IN THIS ISSUE…………. Page 2-6 Engineering Report Page 6 AGM Notification Page 7 Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels 2010 Page 8 Double Trouble – a memory from Chris Reid Page 9-10 Volunteer Profile Page 11 Visits & Visitors Page 12 Snow joke being a Vulcan
Supplementary Page 2009/10 Financial Report
Spring 2010 NEWSLETTER Page 2
Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
ENGINEERING REPORT
By Charles Brimson
Well, after three months of hard work, coinciding (naturally) with the coldest winter of the last twenty-five years, we have safely and successfully concluded the largest engineering task that MaPS have yet faced – the removal, examination and reinstallation of one of the four mighty Olympus engines fitted to ’655……
Why did we choose to take on such a huge task? If you cast your mind back to the last issue of the Newsletter, you’ll remember that just a couple of days before Wings & Wheels last year we received a visit from an Environmental Health Officer (EHO) at Stratford District Council brandishing a copy of a letter that had been written by Rolls Royce to the three operators of Olympus aero engines (ourselves, TVOC at Bruntingthorpe and the VRT at Southend-on-Sea). The letter had been copied to the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) as well as Stratford District Council, although of our copy there was no trace! The letter explained that during the course of routine engine borescope examination of XH558’s Olympus 201 engines, some corrosion had apparently been observed on both Low Pressure and High Pressure compressor blades. The letter went on to state that, in the opinion of the writer, because of the uncertainty of the condition of the other Olympus engines (including ours, of course) he was advising the other operators to take steps to examine the engines for signs of corrosion and to devise and conduct a non-standard inspection schedule and technique to guard against the risk of corrosion leading to problems whilst running the engines in the future. The letter also stated that failure of compressor blades in either the LP or HP compressors could lead to catastrophic and uncontained engine failure.
So, what next? Well the EHO from Stratford Council and the HSE were insistent that we take this matter very seriously and that we should seek to mitigate all obvious risks before we taxi the aircraft in front of the public again, and with that we are in total agreement. We then spoke to our colleagues at the VRT in Southend (XL426) who had decided to follow the same route as the TVOC and they were in the process of borescoping their six 201 engines using a similar process to the TVOC at Bruntingthorpe. They have promised to share the results of that report with us. We had also spoken to TVOC at Bruntingthorpe (XH558) who had explained that the original ‘corrosion’ found on only one of their 201s was actually nothing more than staining of part of the blades! The other big puzzle for us is that Olympus 201s are very different engines to 301s which we have on ‘655, particularly in the LP compressor area, and there is every likelihood that inherent corrosion on one type would not be found on the other! After a good deal of discussion amongst the engineering team, we decided to take a different approach to comply with the “non-standard inspection schedule and technique” as recommended in the letter written by Rolls Royce. Rather than use a borescope (basically a small camera on a flexible stick, rather like the medical version which is known as an endoscope) which would only give a visual clue that there is something on the blades, which might be corrosion or staining or indeed something else, and then be faced with having to access that part of the engine to assess the problem further, we might as well do the whole thing in one go! So the plan was to choose the highest-houred engine as the most likely contender for any corrosion, drop it from the airframe, open up the top half casings of both the low pressure and high pressure compressors and examine the rotor blades, the stator blades and associated discs for corrosion. Any further action would be decided once we had assessed what we had found.
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Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
So, just before Christmas we started rehearsing the removal of the LP and HP compressor casings on our seized 301 that we recovered from BAE Systems at Woodford a couple of months previously. Once we had built up experience on that, it was on to the removal of the No 4 engine. Fortunately we have had some recent practice in removing not one but two Olympus 301s out of XM603 at Woodford! This was covered extensively in our last Newsletter. Next we had to prepare the engine for removal. This involved removal of the end cap that surrounds the propulsion nozzle at the rear of the jet pipe, and then pushing the whole jet pipe toward the rear of the aircraft to give us clearance at the back of the engine. At the front of the engine we had to remove the ‘make up pieces’ that join the engine to the intakes in the airframe. Then there are all the electrical, fuel, fire, cooling and other miscellaneous couplings and connections that need to be disconnected and kept out of the way. Snow stopped play for a couple of Saturdays in January (see separate story and pictures elsewhere in this edition of the Newsletter!), and then finally on 30th January we were ready to lower the No 4 engine out of the airframe for the first time in over 26 years. With a full crew of engineers, and under the careful direction of our ‘Sooty’ Eric Ranshaw, the removal went very smoothly and without any hitches, and within an hour or so after we started the engine was safely sitting on the third engine stand that MaPS have built in the last year (the other two being the homes for our two ex-XM603 engines in store).
