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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 1862.PDF
625 FLIGHT, 10 November 1949 FIELD SERVICE " Jury Rig" Brings a Damaged Viking Home for Repair AN unusual and enterprising repair job was recently under-taken following a wheels-up landing in France. A^-British-based aircraft was involved, and in such instances there are usually obvious reasons for doing as much of the repair work as possible at home and for avoiding dismantling or land transportation of units. In the case in question, which occurred at the end of August, the pilot of a B.E.A. Viking, G-AHPL, was faced with the necessity to make a belly landing at Le Bourget. After having used up his excess fuel, he achieved his object without injury to passengers or damage to freight or luggage, although the aircraft swung off the emer- gency landing strip, slid across the runway and continued over the runway boundary line. The Viking was subsequently removed to an Air France hangar for complete inspection. Damage to the underside of the aircraft was severe and extended for 50ft along the fuselage from near the nose to within 6ft of the tailwheel. All the frames and stringers in the area were damaged, including the main leading-edge and trailing-edge frames. The forward cargo hold doors were badly buckled, as was the freight floor. Both airscrews were extensively damaged, and the oil cooler shrouds were badly buckled. Incidentally, the undercarriage had failed to operate because, it is stated, the jack attachment had come adrift from the cross-tube. The chief engineer and chief inspector of Field Aircraft Services, Ltd., to whom the task was given, carried out a survey and decided that a temporary repair was possible to enable the aircraft to be flown back to this country for final repairs. A working party of four men and one supervisor was detailed for the job, which entailed restoring all the frames by fitting spruce blocks to the damaged portions of the fuselage and then by plating the underside with 16-gauge dural sheet secured to the sound portion of the fuselage and attached to. the spruce blocks by wood screws. Compression strength normally provided by the internal structure of the fuselage was restored by fitting eight channel-section members from the front end of the aircraft to the undamaged portion at the rear. Steel girders were attached above the freight floor across the leading-edge and trailing-edge frames, and wooden blocks attached to these beams were wedged between them and the floor to restore rigidity. This temporary repair was carried out in eight working days, during which time two new airscrews and two new oil coolers and a new starboard retraction jack were also fitted. The Viking was then flown without incident from Le Bourget to Tollerton airfield, near Nottingham, where the final repairs were carried out at Field's airframe-servicing base. The photo- graphs below give an impression of the magnitude of the job. BEFORE AND AFTER : The underside of the Viking's fuselage in its damaged state and (right) with the eight reinforcing members and temporary skin fitted. The damage originally looked considerably worse, for these photographs were taken, in the reverse order, when the Viking arrived at Tollerton and the temporary work was stripped. TO CIRRUS MAJOR OPERATORS BLACKBURN AND GENERAL AIRCRAFT, Ltd., haveissued a Cirrus engine service instruction stating that it has come to their notice that a number of Cirrus Majors may have incorrect taper on the crankshaft. The airscrew hub GB.2320, says the instruction, is designed to seat firmly on the large diameter of the crankshaft taper but it is possible that on a number of engines the hub may be seating harder on the small diameter. This may cause severe fretting to take place, and if it is not corrected there is a possibility that considerable damage may result. The Air Registration Board has instructed that the follow- ing examination shall be made as soon as convenient but not later than November 30th, 1949: — (1) Remove propeller and hub (see Instruction Manual, Sec- tion 4, page 7, Fig. 30, and Section 5, page 1). (2) Remove countersunk screw and key from hub. (3) Carefully clean the tapered portion of the crankshaft and the interior of the hub and apply a thin coating of engineers' marking blue to the hub taper. (4) Replace the hub firmly on the crankshaft taper, rotate sufficiently to obtain a marking, and remove. (5) If the marking obtained shows that the hub is seating harder on the large than on the small end of the crankshaft taper the hub may be refitted. An entry should then be made in the engine log book certifying that the crankshaft taper has been inspected in accordance with Service Instruction G.4 andfound satisfactory. (6) If the marking obtained at (4) indicates that the hub isseating harder on the small than on the large end of the taper the aircraft should not be flown pending corrective action andthe matter should be reported to the Engine Service Depart- ment, Blackburn and General Aircraft, Ltd., Brough, E. Yorks,when full instructions will be issued. ALAN SUTCLIFFE T? LIGHT learns with regret of the death, on Friday, Novem-•*• ber 4th, of Alan Sutcliffe, D.F.M., a test pilot of D. Napier and Son, Ltd., as the result of an accident to the Tempest onwhich he was making a routine test flight. Mr. Sutcliffe had been flying for Napiers since June, 1946, before which he spenttwo years as a Service test pilot in the Engine Research Flight of the R.A.E., Farnborough. During the course of a distin-guished R.A.F. career he was awarded the D.F.M. as a bomber pilot. He completed tours with No. 85 Squadron (Mosquitonight fighters) and with a fighter interception unit where he was engaged on operational testing of new airborne radar. A colleague writes: Test pilots of the calibre of Alan Sut-cliffe are rare, and his loss will be felt acutely by his company and by the industry as a whole. Those who knew him willhave lost a staunch companion and loyal friend. The sympathy of everybody will go to his parents and his five-year-old son,Grahame. B 22
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