can predict the future - which is one of the reasons I refuse to say she'll never fly again - but I doubt a HLF grant would get us anywhere, as I believe they won't support rebuilds to fly any more. Red Bull is one name I hear mentioned regularly, but they were approached in the past and not interested, and Virgin won't really openly support anything military.

The ground/taxi runs are as close as we will get to a flying Shackleton for a while, unless our SAAF friends decide to fly 1722 again.

Rich

[Sploosher]

Keep your fingers crossed ladies and gents, but it appears we may have found a front turret.

I take it that is not the same sort of turret that you get on a Lancaster, but the 2 Hispano cannon one that you have dummy guns in place of.........

Please excuse my ignorance on this one Rich..........

[Richw_82]

You're quite right, the Boulton Paul N is not a turret as you'd expect to see on a Lancaster or Lincoln, its more a powered mounting that gives a certain degree of movement to the two 20mm Hispano cannon up front.

At the moment we still have the AEW2 setup on WR963 which is 8 x oxygen bottles in two crates, right where the cannons would be; so the dummy guns on the front are only representative. By removing these bottles, and fitting the turret (the interior mounts for the turret are still there) we can fit proper armament. There will be a little fabrication to do, but not much.

Then the hunt will be on for the ammo boxes and feed tracking.... but we have a good idea where we can find those.

Rich

[Xplumberlives]

Looking forward to seeing it all in place!

[MOD]

Rich do you know if there were ever any plans to fit the GR1/MR1 with a Leigh Light? As the Shackleton was designed as a replacement for the B-24 Liberator for ASW, just after the war, I would have thought that a Leigh Light might have been incorporated in the design. Reading Chaz Bowyer's 'Coastal Command at War' the LL was a great asset against diesel submarines (which had to surface frequently) and the MR1 was designed to look for the same 'prey'.

Ian

[Sploosher]

Thanks for coming back to me Rich.............

I was a bit confused at first, excusable at my age I suppose,by the Boulton Paul name as I thought they only made `greenhouse` style turrets

Looking forward to the next engine runs, whenever they may be........

[Richw_82]

I'm going to have to check the books regarding the Leigh Light - I can't find any reference to it so far, but I know Shackletons did get some weird and wonderful bits of kit to trial - and if you know where to look you can see the results of this on '963 (underwing rocket rail mounting points).

The next engine run should be the weekend of may 12/13, but I've not received confirmation yet.

[Richw_82]

Bet you thought we'd forgotten about this thread eh? Not so.

The weather over the past few weeks put a severe handicap on activities, what with places on site at Coventry being several inches deep in water. However, it did start to clear last weekend, and this one has been great.

Last week saw a visit by a couple of the Elvington team (blue_2, and Ali), and they quickly donned overalls and got stuck in helping with a check of the spark plugs on No 3 engine. Several of them were found to have gaps that were in error, or not there at all, all of which contributes to poor running. I have to put my hand up here... there were several of us doing the task and I should have made sure the guys were sure of the gaps before they were put in.

Today (13th May) would be the test of the work... WR963 was due to run for the benefit of the MGC Register, who were holding an event at Airbase, Coventry. One visitor who came aboard was identified as Sqn Ldr Mike Rankin - a former Coastal Command Shackleton pilot. We couldn't pass on the opportunity so asked him to join in, and during the run he was asked to get back into the pilots seat.

The engines all performed well. No overheating issues, and no misfires, and coolant temperatures staying at a nice cool 90 - 100 on the gauges. Maybe the regular running is starting to pay off. So much regular is the running that we've just had to request more fuel.... since this time last year, WR963 has used around 450 gallons.


In other news -

Purchase of the Boulton Paul front turret has been approved, now we just have to get it transported! WR963 will be getting rid of her false front armament and getting some proper equipment in there instead.

Parts search is ongoing for the various scanner parts, as we need the middle section and jacks.

The mainwheel build is progressing nicely, with blue_2's help the first one was assembled, and is awaiting inflation and brake packs.




The archive -

We're still intent on having a lot of this digitised, but as we will be moving it from its current room before long, we hope to catalogue it during the move. Working through more Shackleton stuff today turned up some old training boards.







More of the same next week, as the IPMS are coming to Airbase on 19 May and have requested a Shackleton ground run.


Kind regards,

Rich

[MOD]

Thanks Rich.

Good to see Graham mucking in as well.


ibw

[Richw_82]

Just to add -

WR963 is no longer the only running Shackleton in the world.

Pelican 22 of the SAAF was awoken from a long slumber caused by technical issues, and was ground run yesterday!!

[Xplumberlives]

Thanks Rich!

[Kermit]

Great reports again, thanks Rich ! Any pics/video of the "other" Shackleton at work ?

[Richw_82]

A brief few seconds video is found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RozbsPh9pNY

[Kermit]

"brief" ?? I d say so
But nice to see her wide awake again, it ll be interesting to hear what gremlins have taken up residence during her sleep....

[Richw_82]

Taken from here - http://the-flying-fish.blogspot.co.uk/2 ... f-sky.html

"Her engines were run for over 20 minutes (with a cough and splutter here and there, and one engine deciding that this whole "running" thing was just far too much work, so she acted up a bit). Once the cobwebs were cleared out, she was shut down and given a wash."

[Kermit]

Mmmm... Doesn t sound too bad then, good luck to them.
It ll be interesting to hear what happens next !

[Dan4th]

I'm not too much fun just after
waking-up, either

Nice to hear about your progress,
Rich!

Onward and Upward!

(...well, not "upward", but you
get my drift )

Danf.

[Blue_2]

Guest update, 05/05/12!

As Rich said, Ali and I popped down to Coventry to visit the Shack, catch up on a bit of banter and lend a hand. Rich had some jobs on the to do list, including checking the coolant on 4 and the plugs on 3 as it'd been misbehaving. Ali got busy with the camera while Rich and I got on. She also did sterling work stowing away, and later returning, engine cowlings as we passed them down to her!
De-cowling

Getting to grips with no.3

Fighting with one of the plugs. While Rich supervises. Not used to working on an aircraft while there's so much banter and morale going on...

Griffon! We were at this point hoping it'd be less grouchy after we'd dropped and administered to the needs of 2 of its banks of plugs.

Cowling back up. Always fun when working on old, hand built aircraft where nothing's really all that eager to fit where it ought.

We were then press ganged into helping build up one of the Shack's brand new wheel sets. I've never seen an inner tube so big! With much cursing we got it together though...

...which much redness of faces!
A great visit fuelled by much banter, Dave's tea and excellent food from the DC6 diner. We'll be back down soon guys!

Judging by that smile 963 certainly seemed to enjoy the visit from these strange people from the north...

[Richw_82]

Thanks Graham.. and please say thanks to Ali for the photos.

[MOD]

Great shots and report : What this topic is all about.

Thanks to Ali,Graham and RichW

ibw

[Jigsaw]

Brilliant report

[Sploosher]

Thanks for the links and the report guys.........

I had heard and read about `Pelican 16` a while ago, pretty sad story really

but its great to see `Pelican 22` up and running again..............just wished the video was a bit longer with more noise.........

[Hazzer111]

I found a longer video on pelican 22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfo8iBeA ... ure=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKNykYR_jhc

[Dan4th]

Thank You Hazzer!

That was nice to see

Danf.