  
Anson
Restoration Project
By Colin Ainsworth, Project Leader
31 October, 2005
Over
the past month Ernie Killen and Mike Dandurand have been busy finishing
the cabin windows and have now started installing the pilots overhead
windows.
These
are constructed of 1/16 inch Plexiglas and have to be curved
over the cockpit metal frames. A great deal of care is required
during the fabrication, numerous holes have to be drilled and each
mounting screws have to be installed in a cross over sequence and
carefully tightened to prevent the Plexiglas from cracking.
 Jerry
Aucoin and Chuck Calder have just about finished adjusting the
rudder pedal controls; these are mounted just below and to the rear of
the instrument panel. Each turnbuckle is adjusted
independently to ensure that the rudder travel is the same for port and
starboard and the correct cable tension is maintained.
Needless
to say without having access to the Avro Anson Mk2 technical manual,
each adjustment requires a lot of time and effort crawling back and
forth under the instrument panel.
While Al
Sheppard was busy installing the wiring in the electrical
control boxes, Peter Miller and myself made up the main electrical
wiring bundles and ran them from the main electrical junction box up to
the bomb-aimers panel and the connector boxes in the cockpit.
When
the aircraft is finally on display and the electrical wiring is complete
all the navigation, cabin, identification, and instrument lights will be
able to be turned on/off by the museum staff.
Another thing
we have noticed during the wiring phase is the difference between
English electrical schematics and the on/off position on the switches,
believe it or not, the switches are labelled the opposite to North
American switches. The English switches in the down position are
"ON" in the up position they are "OFF". We all have
been wondering how many inadvertent releases occurred during the time
the Anson was operated in a bombing configuration.
Every
month we are required to forward in the number of hours we have
worked on the Anson since we started in November 2003, and it may be of
interest to know that we have passed the halfway mark in the restoration
process.
When
I was asked if I would like to head the restoration team I had to
provide a time frame to complete the restoration and what it would cost.
After looking at the remains of the Anson a figure of 10K hours seamed
feasible, and the cost could be kept within the proposed budget. At the
end of October the restoration team had put in 5281 hours.
It's
hard to say if we are ahead of schedule, but with all the help we have
received from the different sections at 14 Wing, and local business
in the Kingston area we are pretty close.
This
month's "Anson Trivia” is a story of how two Anson's became very
attached.
The
following is from the magazine Aeroplane Monthly October 2005 page 59.
Two
aeroplanes of the RAAF, probably Avro Ansons, collided about 1000 ft
above Brocklesby, Sydney on September 23 1940. They must have been
flying one above the other in fairly close formation, as they became
locked in this position. According to Aircraftman L. Fuller, the pilot
of the upper machine, the propellers of the two machines hit one another
and bit into the engine cowlings.
Aircraftman
Fuller, describing his experience, said that as the two machines were
still flying he decided to try and land them, as otherwise they would
have crashed on a built up area. He ordered his observer to jump and saw
the pilot and observer of the lower machine bale out. His port engine
stopped and his starboard engine was barely ticking over, but the
engines of the other were still running and kept the machines flying.
He
described this unorthodox craft as resembling an elephant in its glide
and response to controls of the upper machine. He landed in paddock,
standing on the rudder bar and heaving on the stick as he flattened out.
After a run of about 200yd, the machines stopped.
Interestingly,
a few month's ago I received a letter from a Bill Marsh. During the war
he had received his wings at # 18 SFTS Gimli Manitoba where the
following two photographs were taken in the winter of 1944/1945. In his
letter Bill tells the following story. "These aircraft were flown
by two solo students, believed to be RAF. The incident happened during
night flying and the students were practicing "Circuits and
Bumps". The controller would be in a mobile control tower at the
end of the runway, with an aldis lamp and a flare pistol at the
touchdown spot besides the runway
The
top aircraft had full flap and was descending faster and the came
together on final approach. No one was injured not even a prop broken.
Two very lucky guys".
Note:
An interesting follow-up on the aircraft. The aircraft on top JS193 was
built 2 September 1942 and disposed of 3 Mar 1947, the
bottom aircraft JS187 built
11
September 1942 and disposed of 17 August 1946. It is therefore
possible that both aircraft were repaired and flew for another year in
the RCAF.
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