The Fighter Collection

Category: flying-legends

  • The week after Legends

    Hangar Talk

    I can only liken the feeling in the week following Flying Legends to climbing the steepest and highest mountain; (months in the planning and weeks in the execution) only to throw yourself off at the top once you reach the summit, such is the anti-climax post FL. This years FL brought us some extra challenges that we took on the chin and combined with the tenacity of our principals, volunteers, engineers, pilots and with the assistance of our partners at IWM Duxford developed innovative ways of bringing people closer to the action whilst simultaneolusy moving them further away!! ( Irish logic I know) Much has been written about the revised CAA regulations and whether you agree with them or not, they are here to stay, at least within the medium term and finding ways to minimise there impact is key to delivering and safeguarding the Flying Legends brand. It is also unfair to point the finger of blame entirely at the door of the Civil Aviation Authority; it is important to recognise the support of a number of individuals within the authority, who working within the confines of regulation and due process, have helped us to complete the UK civil certification of Curtiss Hawk P-36C (G-CIXJ) that arrived with us last ‘Legends’ from prolific Curtiss Hawk builder, Matt Nightingale’s, California Aerofab Inc, California USA. It has taken a sustained and combined effort between multiple agencies, individuals and organisations to complete the certification process in time for Flying Legends 2016; at a time when vintage and historic aviation is being scrutinised at microscopic levels it was refreshing to receive pragmatic and practical levels of support and assistance from the General Aviation Unit and its Design and Airworthiness Surveyors. We are also indebted to our fellow aviation ‘geeks’ at ACRO Aeronautical Services for once again reviewing the multitude of design and modification queries we generated as we completed the aircraft survey and type design review ahead of the (E4) design report being submitted to the CAA.

    Anyway, here we are a week after a successful FL 2016 and we are about to launch the Corsair and Bearcat to Farnborough for the weekend and are already stuck into the annual inspection on the P-40C and Spifire MkXIV. The landing gear hydraulic issue we ran into on the P-40F and the reason for it not flying at FL is almost resolved; new seals have been manufactured by SKF Economos for the landing gear control valve and we have tested the first batch this week. We now need to manufacture a new batch of spring retaining clips for the poppet valves before completing final landing gear functional checks. This month all seems to be related to seals as we are now progressing into the manufacture of new leather cup seals for the Gloster Gladiators Hobson carburettor accelerator pump; the pump has sprung an internal leak caused by the leather seals by-passing during operation allowing fuel to enter the upper linkage chamber. Over the coming weeks we shall be removing the rear fuselage fuel tank on the P-40C to carry out an inspection on the rudder control cable pulleys; removing the propeller from the P-36C to fine tune the static balance; fitting new wing fuel cells to the Spitfire XIV (assuming the contractor actually finishes them; 7 months and counting!), installing new seals in the Wildcat brake pedal foot motors (told you it was all about seals this month) and finally having a well earned break away from computers, mobile phones and aeroplanes…

  • The Fighter Collection in May 2016 -The Corsair

    Our  Corsair at  the  Duxford  May  Airshow this weekend,  first in a series of  slideshows of Fighter Collection aircraft  at the  show.

     

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    The Corsair is  planned to be  displaying at  Flying Legends  2016 – there is  still  time  to  book  your  tickets  online  HERE

  • August News and Wallpaper Downloads

    Nearly a  month  since  Flying Legends 2015 , this months wallpaper  is something unique to Flying Legends 2015 , our Hawk 75 & P-36C tucked in close!

    Elsewhere we are   getting back  to  normal, whatever that is! The online shop is  back after  a break for  Flying Legends and stocktaking.  A change we  have  made for  Friends of  TFC, if you are logged in (you can do this on the FofTFC main page HERE ) your  discount is  now automatically applied  to your  purchases.  We are still processing  memberships  for those who  joined at Flying Legends, apologies for the  delay.

    NEW, after  much feedback  we  have now launched a family membership subscription – more  details  HERE . At the  same time  subscriptions for single  memberships  have increased to £15 from August  1st 2015.  We will have  more  news about further FofTFC  benefits  later in the year.

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  • The day after yesterday

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    With all our efforts for the last few months focused on a certain weekend in July (Flying Legends) the morning after is somewhat of an anticlimax and leaves one thinking what on earth do we do now …..?

    Well the first thing to do is to thank everybody for their time and contribution (our volunteers not only give up their free time to help us with producing Flying Legends but also the myriad of tasks that all contribute to keeping the aircraft collection in fine ‘fettle’).

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    Also to the engineers who alongside the volunteers have worked long hours making sure each of the aeroplanes has completed the various calendar, hours based and out of phase checks and inspections;

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    The second thing is to reflect on our successes and tease out the bits that for us didn’t go quite as planned ! Despite the best efforts of our display pilots the fleet remained servicable to the end with the only the P-40C falling foul of the electric propeller ‘rain demons’ and as some of you may have seen taxied back to the flight line at the start of the Sunday balbo sequence with a propeller that according to pilot Steve Hinton flatly refused to play ball in automatic mode.