The next few Saturdays were taken up with gently removing the two compressor top-half casings and carrying out very careful examination of the rotor blades (which move), the stator blades (which don’t) and every other component contained within the compressors. The results were a huge relief to us – the alloy blades in the front few sections of the LP compressor were absolutely pristine and the steel blades in the last couple of sections of the LP compressor were missing nothing more than a bit of ‘Rockhard’ lacquer, although the whole compressor was dirty – this was probably caused during Wings & Wheels in 2005 when the Blue Eagles Helicopter Display Team caused a dust storm as they arrived, unfortunately just after ’655’s engines were started - still a lot less troublesome than Icelandic volcanic ash thank goodness!. This was easily cleaned in-situ firstly with Jet A-1 and then PX24.
Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
The HP section (with its all steel non-coated blades) showed nothing more than a little hot surface corrosion on the spacer rings, as well as on the periphery of the discs, but nothing of any significance. We took the opportunity to replace two cracked zero-stage stator blades which had been known about since before the aircraft was retired by the RAF in 1984. This was a well-known fault that occurred only in the 301 engines, caused by intake resonance leading to a small stress crack on the outer third of the leading edge of a couple of blades. Eric made up a tool to facilitate removal of the offending blades and these were easily replaced by our stock of spares from the seized ex-Woodford 301 engine. Whilst considering what to do about the lacquer displacement on the LP blades, a quick bit of Googling revealed that the Original Equipment Manufacturer is still supplying Rockhard lacquer for aero engines and after speaking to them they very kindly provided MaPS with a cold cure lacquer touch-up kit free of charge – thank you to the guys at Indestructible Paints Ltd of Sparkbrook, Birmingham! Despite our best efforts it was simply too cold to use it this time – but we’ve got it for next! By the 20th March the engine was ready for reinstallation, and after a big collective ‘gulp’ as we realised that although we had removed three Olympus engines in the past few months, this was the first time that we were to attempt put one back in! We decided to just get on with it…..and it turned out that the installation was even less of a problem than we thought - we had to carefully plan where hanging cables needed to end up and to have Roger and Richard on hand with the trunnion bolts and pip pins at the right moment, and then it was safely in with no dramas at all.
Two Saturdays later on 3rd April and all the associated ‘plumbing in’ was complete and the engine was ready for a test run. Well to be more accurate, the engine was ready but the aircraft wasn’t as we had been aware since last year that a nosewheel steering repair was long overdue. We had recovered a steering jack from ’603 at Woodford and Eric manufactured new trunnions at home, so as soon as the engine was back on the aircraft Derek and Fred fitted the new steering jack and trunnions and we were ready to conduct an EGR on 10th April. Both nosewheel steering and No 4 engine dutifully did everything that was asked of them (along with the other three engines and all aircraft systems) and after a bit of tinkering the following Saturday we were able to declare the aircraft serviceable once more – with a huge collective sigh of relief! As we have done since ’558 was restored to flight, each Spring we ‘lend’ ’655 to the TVOC aircrew to conduct refresher training before the flying season and as we go to press that training session is about to happen – happily with a fully serviceable XM655 and with huge thanks to all our hard-working volunteer engineers. We must also thank our friends at TVOC for their help in providing a full set of original equipment tab washers for the compressor casings.
