  
 Anson Restoration Project
By
Colin Ainsworth, Project Leader
30 November 2006
This
past few weeks Keith Brenson, Chuck Calder, Peter Campagna, Mike
Dandurand and Ernie Killen started the final preparation on the Port and
Starboard wings, this involved finishing of the top and bottom
surfaces of the wings.
The work entailed filling and sanding the plywood outer skins and
ensuring that they were smooth and had no dips or high spots. It is
critical to have a smooth wing surface before the fabric covering is
applied.
Butch
Fleury installed the pitot tube assembly that Wes Jorden had
manufactured in the 14 Wing AMS Section. Butch also worked on cleaning the wing flap drive assemblies,
and helping get the bomb bay doors ready for sand blasting.
Brian
Handly finished the HF antenna and it is now ready for painting. Al
Sheppard, with the help of Peter Miller and Brian installed and
manufactured the wiring harness for the morse key at the radio
operator’s table. Al has now started manufacturing the
wiring harness for the radio transmitter and receiver
Peter
Miller also cleaned and repaired the cylinder head temperature gauge for
the pilot’s instrument panel.
During
the past month with the help of the curator Bryan Nelson and LCol
Tom Sands we have acquired a lot of the missing items for the Anson,
these were generously supplied by the Reynolds Museum and I can
honestly say without their help we would have a very difficult time in
restoring the Anson.
Now
for the Big News" by next month if everything goes according to
plan the Anson will be moved to Hanger 14 for the final stage of
completion, hopefully by next November with a bit of luck we will be
able to hand the aircraft back to the museum.
Another
interesting item is that Butch Fleury will be organizing and putting
together a crew to work on restoring the Douglas C-47 Dakota, hopefully
work will start in the New Year. If anybody in the local area
who is interested and has experience on Dakota's please give Butch a
call.
Over
the past three years "Anson Trivia" has mostly dealt with Avro
Anson Mk1 and MK11and it is interesting to know that the Anson was
manufactured in England up to the MK XX1 version. Over the next few
months we will take a look at this interesting aircraft has it developed
over its life span.
This
Month's "Anson Trivia" is taken from the book Avro Aircraft
since 1908 by A J Jackson.
In
the early thirties American high-performance aeroplanes set a fashion
which quickly spread to Europe, where the new twin-engine, low-wing
formula with retractable undercarriage was quickly adopted by several
manufacturers. The significance of these developments was not lost on
G.E.Woods Humphery, managing director of Imperial Airways, and on May 18
1933, he submitted a specification to Sir John Siddley of the Avro
company for a small, but fast, long-range charter aircraft of this type.
Enthusiasm
at Manchester was such that by August 1933 a design study had been
prepared and approved for a four passenger aircraft powered by two
Armstrong Siddley Cheetah radials, cruising at 150 mph over a still air
range of 600 miles.
So
was born the Avro 652, Roy Chadwick's brilliant adaptation of the
Avro-Fokker airframe in which the well tried, one-piece wooden mainplane
was merely moved from the high to the low wing position. Its welded
steel-tube fuselage was rounded out by fabric over wooden framers, and
the undercarriage (retracted by 140 turns of a chain driven, low-pitch
screw gear) moved forwards and upwards into a streamlined engine
nacelles. The 270 hp Cheeta V engines were housed in smooth, long-chord
cowlings and drove Fairey Reed metal airscrews. Each of the four
passengers had an individual circular window and two crew sat side by
side with dual control behind a gentle sloping, five panel windscreen.
While
the Avro 625 was in the design stage, the Air Ministry invited the Avro
Company to tender for a twin-engine coastal patrol landplane for the
large expansion program made necessary by events in Europe. Their
specification resembled that of the Imperial Airways machine so closely
that it was a comparatively simple matter to prepare designs for an Avro
652A military version. These were submitted to the Air Ministry on May
19, 1934.
Next
month we will continue with more excerpts from Avro Aircraft Since 1908
by A J Jackson
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