Anson Restoration Project
March,
2004
by
Colin Ainsworth, Project Leader.
For the past month Ernie
Killan, Mike Dandurand and Keith Brenson have been concentrating on
completing the fuselage frame and installing
the wooden stringers on top of the fuselage. After the stringers
were installed, the 1/8" plywood covering was fastened on top
section of the fuselage. The next task is to construct and install the
front and rear main spars. These spars consist of laminated wood and are
required to secure the fifty-five foot main plane and engine necelles to
the fuselage frame. A lot of acurate measuring will be required to
ensure that the correct angle of the wing spars is obtained. Both lower
wing spars are inclined five degrees upward while the two top spars are
level. If this measurment is out, the engine mounts, flaps and alerons
will not aligne, and the aircraft will have a drooping appearance.
Hopefully this will not be the case.
Another interesting item that has
been installed on the aircraft this past month is the tailwheel
assembly. The original tailwheel axel assembly was badly corroded and
could not be used. The only solution rectify this, was to weld another
axel from a partialy complete tail wheel assembly which had been sent
with the aicraft. After speaking with Doug Sanderman, he agreed that it
was possible and, once the weld all completed al that was required was
to machine the axel flange to allow the wheel bearing to be installed.
Since the museum does not have a lathe, an old fashioned method was
used. This entailed filing the axel shaft and using a large washer with
the same hole diameter has the shaft. The axel shaft was filed until the
washer was able to fit. The shaft was then cleaned using crocus cloth
and oil to polish and remove any file marks from the axle. The Anson is
now resting on it's tailwheel for the first time since 1946.
Jerry Aucoin and Peter Miller have
been concentrating on the laborius task of bead blasting the many
components that require cleaning. After these items have had all the
corrosion and paint removed, they are taged and put aside for painting
in the future. In the last month, the crew seats and a majority of the
engine and nacelle cowlings have been cleaned along with many other
fixtures.
Mike Coughran is in the process of
reskining the damaged nose section, and after this has been completed it
will then be repainted and installed on the aircraft.
Dustin Colwell and Phil Weedon,
are still in the process of rebuilding the two Jacobs engines. The
engine cylinder heads have been removed from both engines and are being
cleaned and repainted.
Last month I mentioned that this
month's "Anson Trivia" would tell the story of how an Avro
Anson helped to save England during the Luftwaffe bombing campaign.
The following is from the book
"Battle of Britain" by Len Deighton, page 196.
" In the summer of
1940, a brilliant young British scientist named RV Jones rocked the
British defence estabishment. Jones was working for the Scientific
Intelligence section of MI 5, said that after studying German night
bomber operations, he had become convinced that the Luftwaffe was using
some sort of radio beam guidance to enable them to bomb targets in
Britain 'blind'. It was a deeply alarming prospect for the War Cabinet.
If the Germans had an effective beam system, they could devastate
Britain's vital factories at will, and with the poor state of night
defences, there was nothing effective Fighter Command could do to stop
them. A specially equipped RAF Anson took off into the night air over
England to investigate Jone's inspired guess. The crew found a
mysterious beam about 450 yards wide, with all the characteristics of
the Lorenz blind-landing system's beam. After close investigation of
crashed German aircraft and interrogration of captured aircrew, Jone's
was able to report to the Prime Minister that the Germans were using a
beam codenamed "Knickebein" literally, "crooked
leg". A German pilot listened for a continuous signal from the
Knickebein transmitter in France to tell him that he was on course. If
he veered to the left, the signal broke into morse dot; right, and he
heard morse dashes. A second beam intersected at the target, and told
the bomb-aimer where to release his load. Having identified the beams,
it became possible to counter them. Hospital electro-diathermy sets and
old Lorenz equipment were pressed into service to jam the transmissions
under control of a specially created new RAF unit, No 80 Wing. By
September 1940, Knickebein had been thwarted."
Next month's "Anson
Trivia" will be the start of a series of Anson anecdotes from the
British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
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