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Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
Eric’s report on the state of the engine, accompanied by photographic evidence, will shortly be sent to Stratford District Council. This together with our revised standard operating procedure for operating the aircraft in public will hopefully ensure the successful (and above all safe) return of XM655 to its former exciting high speed taxy demonstrations by the time of Wings & Wheels 2010 on 20th June. Although the work on the No 4 engine examination has dominated our own headlines since last Autumn, there are of course plenty of other activities that are needed to keep ’655 and all the associated ground support equipment ticking along. Fred and Derek have done sterling work in fabricating a replacement skin section along the spine of the fuselage. Dave Gladwin has had several Saturdays of dry weather during April where he has made good progress in repainting the starboard upper wing camouflage. Our very own Forth Road Bridge, otherwise known as the Sentinel aircraft tug, continues to have hours of dedicated engineering bestowed upon it – currently this is taking the form of restoring the engine-driven air compressor which is needed for both braking effort and steering assistance. Whilst the power steering may be optional (after all lack of it is doing wonders for Roger’s upper body strength), braking efficiency whilst towing a 60 tonne aircraft needs to be a given. Nigel Jenkinson, Phil, Roger and Dave have all helped out with the beast over the last few months.
All of our readers will believe that the initials ‘MaPS’ can only mean ‘Maintenance and Preservation Society’, whereas the volunteers know that they also stand for ‘Making and Painting Sheds’! To this end Dave has been doing a great job on the outside of our various buildings over the winter, weather permitting, and Derek has done a fantastic job in providing light and power to our latest 40’ container as well as weather-proofing the container and providing a very useful roof over the area between the container and our office/meeting room building next door. Two Newsletters ago, we mentioned that CasC Systems Ltd of Norwich were kind enough to donate to us a very high-tech battery charging and testing system for our Type K2 aircraft battery. As we only have one serviceable battery Roger has asked the good folks at CasC if they knew of anyone with a K2 going spare, they put us in touch with Aero Quality Sales Ltd near Heathrow who were able to establish that the Army Air Corps Battery Bay at Middle Wallop had a recently serviced K2 that they were prepared to give us on long-term loan. Well, we didn’t need to be told twice, so within four days the battery had been released from Middle Wallop to Aero Quality Sales premises at Heathrow and had been collected and shipped to Wellesbourne!
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Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
We sincerely thank Karen Greene (General Manager at Aero Quality) and Paul Holman at Middle Wallop. Incidentally, the reason that there was a K2 battery at Middle Wallop is that the Scout Helicopter used the same 24v 35aH battery as the Avro Vulcan. TVOC also remain firmly on our Christmas card list since they relocated their offices and storage facility from Bruntingthorpe airfield to commercial premises in Hinckley late last year. As space has become more limited they have needed to dispose some of their extensive spares stock. Very sensibly they have decided there is no need to keep spares of those systems that are no longer fitted to a civilian-operated display aircraft, and so we have now been gifted an extensive and impressive list of avionics kit (most of it fully serviceable) including MFS, Autopilot, HRS and NBS/H2S. This is the equivalent of a very big box of chocolates for our ex-Vulcan instrument technician, Len Hewitt to play with over the next few years – thank you very much to Colin Marshall and John Hufton of TVOC. Roger Parker has made excellent progress with replacing all of the rubber seals on both top and bottom of each of the two bomb doors. He has had to firstly free and remove many hundreds of 4BA nuts and bolts and painstakingly clean them before carefully measuring and punching holes in the new seals and putting the whole lot back together. There is still more to do but the finished product is definitely worth the long hours that Roger has put into this task. That about wraps up this engineering session for this edition, but don’t be fooled into thinking that everything is hunky dory – our attention will shortly be drawn to our next batch of priorities, including: the trailing edges of Nos 3, 4, 5 and 6 elevons, a complete aircraft repaint, acquiring new aircraft tyres, the Coleman tug, the Houchin GPU, the Palouste air start trolley, two new 20’ containers, etc, etc. It’s never-ending, but that’s why we do it……!
Advance Notice is hereby given of the Annual General Meeting of the 655 Maintenance and Preservation Society.
The Meeting will take place on Saturday 17th July 2010 at 1pm and will be held at
On-Track Aviation Ltd, Airfield Estate, Loxley Road, Wellesbourne CV35 9EU. (These offices are located near the airfield Control Tower). Light refreshments will be
available and all members are welcome to attend.
