Thunder Day - Amy Parkin

 

My sister, Bryony, our friend, Regan and I had decided we would take a trip to Elvington for June Thunder Day. We were all really looking forward to it, we live pretty close to Elvington, so we set off at 1130, and got there for about 1215, which was record timing for us! When we arrived at Elvington, everything was just perfect, the weather was stunning, we had the car windows down with the heat blazing, and our favourite music blasting as we drove down Halifax Way.

Regan had never seen a Victor before so as we turned round the corner, towards the entrance of Yorkshire Air Museum, I bellowed  "Lindy!" and I heard a slight mumble from the back seat of my car... "Woaaahh.." I think he was impressed. I parked my car and off we went looking for Andre and Team Victor.

We found Andre and Ian sat near the NAAFI...

"Hello!" I said,

"I have something in my car for you."

"If it's flapjack, we'll have it!" Both Andre and Ian said."Don't tell the others about it."

I'd taken the team the usual Flapjacks, but also took Haribo (Moralibo - As dubbed by Siobhan, VTTST's Official Photographer!) and the photos I'd taken at Battle Group North.

After giving the flapjack, Moralibo, and photos to Team Victor, I asked if Andre could sign some photos I'd taken - He did, and they look great! Thanks, Andre. :)

My former co-volunteers from VTTST, Andy, Terry, and Janet were also visiting the museum that day, so we went to meet up with them and have a quick chat as I'd not seen them for a while. It was really great to see them!

After saying hello to Andy, Terry, and Janet, we took homemade cake, more Moralibo, and photos from Battle Group North to Team Nimrod. Nimchick, AKA, Hannah, was stood on XV250's starboard wing, so I walked over and bellowed;

"NIMCHICK! I HAVE CAKE!"

To which Hannah replied; "Cake! I'll be right down, I'll meet you over the other side."

Hannah appeared from XV250's portside, with Phil, I handed them the cake, Moralibo, and photos (from Battle Group North). A bit later on in the day, Hannah was walking around with the most adorable baby in aviation, Nimlet! As she was walking around she shouted; "The cake was great, thank you!"

And whilst pointing at Nimlet,  "Our official cake tester approves!"

Whilst waiting for G-AMYJ to fire up, we decided we'd go and take pictures and have a little chat. Bryony and Regan are still pretty new to aviation, so they told me to 'educate' them on the aircraft in the museum. It was fun! I love being able to pass on my knowledge to others. :)

Anyways, we spent a good 20 minutes taking pictures (mostly of Lindy and the Lightning!) then headed over to G-AMYJ ready for her engine run. She sounded wonderful, and she just sounds better and better every time I watch her fire up!



Up next was Hawker Siddeley Nimrod XV250's turn, plus a lovely RAF BBMF Spitfire flypast. I really enjoyed watching both - The Spitfire flypast was fantastic and XV250's engines definitely woke me up!

Just after XV250's run finished, we moved our way over to the right, just to be a little more in line with Lindy. We stood there for about 5 minutes or so... Richard walked over to us, and pointed at me then said; "You come with me..."

I looked at him, pointed towards myself... "Me?"

He replied;"Yep!"

He then pointed at Bryony and Regan; "You two have to stay here... Sorry."

As we were walking over Richard said 'Andre just wants a quick word with you before they start her

up.' Which honestly led me to thinking I would be heading back over to the 'crowd line'. So I was stood waiting at the bottom of the ladders, with Richard, Ian and the rest of the ground crew.
Richard looked at me and said; "He's up there somewhere..."

Andre just popped his head out of the door and waved me up... "Up here!" He said.

I was shaking! I didn't know where to place myself! "ME?! GO UP THERE?!"

He replied; "Yes, come up here!"

After a few girly screams, I handed my bag to Richard,  and made my way up the ladder. In the teeny tiny cockpit, Andre told me to sit down in the sixth seat and gave me a head set. As he handed me the headset he said; "We can't fire her up full, it's just a dry run, because of the cars behind us, but you can listen to the intercom."

As I put my headset on, Graham, who was sat in the co-pilot position peered to the left and said;
"Hello, I'm Graham, Blue 2!"

I'd spoken to Graham on the TwitterVforce forum quite a bit, but never actually met him in person... So it was nice to finally meet him!

Andre squished passed me and sat in the 'captains' seat. As he sat down, I asked if I could

film/photograph and he said I could. I was so excited!

John was in the back, he was running through the systems alongside Andre and Graham.

