A-W Meteor NF.14 WS788 Restoration Thread

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14 years 1 month

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1) Thankyou!
2) No. The damage is such that she is cracked through. We need to look at having another made.
3) No. Still talk.
4) No. It gets about ready to come across... then all goes quiet.

I mentioned the Dak being out to play out on the airfield on Saturday. I took a stroll down the field to see it in action.Thought I'd share...
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/215ed_zpsrllx4111.jpg

http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/249ed_zpsobwz4ohx.jpg

http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/303ed_zpsnmamxagu.jpg
The BBMF hoped to send their Dak over too. It went u/s sadly, but compensation arrived in the shape of their Spitfire XVI!
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/331ed_zpsdxtnsaom.jpg

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11 years 5 months

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Excellent update Blue and she looks so much better with her nose radome refitted!!;) Dare I ask about the Flea?

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14 years 1 month

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Meteor is priority one. Flea is a "wet day, hide indoors" project now. But the Meteor is both my and the museum's priority now. The Flea is safely indoors, and out of harm's way.

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11 years 9 months

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Who owns the Lightning these days - is it still privately owned or does it belong to the museum?

Andy

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14 years 1 month

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Still private.

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11 years 5 months

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Meteor is priority one. Flea is a "wet day, hide indoors" project now. But the Meteor is both my and the museum's priority now. The Flea is safely indoors, and out of harm's way.

Fair enough Blue, fully understood. I will continue, avidly, to follow the Meatbox story - it is fascinating!!:)

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9 years 8 months

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Just caught up with this thread, if I wasn't several thousand miles away I'd be in boots n all!
I maintain (amongst others) an ex RAAF F.8 A77-868 at the Camden museum of Aviation.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]245871[/ATTACH]

She's quite complete and electrically live.
We'll both be watching your progress with interest :)

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17 years

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Is that a firefly I spot in the back ground? What model is it?

FB

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Fairey Firefly TT.5 VX.388
Only surviving RAN Mark 5 in existance.

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24 years 2 months

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Nice, odd colour scheme?

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14 years 1 month

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Nice to have you along for the ride, Ghostrider! Your Meatbox is a credit to you.

We should be at the jet this coming Sunday if anyone feels like coming to see our progress for themselves. Weather permitting the lid will be open if anyone wants a peek in! And the now cleaned instrument panel will be back in for now to give the hangar pilots something to ignore... ;)

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16 years 3 months

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Blue2 - the Solway NF also has a cracked canopy and I understood that they have been looking for a replacement for a long while too.

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14 years 3 months

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If we can get new sections made, it may be worth our while getting a batch done then.

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14 years 3 months

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Sun 29 May

An interesting day working on the jet!

First up was the usual opening up and removing covers, allowing myself, Andy and Graham (Blue_2) to get stuck in. Graham had removed the main instrument panel for cleaning, and its come back looking a treat. Not over restored either, which makes it look like its never been removed from WS788; a difficult thing to do. Its one of those things you hope to be able to achieve in order for it to fit in with the rest of the aircraft - you want her to wear the years proudly but not look derelict.

We did notice there's some cut wires behind the panel, but there's enough spare in the looms to be able to re attach them a task for another day - something Graham insists is my task as I seem to be able to make the 'electric string' do what I want for the most part.. Thankfully a couple of plugs and connecting cables are intact and can just be switched out, but there's going to be a few little soldrring jobs to keep me busy.

One of those jobs is reconnecting the wires properly to the taxi lamps behind the nose gear door. The cable, like many others had been cut and was damaged, so working with a multimeter the damaged section was cut out and the remaining portion checked and found serviceable, losing about 2" off the original cable length. It could be a problem during retraction of the undercarriage, but thats not happening any time soon so we can live with it until the bigger list of jobs gets sorted.

Next up was fitting a freshly charged battery into the bay on the aircraft - the idea being that we may be able to restore some limited electrical services on the old Meteor, such as the taxi lamps we'd just refitted. An analogy as to how the wiring has been cut on the aircraft is to consider WS788 as paralysed from the neck down. We have a front loom intact, a back loom intact and some really bad damage in the middle. We hoped to be able to find where the spark (hopefully not literally...) of life is hiding in the front section.