As usual, the aircraft will be open for cockpit and general visits from 10am.
Any items for the agenda or matters arising should be made known to the Chairman or Secretary in writing at
and are to be received no later than 25th June 2010.
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Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
Those of you who have been keeping in touch via the website will no doubt be aware that we’re aiming to exercise the aircraft again on Sunday 20th June as part of the 2010 Wellesbourne Wings and Wheels event at the airfield. Just like previous years we are looking forward to a nice warm sunny day (looking forward to one is okay....getting one is another!) and working with the same basic format that has served us so well in recent years – 655 on show, ably supported by a raft of fantastic Classic Cars and Military Vehicles of all shapes and sizes. We’re aiming to have refreshments on site along with a range of stalls and display items, not to mention a well stocked 655 MaPS Merchandise tent. We are working on there being pleasure flights available, courtesy of Avon Air again (subject to serviceability). We have invited some aircraft to join us on static display but as in previous years their attendance is subject to serviceability and availability on the day – so we can’t promise too much. The classic cars have, in the past, provided a stunning display and we would urge you to take some time to wander amongst them and talk to their owners. Some of them travel considerable distances to be with us and your attention is always much appreciated. Our own Richard Galazka has put in a sterling effort again this year and our warm thanks go out to him in appreciation. Now that XM655 has been confirmed as serviceable again following the No. 4 engine removal and refit, we expect her to perform the two taxi runs as advertised. Firstly, there will be a low speed run for all you photographers to remind you of the sight and sound of an Avro Vulcan under power, followed later on by a second run at about 2pm, which will (if all goes to plan) be at high speed along the main runway at Wellesbourne. It goes without saying that these activities are subject to the aircraft being serviceable on the day – being quite a venerable collection of complex pieces of machinery, there’s always the possibility of something being not quite right on the day! Our crew (hopefully David Thomas, Mike Pollitt and Barry Masefield again) need to be satisfied that all is well with the aircraft before venturing out. Given the size of the undertaking over the Winter (see the mammoth Engineering Report) it is testament to all the hard work of the engineers that we are in a position to run the aircraft in public so soon. There is a poster accompanying this newsletter which we’d be grateful if you could display somewhere such as a work’s notice board, local shop window , library etc. so as wide an audience as possible can get to know about the event. Also included is your pass which entitles you to free entry to the event. Please remember that any non-members you bring along will be most welcome but they will need to pay the normal entry fee of £5 per adult. This annual event is our one and only chance each year to show off 655 to the widest possible audience and generate some much needed income to help secure the aircraft’s future – it might interest you to know that we will use well over £2000 worth of fuel over the weekend.......but we believe the end result is well worth it! We look forward to seeing as many as possible of you next month – please feel free to make yourselves known to the Volunteers/Engineers (proudly wearing their High Vis jackets) who will be only too pleased to talk about, well, anything Vulcan!
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Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
DOUBLE TROUBLE by Chris Reid September 1968, and we were rolling for take-off in Vulcan B Mk2 XL 425 armed with a fuelled Blue Steel training missile. No live nuclear weapon of course, but the 16,000lb missile, full of high test peroxide and kerosene, was a large bomb in its own right. Shortly after the call to “rotate”, at about 140Kts, there was a double bang and the aircraft shuddered. We had flown into a flock of seagulls wrecking an engine, which then spat compressor blades into its neighbour, doubling our trouble. Trouble it was, on two engines, low and slow, at maximum all up weight. Abandoning the aircraft was a real possibility. My task, as the navigator radar, was to leave my seat and prepare to open the crew access door in the floor four feet below me. The rear crew would use their manual parachutes for escape, the pilots their ejection seats: still a controversial issue in the V Force at the time. Our getaway was going to be hindered by the presence of the nose wheel leg immediately behind the door. We practised escape in these conditions, which involved using the door jacks and advanced gymnastics to swing around the leg. Easy enough on the training rig, but harder in a 150Kt slipstream! The navigator plotter and AEO reckoned that this wasn’t a problem as the undercarriage leg would be padded with the body of the nav radar who was scheduled to leave first! I sat by the door waiting for the abandon aircraft call. Looking up at the navigation instruments I saw that both airspeed and altitude were reading 150 and in slow decline. Remembering that my parachute needed 300 feet for deployment, I returned to my seat to sit it out with my buddies. Observers on the ground who had heard the destruction of our engines watched the aircraft descend slowly out of sight over the Lincolnshire Edge, and waited for the much bigger bang that was to follow. I’m still here because the drop into the Trent valley enabled the captain to find the few knots of airspeed necessary to fly the big delta through to the other side of the drag curve and accelerate to a safe flying speed. We thought about jettisoning the missile, but found we couldn’t: but that’s another story. Fifteen minutes later, my shortest, hairiest, Vulcan Sortie was over.
