Last week in the hangar we held an open evening for some of the local business who have been involved with the project so that they could see the progress on the aircraft build which they have contributed towards. One company, Castle Air were particularly interested in speaking to Lawrence and Murphy to compare the work they do to their own apprentices. Discussion topics included the course content which each complete and how they share the same desire to make the qualification more relevant to the skills required by the aviation industry.
We recently received a delivery of some of the wheeled skins for the non flying aircraft from Airframe Assemblies which have been trial fitted. More drilling, painting and riveting will be undertaken. Chris has been busy making the Aft wing spars for both the port and starboard wings, which at close to 12ft long is not easy! Transporting these between the Hangar and the Wing Shed has been interesting to say the least in the recent weather but the complete assembly should be ready for photographing next week.
David and Lawrence have been a little positively destructive in the dis-assembly of the tail fin as we need to remove and dismantle the unit to be painted, prior to being assembled and fitted to the aircraft. Fingers crossed that we can remember where all the parts go!
Tim has been busy completing the assembly of the propeller, now the stand is complete and is catching up on the large quantity of parts to spray with a primer and topcoat of silver, ready for next week’s big push.
Paul has completed the Propeller stand allowing the 3 propeller blades to be assembled to the hub. This image above gives an idea of how big the propeller actual is. The height it will mounted at will be considerably higher than the stand as the aircraft will need to be on its undercarriage and at the correct attitude (read angle for the non-aviation people out there) to enable this to happen.
Laurent and Kian have been doing some head scratching this week with the manufacture of the wheel housing which needs to be made. The reason for this is that the wheel retracts into the wing when the pilot selects ‘undercarriage up’ and the undercarriage doors can only be manufactured once the wheels are trial fitted.
Next week will very busy as we aim to get as much of the aircraft together before the Christmas break. (Images © Parnall Aircraft Company Ltd)
