November 2010 review

First of all an apology, I haven’t done an update for ages due to lots of other commitments so this is a catch up on all that has happened during the summer and into autumn.

The last report was posted at the beginning of June. At that time we were hoping that the aircraft would be going inside the hangar for a full re-paint, saving us many hours of hard work and moving the project forwards by a year or two, unfortunately that didn’t happen so it’s been back to the brushes over the summer months.

A new nose leg was sourced but to date hasn’t been fitted and also a new radome has been located in Toulouse which will hopefully be making it’s way to Brunty soon.
Gaz has also sourced some new dials to replace those that have disappeared and the external lights have been checked and bulbs replaced so she was lit up well for the LPG day. Attempts are still underway to source some engines but progress has stalled for the time being but the route being pursued is not completely closed off so we still hope for some progress in the future

The Beech team have been busy on our behalf doing repairs to the fuselage damage and the new skin is now in place looks like the rivet heads are still to be removed and then there is painting to do, they will also be painting the underside up to the bottom of the blue stripe so some useful progress on that front

On the restoration team front we have had a couple of changes, Ian Favell has gone onto pastures new as part of the Beech team with the opportunity to get involved with a live aircraft and Andrew Bootles joined the team in September and has been busy getting his hands dirty. Gregg’s time has been limited due to transport problems but hopes to get deeply involved again when he can. Gaz and Dickon have continued their work although Gaz has been busy with a new addition to the family and dicokn’s work commitments have taken up a lot of his time and from afar I’ve not done the updates that I should have done but I hope this makes up for it now.

The Guppy has been open regularly and was particularly busy at the August Cold War Jets day and more recently during the LPG’s Twilight run on 27th November

Some pictures:

A couple of the team members hard at work, below - Andrew Bootles and right Dickon Dearman, both of these will enlarge if you click on them

a month's progress in the roll of a mouse - this image is 'before' at the start of August and if you roll over it you will see the 'after' at the end of August

repairs to the damaged fuselage panel: the condition prior to it's repair and roll over the image to see the repair pre sheeting over and the (almost) finished job: and then the painting progress during September - roll over again for the before and after:

some other bits and pieces, all these will enlarge if you click on them:

Gaz has received a bit of outside help from a friend at Bruntingthorpe who has fabricated this new bracket for the undercarriage door, it will be fitted shortly	the cockpit lights 'live' on the 27th November (CWJ day)
a couple of external shots as night fell on 27th November with the lights switched on and finally, next Saturday , 4th December marks the first anniversary of the website (and Friday the 3rd marks one year of the forum) so here's afinal photo as the sun sets on the Super Guppy at the end of the first website year! Well done to Gaz and the team for the progress during the time I've been running this