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Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
VOLUNTEER PROFILE – Len Hewitt
My first sight of a Vulcan was in 1956, aged 9, whilst out walking near home with my father, who suddenly pointed upwards and said “Look! a Delta Bomber”. There, climbing rapidly were two Vulcan Mk1s having taken off from AVRO's factory at Woodford to enter RAF service. During the following 4 or 5 years, we were to see more Vulcans leaving Woodford, and my father always referred to them as “Delta Bombers”. Little did I know at the time the large part they would play in my later life. On leaving school, I did an apprenticeship with (as it was then) GPO Telephones and ended up in a repeater station working in a bomb-proof basement in Stockport. I soon tired of the environment of concrete walls with no windows, fluorescent lighting and grey boxes, and at the age of 20 joined the RAF. 6 weeks basic training were endured at RAF Swinderby during a very cold winter - so cold that a couple of the intake got frostbite during our 3 day 'expedition' in the Dukeries training area, which was somewhat compromised by movement restrictions because of the 1967-1968 foot and mouth outbreak. Passing out in January of 1968, the next posting was to Navigational Instruments trade training at RAF Cosford, where I first got up “close and personal” with a Mk1 Vulcan XA900 that was used at the time as a training aid. From Cosford I was posted to RAF Fairford on Hercules C130s, Fairford having been just re-opened so some of the development costs of Concorde could be moved to the defence budget. My one “claim-to-fame” was being one of the marshalling crew for Concorde 002 on its maiden flight from Filton to Fairford.April of 1969 saw a return to RAF Cosford for Fitter training, and I passed out as a fully qualified “LFittNI” (Electronics fitter, Navigational Instruments) in June 1969 and was initially due for posting to the M.U. (Maintenance Unit) at Sealand near Chester. However, I arranged to swap posting with another chap on the course who had been a mechanic at RAF Waddington, and didn't want to return there. Following three weeks type training in the Vulcan School at Waddington I was posted to 'the line'. At the time we had centralised servicing rather than squadron servicing, so we worked on all the Waddington Wing aircraft. Line Squadron always felt short of a 'real' identity and invented its own - the PIG complete with its own Squadron Badge of a yellow pig surrounded by the motto “Pride Integrity and Guts”. In the crew room there was a large day-glo PIG shield with the motto “Unloved and Unwanted, Yet Seen around the World”. This was a very true statement. The powers that be hated the PIG symbol and tried unsuccessfully to suppress it, and it was also true that wherever Line Squadron personnel had been on detachment, the local bars would have a day-glo PIG sticker somewhere behind the bar, from the Far East, to the States and even Wake Island and RAAF Darwin. During the three years I was on Line Squadron I had a short detachment to RAF Gaydon where I was part of a modification programme for the Navigation Bombing System (NBS), and then I was posted to RAF Newton for Flight Simulator Servicing training. On completion of the 3 month course it was back to Waddington to the Flight Simulator, where I spent an awful lot of hours “flying the box” whilst others diagnosed problems, largely because I had a glider pilots licence and could make the simulator do whatever was required to duplicate problems reported by either instructors or aircrew. During this time I received notification of an accompanied posting to the Vulcan Flight Simulator at RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus. Unfortunately, (and much to my wife's disappointment) before the due date, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus took place and all postings were cancelled. By this time the environment of concrete walls without windows, fluorescent lights and grey boxes was once again becoming very wearing and despite being screened for five years on the simulator, managed to 'escape' to the hangar, originally to fill a vacancy for three weeks whilst someone was on detachment, but which I managed to extend indefinitely!