    Of the visiting display aircraft both Sea Furys developed tech issues one of which necessitated an early landing off the balbo; the second Fury had an electrical snag which we were able to help diagnose and resolve with the operators engineers but the aircraft wasn’t able to complete the scheduled demonstration due to the onset of rain which brought the show to a temporary halt for 25 minutes or so though It flew later on Sunday afternoon in the balbo.

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    Personal highlights, well, the four Curtiss aircraft Hawk 75, P-36C, P-40C and the P-40F;

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    loved the Nimrod’s and Fury, (the patina on the Nimrod’s new exhaust pipes looks just right now following the display on Saturday) regrettably the crosswind put paid to a repeat performance on Sunday; and finally of course the Gladiator in the joker slot between balbo passes.

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    Remember to put Flying Legends 2016 in your diary (dates to be released) and we hope to see our ‘friends’ again very soon…

  • Another Sunny Day in July

    ‘Hot off the press’ – CAA Surveyor has issued the full Permit to Fly for G-CIIO which now makes it officially the one and only certified P-40C in Europe…..

    Grateful thanks to Mike and Neil (and all at GA Unit), not forgetting Dave and John at ACRO Aeronautical Services for making this possible.

    Oh and  we  flew a few aircraft with the Corsair up a couple of times – Keith Skilling at the  helm, the P36C made it’s first UK flight  and the Mustang was also up. The Harvard was busy with crew currency flights in between.

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  • News from the hangar

    Our chief engineer has  found a gap in his schedule to  update everyone on where we  are  with aeroplanes.

    “With the ‘Tea’ things washed up (giving away my northern roots here) it was time for a strong coffee and think about a hangar update……!

    This weekend has seen us busy completing the shakedown flights and test flying of the Curtiss P-40C which has gone remarkably well with nothing but a couple of minor snags (or squarks for our US cousins) to deal with.

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    As I write this update our surveyor has emailed to say the (CAA) Design team are happy with the submitted flight test report and he is calling by tomorrow (Tuesday) to issue the full Permit to Fly.

    We also got the opportunity between rain showers to complete the grounds runs on the Nimrod which has now been refitted with its long tail pipes as it was originally configured. These new pipes were hand-crafted for us by Chris Baglin at Merlin Engineers and are a beautiful piece of fabrication being hand rolled and welded from sheet stainless steel. We opted to fabricate from stainless steel as the original pipes were made from mild steel and rotted out all too quickly as Nick (Grey) will attest having nearly set fire to the aeroplane when one of the pipes had corroded out under its mounting clamp. (video in last  diary report)

    P-51 Miss Velma has completed her annual inspection and was flown on check flight last week to verify some adjustments we have made to the engine valve timing and maximum take-off boost.

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    Corsair FG-1D is the last fleet aeroplane to undergo its annual inspection and with that now complete will undergo a short check flight this week at the hands of a certain travelling kiwi warbird pilot, Keith Skilling, to ensure all systems are operational and function as required.

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    Flying Legends is just around the corner (had anyone noticed) and this week will see more aerial activity as TFC and Guest pilots alike get familiar with their chosen mounts; Watch out for the first flight in the UK of the Curtiss P-36. We are indebted to our group of volunteers who are hard at work helping prepare the aeroplanes for the weekend, there’s still a handful of aeroplanes to ‘spruce up’ before the weekend; the days are likely to be long, but spirits are high and we look forward to welcoming friends new and old to Flying Legends 2015.

  • Just another sunny day in July

    No less than three flights from the P-40C  (Sunshine and Silver aeroplanes, yes), then one from Miss Velma. The   American team  have arrived and wisely  stayed in the hangar  (and shade) while they put   the P-36 together

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  • What’s in the box?

    Thursday 25th June  , Duxford Airfield:

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    More to follow.

  • June Desktop

    Well another month another desktop! In this month’s image we have highlighted the advance ticket deadlines for Flying Legends 2015  – technology eh?

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  • A rather special film

    As you would expect we receive  a lot of brilliant photos and videos and often we share these on our diary  page.  Today we received something extra special.  It is  on YouTube and was  made last week  at Flying Legends:  Thanks to s Jesper Rådegård from Sweden. http://youtu.be/aGFPNZxPr4A   Enjoy.

    We have also made available  a link to our  photos  for those who aren’t able to attend everything  that  goes on at   Duxford.  If you want  printed copies we are starting to upload them HERE

    Finally we are  pleased to announce that  Flying Legends  1 (limited to 300 copies) , an illustrated history of those connected with the  Fighter Collection is now available on our shop page HERE