 Museum's Anson
Restoration Project
By
Colin Ainsworth, Project Leader
28 February, 2005
The
past month has been very interesting in regards to the Anson
restoration. Chuck Calder, Keith Brenson and myself hoped to finish
installing the flight control cables from the cockpit to the rudder
and elevators. This seemed to be a very straightforward undertaking,
but alas everything
went wrong. After the cables were installed we found a lot of the
pulleys were missing and we would have  to manufacture a new elevator
tube assembly. Since we did not have a drawing we had to figure the
length of the tube assembly from photographs in the aircraft manual,
once we had determined the length we approached 14 AMS workshop to see
if it would be possible to manufacture one. From the sketch we provided,
a tube assembly was quickly produced and we were back on track. The
span of the tailplane is quite interesting, the length from tip to tip
is twenty-three feet five inches, which is basically the wingspan of a
small aircraft.
After the
tailplane is completed it will then be covered with thin plywood and
finally with Dacron fabric. The two engine firewalls have been
refurbished; they were then installed and painted.
Phil
Weedon, Dustin Caldwell and Mark Lapointe are overhauling the two
engines, from the condition of one of the engines, we may have one
to install very soon.
Peter
Miller and Jerry Aucoin have started to build up our supply section and
are finally arranging all the aircraft hardware in parts bins. This will
make it easier to keep track of parts and have them on hand as the
restoration continues.
Another
item we managed to overhaul this month was the main electrical
junction box. This entailed replacing the rivets around the panel, and
removing the eleven wiring connector boxes and cleaning the last sixty
years of built up dirt from each one. The junction box is
now ready and will be re-installed in the cabin during the
next two weeks.
This
month "Anson Trivia" is the continuing story of the Avro Anson
from its conception in 1934 until the end of the war in 1945.
The
following article is taken from the Aeroplane Monthly April 1980 by Don
Middleton.
In
May of 1934 A.V.Roe were invited to tender for a twin-engine coastal
reconnaissance landplane. The 652 seemed to form an ideal basis for such
an aircraft, and Chadwick's design team quickly produced a specification
for the 625A, with Cheetah 6 engines of 300 hp, installed in helmeted
cowlings. The machine would have a range of 600 miles (966km) at 160
m.p.h, (257km/hr) with a bomb load of 360lb (163kg), and its armament
would comprise a Lewis in a manually operated turret aft of the wing and
a Vickers machine gun firing through a trough on the port side of the
nose.
The
design proved acceptable and, on March 24 1935, S.A. Thorn flew the
silver-doped prototype, K4771 for the first time. Problems were few, and
Service evaluation trials by the Coastal Defence Development Unit were
held at Gosport. The Anson's major competitor was the de Havilland's
military version of Dragon Rapide, the D.H.89M, but the biplane stood
little chance against this sleek monoplane, a very advanced design at
the time. It was the first twin-engine monoplane with a retractable
undercarriage to be considered for Service use.
Having
satisfied the Gosport authorities, K4771 was shown in the New Types Park
at the Hendon RAF Display, and then went to Martlesham Heath for full
trials. Certain stability problems arose at extreme c.of g. positions,
so an increase in tailplane span was called for, with a slight reduction
in elevator area. The Air Ministry issued Specification 18/35, written
around the machine, and a production order for 174 machines was issued
in July 1935.
Next
month we will continue the service history of the Avro Anson.
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