Graham checked my headset was on and working, everyone was chatting and testing the intercom system. Andre turned round and said; "Amy, can you hear us?"

"Yep!" I replied.

Tests followed...

"Outside to inside, can you hear us?" "Yep, we can hear you."

"Do you want the door open or closed?" "Closed, then it's a little less noisy for us up here."

Richard came and closed the door, then the team proceeded to run through all of Lindy's systems.
I didn't really know what to expect to be honest. I've never experienced anything like that before!

I sat there quietly, filming and taking photos, listening to what the crew were saying. Andre and Graham ran through the cockpit systems, and gave the hydraulics a 'good work out' - Graham did seem to struggle a little with the controls, he said they were heavy... They looked it!



It was strange, when I got home and I watched my sister's videos, I didn't realise how loud Lindy actually was! In the cockpit, I heard none of the noise, even on my videos, it was loud. But at the time, on the inside, it was quiet and quite serene, whereas on the outside, Lindy roared!

It was really hot in the cockpit, my makeup had pretty much melted off my face, and my hair had frizzed out like crazy (damn 'AvFemGeek' problems!), but all in all, I will not allow myself to complain. It was a fantastic experience, and I'm a VERY lucky girl!

After everything had been checked, Richard came back and opened the door, let me tell you, I have never been so happy to feel a breeze! I thought my car was hot, but it's even worse inside aircraft! Lindy was like a sauna. :) I clambered out of the cockpit and Rich was stood at the bottom, "Did you enjoy that?" He said. "Very much so!" I replied.

Andre climbed out, and I thanked him. He said; "Hot in there isn't it! And we weren't even wearing bone domes and flying gear!"

I thanked him once again... And made my way back over to Bryony and Regan. I even had a little 'victory' dance on my way back across!

Bryony and Regan greeted me, and Bryony said to me 'I'm really proud, I didn't think you would have gone up!' And to be honest, a year ago, I probably wouldn't have gone up.

After talking to Bry and Regan about being sat in the cockpit, I was still buzzing, but we decided to have a little walk around then go home, we'd looked at everything in the museum, and we had to get Regan home so he could revise for his GCSE's! (good luck, kiddo!)

Before we left, we nipped into the NAAFI and the shop, then we decided we would head home. I headed over to Andre and Team Victor before we left, we said goodbye and thank you once again.

We headed back to my car, and I rang my mum; "MUM GUESS WHAT!"

"What? Is everything okay?!" She said with slight worry in her voice.

"I SAT IN LINDY'S COCKPIT FOR DRY RUNS!!!"

"That's good but what's a dry run?"

I proceeded to explain, I don't think she had a clue about anything I was telling her, but she seemed very pleased for me! I drove home, absolutely buzzing!

This year has been a year of so many firsts and Team Victor have played a massive part in that. I really cannot thank them enough! As always, I left Elvington feeling really happy, content, and after yesterday, on a really big high. Sitting in a cockpit of your favourite V-Bomber during dry runs is certainly one way to end your weekend, if not the best way!

No doubt I'll be back at Elvington soon... With flapjack and Moralibo!

Once again, massive thank you to Andre and Team Victor, you guys rock!

Amy

The #TwitterVForce revolution

@victorXL231 first joined Twitter around three years ago. In an age where people share their every waking moment on social media we thought we better join the 21st century.

With scepticism and little idea of how Twitter worked we took the plunge and who would have guessed that we would have ended up here; with over 2300 followers, some great 'Twitter' friends which have turned into many 'real' friends and our own #TwitterVForce revolution.

Through the magic of Twitter, below are just a few of the fantastic people we've had the pleasure of "meeting" some of them in person and some of them virtually!  

@alexbirtwisle the nephew of Wing Commander Barry Neal, who played a substantive role during the Falklands Black Buck Raids and who has taxyed Lindy on many occasions. Read his story here!

@Reay75 who first met XL231 over 50 years ago whilst serving with the RAF at Wittering. We have since been able to reacquaint Ray with the aircraft he learnt his trade on. Read Ray's story here  

@JamesBlatch who's father John R Blatch was a Victor Test Pilot. James very kindly shared his father's story HERE

@FlyingPodcast who introduced me to the world of podcasts - another new experience! My first podcast!

@Scoutbloke who photographed the disbandment of the Victor Fleet at Marham.



