Work Day 28th January 2017

A good day with a team of four in action, Pete M, Ian, Neil and Pete H on the continuing task of restoring the LCP cabin and its fittings. Ian and Pete M spent the morning finishing filling and smoothing the cabin skin, finally apply primer to repaired areas.

The rest of the time being spent on the cable duct covers and fittings for the LCP cabin. The ravages of many years in the open have taken their toll of the various components attached to the LCP cabin.

The cable duct covers have already been partly restored but many of the fittings they contain are missing, damaged or badly corroded. Yesterday saw the final audit of component parts to check if we have enough salvaged spares (from a derelict LCP) to get all fittings in these covers back to an A1 condition. All bolts, nuts, washers etc. are being replaced with new and the audit confirmed we have enough parts.

This photos shows an original cable duct cover with its deteriorated seals, a missing lock and corrosion on the non-alloy parts.

A second photo shows the collection of salvaged parts to make good the original covers.

The simulator was run up and remains serviceable.

Work Day 14th January 2017

A very cold day in the hangar so there were two volunteers who grabbed a heat gun each and continued with the paint stripping on the canvas cover support frames. A slow and laborious job but at least you can warm your hands now and then. Neil and Dave crafted a specialised work bench to hold the brackets and woolly hats were the order of the day.

A check was made on ‘do we have the right number of rubber covers for all the plug and socket outlets’? Quite a few of these covers were missing when the LCP was first acquired but replacement covers were salvaged from a derelict LCP shell a couple of years ago.  The accompanying photo shows all the rubber covers, now refurbished, with new attachment lanyards. All ready for refitting.

A start has already been made on refurbishing the covers for the LCP cable ducts and that work will now continue. Tasks include; replacing missing securing latches, replacing rubber seals, replacing many of the broken covers for the latch key holes. One task is to replace the missing part of the cover from the power inlet duct. A folding cover of which the bottom half was missing. A replacement has been obtained but it needs a major refurbish before it can be fitted.

The team on Saturday was Dave, Neil and Pete H, The LCP was not run up on Saturday.

No work day this coming Saturday (21^st) due to other commitments.

Work Day 7th January 2017

Back to work in the New Year.  Neil completed removing  the mounting brackets for the LCP cabin awning supports, a total of 48 brackets have been removed.

Why remove the brackets? Two reasons; it allows for easier refurbishment and re painting of the supports and brackets, also, the nuts and bolts were badly corroded and needed replacing anyway;  the corrosion was hidden by coats of paint.

Removing the nuts and bolts from the brackets was not easy due to corroded split pins on the castellated nuts. After using a nut splitter Neil resorted to the solution of breaking off the split pins and then used brute force to unscrew the nuts past the remains of the split pin. Neil in action below removing awning support mounting brackets.

I (Pete H)  busied myself with the ongoing filling of dents in the LCP cabin to ensure the cabin walls are as smooth as possible before repainting. It is not a case of removing dents the cabin would have received in RAF service but dents that have been inflicted on the cabin since 1991 when perhaps the care needed to move the LCP without damaging its thin skin was not a major consideration.

Cable ducts are receiving their final coats of paint and this photo illustrates an odd problem; the metal sheet on which the plugs and sockets are mounted were originally grey ‘hammered’ Hammerite paint. This paint is being used for the refurbishment but for whatever reason the hammered effect cannot be created on the cable panels that are not vertical (or horizontal). Something to do with skin tension of the paint?

We ran the system for a few hours to warm everything though; it booted with no trouble and the monitors were fine but we’ll keep an eye on them.