Museum’s
Anson Restoration Project
December, 2003
The
Greenwood Military Aviation Museum Society (GMAMS)  Anson
aircraft Restoration Team, lead by Colin Ainsworth, and with the
assistance of 14 AMS serving members, have made great progress in
restoring our venerable Anson aircraft.
The two Jacobs engines have been cleaned and mounted on their engine
stands. (See accompanying photo). These
stands were specially constructed by Cpl Todd Gillard.
The
engines are now ready for the installation of various rebuilt
components.
As
shown in the photo, the fuselage has been completely stripped of all
components and is now a clean skeleton ready for soda blasting to remove
the rust that has accumulated over the past 50 years. This method of
removing rust will not damage the original metal tubing.
During
the removal of all the bits and pieces from the fuselage, the team
discovered that the aircraft was built with a mixture of British and
American nuts and bolts. A frustrating exercise for our team as they
dismantled the rusting components, but imagine the technician of 60
years ago trying to maintain this aircraft in the field (Murphy’s
Law!!)
The
team also discovered that the port rudder stop was bent out of alignment
which indicates that at some time a pilot used excessive rudder
pressure, one can imagine a scenario in which a pilot is frantically
attempting to stop the aircraft turning, “straighten up you beast and
fly right”, incident report? Probably not or else the stop would have
been replaced, if they had the part. The joys of wartime aviation.
Next
stage of reconstruction will be building the wooden fuselage station
frames. That’s right – wooden. The aircraft was constructed of
metal, wood and fabric bits and pieces.
Stay
tuned for future updates as our reconstruction team rebuilds this
ancient flying machine.
|
