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RESTORATION DIARY
WV838 crashed in 1959 and was written off by the Fleet Air Arm. Sold for scrap,
she then spent more than forty years languishing in a ditch at Flowers
scrapyard in Chippenham. During her time at Flowers she was vandalised,
burned and many parts were stolen or broken. (See the
'Wilderness Years' page).
With this history, and the resulting damage, it became clear to me quite
early on that '838 would never be a perfect example but I could certainly
make her presentable enough for public display. I only know of four Sea Hawk
cockpits in the UK and only one of those is ever seen by the public.
The decision was taken to restore her as best I could to her original 802
squadron markings when she was aboard HMS Eagle.
January 2003
I decided to start by removing the nose. This will give me some much
needed workshop room, it'll reduce the overall weight since there's a bunch
of stuff in the nose we no longer need - and the nose is damaged anyway.
The nose is attached to the fuselage by no fewer than 43 bolts (yay!) none
of which can be reached until the nose has been emptied of all the
ancilliary gear like the compressor, nosewheel door hydraulics, heat
exchanger, counter-weights and so on.
The counter weights are cast-iron and weigh in at about 71lb - not
quite what you expect to find in a what should be a lightweight aircraft!
The 'plumbing' for the compressor uses standard jubilee style hose clamps
and despite being red-rusty, all undid with very little effort.
After about 3 hours, I have 3 bolts undone. A fair way to go yet!
February/March 2003
Finally, all the paint has been removed from the starboard side (a lack of
space means I can only work on one side at a time) and after much drilling
of rivets, the bulk of the damaged nose has finally been removed.
The ejector seat was the cause of a little fun, it appeared that the
ejection gun was still live. With much help and guidance from Jim
Griffith - it has now been established that this is indeed inert. I
guess the armourer who removed the charges thought it funny to refit
all the seals!
Inside the cockpit, the plant life is now gone and most of the remaining panels have
been removed to gain better access to the skin. It'll be a while before I'll
be ready to paint the interior, and it almost seems a shame to paint
everything black. I don't think ergonomics had been invented back in the
50's.
On the happier side, goodies have finally started arriving, Mick Long found
me a throttle quadrant, gear switch and a few other bits'n'bobs, and Darrell
has finally parted with his instrument panel which is probably the biggest
item that was missing. The only major (in my mind) item I need now is the
control stick. Anyone got one? I did find someone prepared to sell me one
but emails are bouncing and I've lost touch. Alan, are you out there!?
April 2004
Yeah I know, its been a while! I've been so busy with the work thing and
with other projects like the Jetstream-41 simulator
(jetstream-club.org)
that poor WV838 has been rather neglected. However, now that life
has quietened down a little we're back on track.
So, new developments:
Out of the blue I got a call from Chris Collins who not only has the
original control stick from WV838, but he has kindly donated it to her
restoration. This is a very generous and greatly appreciated gesture - very
much in the aviation spirit I've encountered so many times. I can't wait
for the stick to arrive, its one of those pivotal items that I know will
give me a serious boost.
The last vestiges of the dreaded nose have finally been unbolted (I cheated
and used a sabre saw to remove the old and damaged nose). The starboard side
is now all in primer so I can better see what repairs need doing, and a lot
more of the rubbish that had accumulated in the cockpit itself has been
removed. I really must post some pictures here.
July 2004
At last! After far too much time away, WV838 finally gets her nose job. The
final remnants of the old damaged nose have been removed, the bulkhead given
a coat of enamel, and the new nose finally attached.
A real credit to the guys at AW, the 40+ bolt-holes all lined up perfectly.
The picture above shows the nose just after being stripped of paint.
February 2005
Not really part of the restoration, but at wifey's insistence we took a
short weekend break in Snowdonia, Wales. Much to wifey's chagrin, it turned
out that our host is an RAF squadron leader flying a SAR Sea King - so we
got along just fine! This was also an ideal location to pay a visit to the
Caernarfon Air Museum
who just happen to have a pretty complete Sea Hawk WM961. This was a great
opportunity to meet Bill Turnbull, a fellow Sea Hawk enthusiast who has
taken an interest in WM961 and for the first time, to see a complete Sea
Hawk in the flesh. Beautiful! The visit certainly fired my enthusiasm. I'll
post pictures here just as soon as I get time to sort them all out. I took a
LOT of cockpit shots for use as reference material. My sincerest thanks to Bill
Turnbull and to Caernarfon Air World's Terry Patching for a very enjoyable
visit.