The battery went in, but a measly 13.5 volts wasn't enough to get any signs of anything waking up. So, off we toddled into the hangar to borrow a Trolley Acc, we also found another willing victim volunteer in Sam Ward from the Victor team to help. In went the Trolley Acc plug, and armed with a suitable fire extinguisher and with a watchful eye for smoke, the switch flicked to on.

Two loud thumps from the port side as the battery relays engaged, for the first time in nearly 50 years. But, try as we might we couldn't persuade anything to give more life than that. Power was reaching the bus bar, but not beyond it, so the next step is to trace the wires and find out if the high amp fuses are intact that feed junction boxes. JB2, 3 5 and the generator control panel. Then we'll have another crack at waking WS788 from sleeping so long.

Stay tuned for more, we will revive this old night fighter one way or another.

Regards,

Rich

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I can just imagine the anticipation just before that switch was flicked to on, no telling what was going to happen after being dormant for so long.

Good work guys - keep it going.

Rob

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Awesome stuff Rich, even if everything stayed dark. What a thrill!

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It was a fantastic moment hearing that 'thunk!' as the battery relays operated! We'll get power where we need it next time, as since Sunday I've had my head in the AP, and I'm pretty sure the fuses mentioned in my last post are the culprit. Its all a matter of getting more familiar with the Meteor; we're all learning its ways and its starting to pay off.

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Baby steps.. you will get her lit up and humming soon :)

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Pictures will follow, once I have had a chance to charge the old laptop up!
I have to say, it made a change to fit bits to the jet rather than remove them on Sunday...

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Time to add pictures to Rich's update. As he mentioned, I took the main instrument panel home for a spot of tidying up. It was filthy, and had some chipped paint and corrosion needing attention. A couple of hours' work at home saw it looking much happier and ready to return to the cockpit.
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/20160528_082209_zps3wk4me3r.jpg
It will of course need to come back out when we are ready to look at wiring it back in properly, but for now it is back where it belongs which is the safest place for it. It also means our visitors have something better than a gloomy hole full of cut wires to look at when they have a sit in! After a bit of a fight the panel was back on its mountings.
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/028_zpscihyspc1.jpg
Next job was to retrieve the nose door from the store, and refit the landing lights to it.
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/025_zps0fvxcrsf.jpg

http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/040_zpswulqqy6j.jpg
While I did this and Rich chased a fault on the wiring accompanying the landing lights, Andy got busy with the wire brush cleaning the battery terminals up. I think the Meteor makes a most fetching looking hat for him...!
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/024_zpsi2lmp0j6.jpg
The door was soon in place. It will have to pop off again to be repainted, but that is no job, simply 2 bolts and 2 wires
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/026_zpsdoob3bqu.jpg
I then put the test battery in, and we borrowed a trolley acc for the moment of truth. Sam got the job of plugging it in...
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/029_zpsoqjqrz2c.jpg

http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/030_zps7pra0sev.jpg
...the battery relays engaged, but that was our lot. After much poring over the AP, Rich has come to the conclusion that the 3 main fuses are missing, so among my jobs on Sunday will be checking this out. But the satisfying thump of battery relays engaging after 50 years was enough to put big silly smiles on our faces!
While tidying up, I found the control locks. While the stick is currently not attached to any control surfaces, it will hopefully be sometime. So we put the locks in position rather than chucking them back in the nose bay again to be forgotten about.
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/041_zpshiwklbi0.jpg
Finally, while cleaning out debris, old nests etc. form the nose bay, I found this surprisingly bouncy rubber ball
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/042_zpsiddknh6p.jpg
It has clearly been in the nose bay for a good long time, quite how and why it got there I don't know! But it is now the Ball of Shame, to be chucked at any member of the team (including me, I'm not immune despite being team leader!) who does a particularly silly thing while working on the jet. I'm sure any instances of its deployment will be relayed on here...!

Also, Gin Ye Daur, if you are reading this I finally photographed the control column top placard for you...

http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz117/Blue2MGB/Meteor/027_zpsrvouqqsi.jpg