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Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
The long, hot summer of 1976 saw lots of hours sitting on the grass in front of the hangars between jobs, and I found myself longing to be back on first-line servicing. By this time, Strike Command had reverted to Squadron Servicing and consequently I applied for a last tour of duty out on 50 Sqn. which was initially rejected on the grounds that I was screened for 5 years on the Simulator (despite the fact that I hadn't worked there for 18 months!).
Len looked like this when he joined us.....................and after a year he looks like this! (ed) Sometime later I was “borrowed” again, this time by 9 Sqn to make up the numbers on a two week Malta detachment. On my return I was greeted by the news that my name had been seen on SROs (Station Routine Orders) as having been posted. I dashed up to the MEAS office to find out where and when, with my heart in my mouth as I had by now only two and a half years service left and had had our own house since first being posted to Waddington. Searching SROs I eventually found the posting - 50 Sqn Last tour of Duty - no physical move. Relief! 50 Sqn saw me re-united with many of the folks I had known on Line Sqn, and it really felt like coming home. In 1978 I was lucky enough to be selected for the Giant Voice Servicing crew and spent a very interesting and enjoyable 12 weeks at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana. One of the four aircraft on that detachment was XM655, although at the time it wasn't a 50 Sqn aircraft. I left the Service in November 1979 having spent 9 of my 12 years at RAF Waddington working on Vulcans. It was to be another 30 years before I even saw another Vulcan, but as a 30th “anniversary” of leaving the service I decided to go to the 2009 Waddington Airshow where, unfortunately, XH558 failed to display. However, shortly afterwards I saw a clip on Central News of XM655 taxying with XH558 overflying, and seeing the 50 Sqn “dingoes” on XM655's tail fin, decided I just had to research where it was. The next weekend I visited Wellesbourne, joined 655MaPS, and was shown into 655's cockpit. As I ascended the crew steps, the distinctive Vulcan smell hit me like a bolt from the blue. I had forgotten that smell, but instantly 30 years just fell away and I've been back almost every Saturday since.
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Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
VISITS AND VISITORS
Even during the coldest Winter for more than 20 years, XM655 has still had its fair share of visitors, all of whom love the experience. We were delighted that we could help with a surprise birthday present for a commercial pilot who lives nearby – the present being a VIP tour of the aircraft. His comment on seeing the cockpit of the Vulcan was “I drive an Airbus for a living, but this is a real aeroplane!”. Thanks to Frankie Spray, who is one of the Air Traffic Controllers at Wellesbourne airfield, 655 MaPS is now publishing small articles and forthcoming news in the village newsletters for our neighbouring villages in Wellesbourne and Loxley. This, in its turn, has led to an increase in the amount of interest being taken in the aircraft by our neighbours. At the end of February the Wellesbourne Cub Scouts paid a very lively visit to both us and the South Warwickshire Flying School next door. As a result of their visit all the Cubs were presented with their Air Activity Badges – we’re glad we could help with that.
Important Diary Dates: Wellesbourne Wings & Wheels Sunday 20th June 2010
SNOW JOKE BEING A VULCAN YOU KNOW............. This last winter must have been bad – this is the third mention it has had in this Newsletter! On 9th January, following a heavy fall of snow, we were extremely concerned about the effect on the centre of gravity that 5” of snow on the wings aft of the undercarriage would have. Because of the dreadful conditions only four volunteers were at Wellesbourne that day, so we (carefully) swept as much snow from the wings behind the main undercarriage. We calculated that we removed about 20 tonnes, deliberately leaving the snow in front of the undercarriage to help counteract against any further snowfall. Even though we keep as much fuel in the forward tanks for exactly this kind of eventuality, we think that we were very close to the aircraft tipping on to its tail that day.
Before next winter, we will be sinking a tie down bar into the concrete pan at Wellesbourne so that we can use the nosewheel tie down during the winter months – better safe than sorry!