March/April 2005
Again, its been a while since I updated this diary. With so many other
things occupying my time I don't often get the chance to do a lot at once
with the Sea Hawk - just the odd half-hour here and there - but with the
Jetstream project ticking over nicely, and with at least one big project on the
horizon, I took a week off work over the easter break and made some serious
progress.
As can be seen in the above photo, the starboard side is in etch-primer and
almost ready for a colour coat. This photo also shows just how little room I
have to work... I dream of hangar space but my wife tells me "If you want a
hangar, there are plenty in the wardrobe". *sigh*
The port side has finally been stripped to bare metal and awaits a coat of etch
primer before tackling the damaged areas. Note the nasty ripples to the
armoured areas - currently in yellow etch paint.
The port side has suffered a lot more damage than the starboard side, some
areas like the one shown below are not too bad but repairs are horribly time
consuming.
The worst damage of all is to the very lower extremities of the port side.
No option here but to re-skin the entire area. The photo doesn't do the
damage justice - it's a LOT worse than it looks here!
The biggest possible boost for the project also took place last week. I met
up with a chap who had pretty much all the missing parts I've been searching
for.
New additions to the project include all the missing instrument panels, most
missing instruments and switches, the gun panels, the cartridge ejection
doors, the fairing from behind the canopy and miscellaneous other items
like the map box and ejection seat handle. A lot more paint for me to strip
but this was like all my birthdays come at once! Photo's of the principal
items are shown below.
The ancilliary instrument panels
One of the Gun Panels
The Cartridge Ejector Panels
The Canopy Fairing Panel
A job I've been putting off for a long time is dealing with the broken
screen. There are a gazillion stubborn screws holding the trim in place and
the thick, sticky black goo used to seal the windows is still very sticky
and gloopy. But... it has to be done!
There is a trim around the entire screen hoop (see below) which needs to be removed.
This revealed 40+ years of... well I'm not sure what it was but it wasn't
pleasant!
With the appliance of science (an old wood chisel and a garryson disk) I'm
left with a clean area and access to the frame bolts.
I can now remove the bolts holding the remains of the old glass before
making templates for the replacement screens which will be in 4mm acrylic.
Original glass is not available - I'm almost glad!
Well that's all for now... over the next week I hope to have the entire
airframe in primer and close to being ready for some paint. Watch this
space!
May 2005
To my amazement, parts keep on rolling in. It's taken two and a half years
to find all the missing parts and lately they all seem to have come at once.
The only major item I'm missing now are the pull down steps. The original
items are sadly well beyond repair.
Much time has been spent removing the old paint from the canopy fairing and
gun panels before giving them a fresh coat of etch primer. The back of the
cockpit section has been cleaned up and also painted in primer.
The time consuming process of damage repair seems never ending, large dents
are hammered out and filled with a polyester filler. The worst of the damage
has required a fresh skin to be installed. It is beyond my skill level to do
more than that. A 'proper' repair would involve a serious strip down of
several panels to gain access to the damaged ribs.
A major breakthrough this month has been the purchase of a trailer on which
'838 will finally be mounted. Having watched Ebay for some weeks to see what
was available I found that I needed about £800 and would have to
travel some distance to get what I wanted. To my amazement, a trailer turned
up on Ebay less than a mile from my house and it cost me only
£400. Originally built to carry a racing mini, it'll take some modifying,
but there's a great excuse to buy an Arc welder - which I did !
With a week off work just around the corner, I'm really hoping to get
'838 in paint - at last. Work has started generating the miscellaneous
transfers which would have originally been used and thanks to Bob Poulter I
have a proper 'map' showing what goes where.
Martin Keen (owner of Keenair, Liverpool) has kindly offered me a corner of his
hangar to store '838 in while I find her a permanent home. Ideally this would be
a museum - any takers?
October 2005
No news I'm afraid. The dreaded work thing seems to be eating up a lot of
time and I suckered myself into another new project too. This one is fairly
minor - a Grumman AA1 'Yankee' which crashed back in 1994 tearing off the
undercarriage and everything forward of the firewall. She'll never fly again
but will be put on display alongside our Jetstream 41. (see
www.jetstream-club.org).
June 2006
Work has been progressing nicely, until I can get time for a better update,
here is a taster...
July 2006
With a mad rush to get '838 looking pretty enough to attend this years
Liverpool Aviation Fair, it was the paint which needed tackling - and
quickly. With very little time and even less room to work in - as you'll see
from Russ Felton's pictures below, this was a squeeze!
Masking begins...
At midnight, the dark grey was finally applied
The next day, it was time to fit the seat and canopy (you need to be
very tall for this) and to apply the markings. The result was fairly
pleasing!
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