Saved from the tip !

No this is not the big thing I am working on - but rather an amazing stroke of good luck.

I was tipped off by a colleague that there was a CAC Wirraway forward fuselage frame that was in danger of being sent to the tip due to a business split up. Strange as it was, the fuse was located in a meatworks in the south eastern suburbs. The places that these things turn up !!!!

Anyway, I don't have a trailer or towbar so a couple of panicked phone calls around and I found a more than willing person to go and pick them up.

I got a text message about an hour later followed by a phone call - "Do you realise how much stuff there is?" Me : "um, one maybe two sections"  My Collector - "Nope, try four and there are also parts for what looks like Oxford or Anson as well "

Uh-oh.....

So Sunday arrives and we are entertaining friends who are back here from overseas on a flying visit. I am out in the garden for some reason when I hear one of the kids screaming "There's a big hairy man at the door and he looks like Hagrid"   - out of the mouths of babes...most embarrasing.

I walk out and just about faint on the spot....there is a massive amount of metal tubing all twisted together. These frames came from the aircraft scrapping ops at Tocumwal some fifteen years ago and you can see that the farmers had got to them prior as there are lots of bits cut out etc. Some is rusted beyond saving but I work out I should be able to get a close to complete frame...

But how many different aircraft are there in this lot ?

After "Hagrid" had gone (sorry Norm - I know they don't mean it"  I look at the over full driveway and start assessing. I quickly realise much to my delight that there are no less than seven different CAC Wirraway frame parts here. Most are around the rollover frame and rear gunner seat mount. Pretty cool. Then I find what is tantamount to gold - one has an ID stamp on it - dated 21st April 1942. So I will be able to work out the exact aircraft this part came from. And the other frame parts turn out to be part of the rear fuselage for an Avro Anson. What a haul !

Bear in mind that these frames are 70 years old and have probably spent a long time outdoors after being stripped, so I am happy to work on them and get them back to life.  To save them from the tip is equally as important as there is not much of this stuff left and once its gone, its gone...so for the price of a trailer for a few hours its worth its weight in gold.

I have managed to get all bar two frames into the garage - grandad would have most pleased with my efforts though the rest of the family are now convinced I am bonkers...the other two frames are in the garden where I am working on checking the missing pieces from diagrams and making plans accordingly.

Till next time !

 So here are the frames - the one on the left is the most complete, still with gun mounts and instrument panel mounts at the front. You can see three rollover frames (with the pointed top section) in the pic.

 The ID stamp for the Avro Anson parts - R3 is Avro Anson

 The ID tag for the Wirraway

Parts of the Avro Anson rear fuselage

Keep watching - something is happening////

No I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.

And I would dearly love to share with you the current project that I am doing

But I can't............yet   :-)

It will be worth it (Well, at least I think so) so please be patient.

Oh remember those Beaufighter wheels that I posted about ?  Well after much chasing and researching I acquired the legs to go with them. Now of course that would be easy right?  Well, sort of.  I have three legs now (can a plane do Jake the Peg impersonations?)  but one is quite different from the other two. It leads me to think that one type is Australian and the other is British. Not only that but the matched pair look like they have been fitted up to a Beaufort at some point - both only have one brake attachment. So I will need to get the others made at some point. I have 98% of the parts for the cockpit panel as well - now to get the measurements for the panel.

I was lucky enough to get into the cockpit of the Moorabbin Air Museum Beaufighter recently. And it reminded me of why I was told I could never be a pilot when I was at school. Being 6ft 6 is great for many things but not flying older aircraft, and my head was the lucky recipient of many souvenirs (ie dents) from banging my head as I made my way around the interior.

But being my first time inside a WW2 aircraft it was very cool, and provided a lot of invaluable info for me to work on

So as I say, stay tuned. Depending on how things go, it may be a month or four before this current thing is done, and then it will be reported here