An I paid an afternoon visit to the Shuttleworth Collection to see the latest progress on the various restorations.
Firstly the PO-2. The wings have now arrived and are having the fittings installed.
Russian aircraft are sometimes praised for their simplicity, well heres an example of Russian simplicity
An unusual view
The Spitfire is moving along, with good progress being made. As with everything the devil is in the detail, but more of that later.
The engine top cover now ready for primer
Detail on the nose tank
A look down the fuselage with the tail (temporarily) in place. There is much more work to be done in here, thankfully they have a stock of small engineers. Sadly they will probably use a big one!
The Cockpit is coming along nicely, tale a moment to think that every part has been removed, documented, inspected and refurbished or replaced. Painstaking work!
The windshield being put on for a trail fit
Its an enormously complex part, that when finished looks so simple, and this is without Perspex! It looks good in place
Here is an example of the detail work that is being carried out on the aircraft. There are about 100 Dzus fasteners used on the aircraft , 82 large and around 20 small ones. They are used to fix removable panels in place. Heres a picture of a similar but slightly older one in place on the Hind.
The fasteners are attached onto the panels and fit through a bracket on the airframe, like these two shots below
Each fastener is made up from 7 separate parts, they have to be taken to pieces, pain stripped, cleaned, checked and any worn or damaged parts replaced (in this case the outer bracket on the left hand side appears to have a crack in it, and the other parts are worn).
All this so that as many of the original parts can be re-used. As I said earlier progress is good, but not necessarily visible.
Elsewhere in Hangar 1, the wings of the Blackburn Monoplane have been removed from the airframe for recovering and some remedial works. In this shot is the first wing to be stripped with the second sitting upright in the background
Tying in nicely with the oldest flying British aircraft, is a new arrival for the Collection. This is up in one of the hangars and is the Scud II glider. This is Britains oldest flying glider. Its been purchased for the collection by the
SVAS. It’ll look great in the air next season
Finally. Spot the change!
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