Steady progress is being maintained on the restoration
of Bolingbroke 9048.
Repairs to the damage on the nose fuselage and rear fuselage
have continued. As noted previously, the starboard side of the
cockpit has most of the glazing structure missing. When this
was brutally removed from 9048 in the past, much damage was
done to the surrounding area as well. Gradually new parts are
being made to replace the missing ones and those damaged so
badly as to be unusable, such as the part shown in the photo
below. The adjacent photo shows one of the new fabricated brackets
made with the aid of information from the Bolingbrokes at Duxford.
There are several more to be made and as most of them are welded
light alloy, a skill none of our restorers has, we have invested
in an aluminium brazing kit which we are about to go through
a learning course.
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Original damaged bracket
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Newly fabricated bracket |
We have acquired, via ebay, the inset cockpit
instrument panel shown in the photo below left. This is in
good restorable condition and has all the flexible Lord’s
mounts attached, for which we have sourced suitable rubber
insets to replace the perished ones. Material for the remake
of the severely corroded main cockpit instrument panel has
also been acquired.
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Replacement instrument panel
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intact Lord's mounts |
The severe damage to the forward starboard end
of the rear fuselage has now been substantially repaired.
Rather than replace the folded and crinkled skins we made
up a special ’dolly’, a hollow wooden former shaped
to the fuselage profile, filled with lead and with a steel
skin, to enable us to hammer out the damage. This can be seen
in the photo below taken during the repair process. The adjacent
photo shows the repaired skin area with the end frame in place.
To facilitate this we had to remove all the damaged stringers
in this area, and also the 4th frame. These will also be progressively
repaired before replacement in the fuselage.
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Volunteer repairing the rear fuselage
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repairs completed |
The repairs to the Centre Wing have continued
at the City of Bristol College. A complete new set of fuel
tank ribs has been made for the starboard side of the centre
wing which will be installed shortly.
Both Mercury engines and nacelles have been assembled and
are nearly ready for delivery back to us. The first photo
below show the two units in the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust
workshop in January. The one existing set of cooling gills
has been assembled on the nearer of the two engines in the
photo, and found to be fully functional with the 60 year-old
electric motor. The second and third photos show the gills
closed and then fully open.
Castings to replace the many broken parts of
the cooling gills operating mechanism were acquired last year
and one of our volunteer restorers is progressively machining
these in his home workshop. The photos below show one in progress
and in the adjacent photo the same one, on the left, partially
completed next to one of the originals.
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As delivered, the two engine units only had
one set of cowlings. Using these as masters we are intending
to make up a new set for the other engine. Additionally we
will complete an inventory of both engine/nacelle units to
establish what is missing with a view to see if we can source
any replacements.
The control column and its fuselage mounting structure and
seat mountings are nearly complete. One of the seat adjusters
has had the handle cut off and lost, so one of our volunteer
restorers is going to make a new one. We don’t have the
original seat so with the help of photos and dimensions from
the Duxford Bolingbrokes we are going to make one; this sits
on the back of the frame in the photo on the left. The same
restorer has nearly completed the repairs to the rudder pedals
including remaking the rubber footrests and the leather footstraps
– both of which had perished with age.
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Pilots seat mounting structure
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Restored rudder pedals |
Work is now nearly complete on the landing gear
in the training department of Messier Services. We finally
managed to find some suitable modern inner tubes for the both
the main and tail wheels. But as the orientation of their
valves is not the same as the originals, slight modifications
have been made to the valve holes in the wheel hubs, and for
the main wheels right-angle valve extensions have been added.
The photo below shows the first of the main gears assembled
with wheels and mounted on a stand made by the Messier trainees.
We do not have the retraction jacks for the main gears (these
would have been salvaged by the farmer who bought 9048 when
it was disposed of at the end of WW2), so the Messier trainees
are making dummy jacks to hold the main landing gear in the
down position. One of the dust covers on the main wheels was
missing so a new one has been fabricated.
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Restored main gear and wheel in purpose-built stand
at Messier
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Main wheel dust covers - The original is on the left,
and the new one is on the right, along with the MDF
tooling used for shaping |
David Bradley, Bolingbroke 9048 Restoration Manager, Bristol
Aero Collection