Victor Disbandment photo by Steve Cockayne (@Scoutbloke)

The Twitter revolution continues with the formation of #TwitterVForce to promote & raise awareness of the V-Force preservation projects, of both the Avro Vulcan & Handley Page Victor.

Vulcan XH558 (@XH558)

Vulcan XM655 (@XM655)

Vulcan XL426 (@XL426) 

Victor XL231 (@VictorXL231)

iRod Holmes (@ROD558)

XM655MaPS (@XM655MaPS)

 

Thanks to a huge amount of effort by Rod and Dave we now have a #TwitterVForce blog and forum http://twittervforce.com/ make sure you sign up add them to your favourites!

If you haven't already signed up to Twitter I hope this blog may have motivated you to check it out and find some of the fantastic Tweeters I haven't named in this post (you know who you are!)

And just to prove how the Twitter V-Force revolution is continuing to grow, whilst writing this piece I've been followed and tweeted by @42BTYRA who's father served as ground crew on Victors!

May 2013 Taxy Run's - Battle Group North

At the beginning of the year we hoped to be able to raise enough money to refuel XL231 to a satisfactory level, enabling us to carry out displays and engine runs for 2013.  We were immensely pleased to be able to do this with the help and support of team members, colleagues, friends and supporters - Thank you one and all.

Saturday 11th May was to be XL231's first 'debut' for the year. Resplendent in her new and fully authentic, early 1980's to end of service, Hemp and Light Aircraft Grey colour scheme she shone like a new pin. The crew was; Myself in the left hand seat, Flt lt Olly Suckling R/H seat,  AEO Sqn Ldr Al Stephenson and the Crew Chief, Chief Tech Grant Sparks.   Passengers for the test run were; Christine Mellor (6th seat) John Hawkridge (ever suffering electrician) in the Nav Plotter seat and Brian "tow bar" Watmough in the Nav Radar seat.  After going through the checks in the Flight Reference cards with Al Stephenson reading them out, the engines were started without any fuss. No snags were picked up and I taxyied the aircraft around the massive 52 acre concrete pan, to test out brakes and steering. Once we were satisfied that all systems were in great shape, the engines were taken up to high power in pairs to check that the engine air bleed valves closed above 90% RPM. The AEO reported all four engine alternators were on line and their loads and busbars fully synchronised. I taxyied the aircraft around the pan a few times before taxying back to the Crew Chief and see-in crew and the aircraft was shut down serviceable for the next days full runway display.

The Crew: Rachel, Ollie, VIP, Andre, Al (photo credit: Rachel Semlyn)

In addition to XL231 the Museum's extremely well maintained Nimrod MR2 XV250 was skilfully displayed by its crew on the runway.  That wasn't all for the day as Olly and I took the Museum's Buccaneer S2 Prototype XN974 for a 'spirited' display down Elvington's 2 mile runway, I have to say that I really enjoyed myself!

For the main display on Sunday I decided to offer the Captains seat to Olly, he didn't take much persuading!  I was in the right hand seat.  We had several guests on-board for the display including; Vulcan XH558's pilot Martin Withers and Yorkshire Air Museum founding Trustee Rachel Semlyn in the Nav plotter position, the Nav Radar seat was occupied by an invited guest of the Museum.  The day wasn't the greatest, gusting winds and on and off heavy rain showers. However, the aircraft was started and checked over without any problems and Olly very confidentally taxyied her out of the pan to a tight turn through the intersection to the runway. He taxyied her completely naturally and at the Eastern end of the runway turned her fully, in one go, on the runway. The power up, high speed run up to 85 knots in a wall of spray was extremely well carried out and we kept on the centre-line for the whole run. At the Western end we turned for a brake check by the fire crew and some of our team and treated them to a high power departure with a clean pair of heels!  The taxy back in was fine and the aircraft threw no snags at us, I noted all the compass headings as being correct on all systems at shutdown, not bad for an aircraft that last had a compass swing in 1993!   The only noted snag was the Starboard landing lamp had rattled its bulb to pieces during the taxy back in!

All in all a first class effort by all concerned and we celebrated with a good bottle of Champers and YES, XL231 did also have a drop, Olly poured some on her Port underwing tank!

Photos courtesy of Amy Parkin - Thanks Amy :)

May Taxi Run Footage

Footage from yesterdays run, full blog piece to follow later.

Pre-taxy preparation

As XL231 has been stationary as regards moving under her own power for longer than anticipated it was decided to inspect and recify any brake defects as well as any tyres that we did not feel were safe enough to use.

In the end we changed only one wheel on the Starboard undercarriage and cleaned and inspected the braking system. With a complex multi-piston hydraulic system (same as Vulcan B2) leaks and weeps inparticular are going to happen especially, as she is not in daily use. Weeps can be lived with, leaks cannot.

The Stb'd braking system is extremely dry as regards fluid loss and did not require much apart from a good look-over. The Port side required a little more attention.

The front inner braking unit has always been a source of minor leaks from the day XL231 left the RAF. We have always cleaned and monitored it and with use it generally stops. However I noticed the fluid was showing a bit more than I would have liked and so it was decided to remove the brake unit and 'nail it' once and for all. The tube nuts which connect the supply piping are easy enough to undo and replace bonded seals on, but only when removed from the aircraft and this entailed a trip to the bench and hoping the offending tube nuts wouldn't shear off as they are only made of alloy! Luckily they didn't and I replaced one of them with an item that I had removed from XL190 in (well, more years than I care to remember)! The bonded seals were renewed and the whole assembly wire-locked back together before refitting, after John had done his spring cleaning bit!

 

 

The main reason I deferred removing the brake unit is the fact that it takes pints and pints of OM-15 hydraulic fluid to bleed the air out until the fluid runs clear. Its a messy job but must be done 100% because any air left, in particularly the maxaret 'anti-skid unit', will render the brakes likely to grab and flat-spot or blow a tyre, an expensive mistake and also likely to un-impress any airfield manager!

 

 

I have bled all of XL231's brakes previously after we replaced every hydraulic wheel cylinder seal and I enjoyed it not one bit!

Incidentally we are LOOKING for replacement mainwheel tyres, cuurently we have several spares but, there are 16 on the aircraft, it is the same wheel and tyres as a Vulcan B2, any leads or help would be appreciated.

From Victor to Dakota

Having almost single-handedly rubbed down and repainted YAM's Douglas DC-3 Dakota KN353 'G-AMYJ' (except for help from Peter Condras) and being a life-long Dakota nut I was, highly delighted to be asked to sit in the right-hand seat for the first attempt at starting AMY J's replacement engines alongside George Astley, ex-RAF Senior Engineering Warrant Officer of many years.

The first attempt didn't quite go to plan, we found fuel pressure to be excellent but a distinct lack of 'spark' to be the culprit in stopping her engines running. The fault was traced down to faulty boost coils on the magneto circuits. Ken Sanderson 'Radio Ken', the YAM radio ham and electrical genius repaired the offending items ready for the next attempt and this took place with Olly Suckling in the Left hand seat and myself in the right. The Port engine surprised us and ran up almost immediately but, displayed no RPM indication and a very low oil pressure. The Starboard refused to start despite a few 'coughs and bangs'. After some discussion we decided to run the port engine again and this displayed the same indications as previously and so it was shut down, it had however run very well and very smoothly. We were all immensely pleased with the result as this was the first time an engine had run on AMY 'J since her retirement in 1997 by Air Atlantique. The Starboard engine we diagnosed as having a lazy starter motor. This was removed and sent away for repair.

Two weeks later on Sunday 21st April Steve Pepper and I were given the task of the 3rd attempt at running AMY'J. The port engine ran up beautifully with all good indications except for RPM which refused to indicate, oil pressure was good (after the gauges had been bled of air) and the engine ran for several minutes. The starboard took quite a bit to get going and required a good bit of fuel priming. It fired up with a massive cloud of oil smoke and ran very roughly, all indications however were good in the cockpit. George Astley, who was stood between Steve and myself wasn't happy and so we shut the engine down for investigation. After a look around we convinced George that it needed to be run to clear it out, somewhat reluctantly he agreed! The next attempt the engine ran up well, it was a little rough to begin with but, after a few minutes began to even out with the odd puff of smoke. We then decided to start the port engine again and that ran up fine.

So; There was AMY'J, built in 1944 for the RAF, living and breathing again after a massive amount of effort by the Dakota team with both engines running. A massive achievement by everybody and we were all beaming with glee afterwards. Lots to do still though!! Braking system next...................

 

 

My take on it is; Compared to running a jet engine a huge radial and that huge propeller spinning by your elbow is just AWESOME, fact! More please!!

RAF Role Demo - Mildenhall 1990

RAF Role Demonstration footage taken at Mildenhall Air Fete May 1990, featuring Victor, Tornado, Phantom, Hawk and more!