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Flying a council house from the upstairs loo


Tramatoa

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On 5/7/2019 at 3:36 PM, Tramatoa said:

Next up the four sections of grille surrounding the upper part of the MRGB. Even I’m struggling to come up with some exciting facts about these..........

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One thing to note, the 1/48 Italeri kits have a hole in the port aft section This was a legacy from the earlier Wessex 1 days. All Wessex 2,3 and 5 had a plain grille as show in these pictures.

 

The hoist hook in these pictures must have been a Crab thing, RN cabs has a plain hook with a black bumper, during my time on Wessex I never saw on of this type. The hook was in the aft position on the 300ft hoists and in the forward position on the 100ft.

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The last thing for you before I progress onto the transmission platform is the area immediately above the cockpit sliding windows. Again I had forgotten about this until I stood and looked down but there are two small transparent blisters which allow you to see the window upper sliding rail is correctly engaged and latched and the emergency release handle which, when pulled, disconnects this rail and allows the window to detach.

First the starboard side;

 

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and the port side;

 

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Lower right you can see the secondary locking device I mentioned earlier in the open position, you can see that it had been a while since that pip pin had been out! Perhaps a bit of WD40 and some scotchbrite might be more appropriate than emery cloth and elbow grease........

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Well here we go! Any ex-Wessex bod will  recognise this as the first thing you see when you open the right hand access door before the tricky business of getting your leg over the bracing wire. 

 

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There has been a lot of water, and a dozen or so type courses under this particular bridge so I am going to rely on you lot for corrections. Please feel free and hopefully we’ll dig up some more useful gen.

At left we have the stop bracket which holds the winch door flush with the door closed. To the rear the right system hydraulic reservoir then the return filer with a rusty clogging indicator and I’m assuming the pressure transducer. Blimey it’s been such a long time and I threw out my Q course notes about twenty five years ago! 

I’d be interested to know if the Fish Heads could throw any light on why these hand painted DTD codes appear on gearboxes and oil tanks (other than the obvious 🙄). It’s not something you see nowadays. I spent an interesting Friday morning at Westland’s small unit at Weston Super Mare towards the end of my course (1988 ish) and I think this is where gearboxes were overhauled, it was all very cottage industry by today’s standards. We were told that the blokes who worked there had specialised in particular tasks for years and that the skills they had were disappearing as they retired, hand lapping gears and the like. It’s probably been knocked down for houses years ago.

Pip pip,

Tramatoa

 

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The rear of the right hand hydraulic reservoir with pressure switches and the back of the return filter housing. Looks like my earlier guess at the clogging indicator was wrong and this is at the rear left? 

To the left of the picture we have one of the control bellcranks which connects to the bottom of one of the primary control actuators (the primer green bit). The old grey matter is creaking under the strain so do feel free to comment as my terminology may be a bit off. The remaining grey tubes are the bracing struts for the gearbox, two to the upper bracket and two smaller ones to the lower bracket. More of this later. A tip is to mentally break any fussy area like this up into systems and concentrate on one at a time, in this case hydraulic, flying controls and transmission. It makes it easier to see your way round. 

Pip pip,

Tramatoa

Edited by Tramatoa
Excessive use of rear.....
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Not being a Wessex bod I can't add anything other than to say I'm finding all of this information about the dear old Walter fascinating so please keep it up!

 

One question though, where did you keep the coal for the steam boiler that powered the Walter?  Not seen any mention of a coal scuttle yet!

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We were informed some time ago by one of your stokers that the Wessex was powered by ‘nutty slack’, having said that I spent some time peering around in the fuel tanks and never came across any of this mysterious substance (I can confirm there wasn’t a golden rivet down there either 🙄).

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17 minutes ago, Tramatoa said:

We were informed some time ago by one of your stokers that the Wessex was powered by ‘nutty slack’

Not one of my stokers, I'm ex-RAF SH!  You Sleep And Rest boys had plenty of time to practice your catty insults! :tease:

 

We were always told by our Loadies you could always tell a Walter crewman from a distance by his over developed arms caused by shovelling all of that coal!  Maybe it was just petty jealousy on their part?

Edited by Wez
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Were you by any chance on a certain odd Gallic type with blades that went round the wrong way? If so I can sympathise with your loadie’s petty jealousies. The Airfix kit was more solidly built........

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7 hours ago, Tramatoa said:

Were you by any chance on a certain odd Gallic type with blades that went round the wrong way? If so I can sympathise with your loadie’s petty jealousies. The Airfix kit was more solidly built........

I did 12 years on those, I always felt the Airfix kit used just as much plastic as the real thing.

 

 

Edited by Wez
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Enough joviality, here are a couple of additional snaps of the area giving a better view of the hydraulic gubbinses at the rear of the reservoir and the return filter housing. 

 

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To the the rear of this we can see the lower end of the right hand primary jack and it’s input bellcrank, this time in dark sea grey. It was always a bit random whether these were left in primer or finished, I’m not sure why this was but I would imagine that when the gearbox assembly was overhauled the whole thing would be finished in grey before it went out. Remember on a rotor turning clockwise the jacks would be set 45 degrees behind the point where the control input becomes effective, with the pitch change arms giving you the other 45 degrees. It’ll be on YouTube and I’m not going there unless you really want me to😬

We can also see that the forward right hand gearbox foot is bolted forward of the line of the cockpit rear bulkhead and is hidden by the structure.

 

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This week I find myself amongst the Morlocks for a change, which at least gives me the opportunity to work on completing our guided tour of the right hand side of the Wessex trans deck if I don’t get eaten at lunchtime.  

Our first photo shows the area at the front of the beetle back 

 

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At the centre we can see the rotor brake and you can just about make out the corroded brake disc to its rear which would have been bright in service. Immediately behind this is the drive pulley and drive belt for the Oil Cooler.

Forward of the Rotor Brake sits the short section of drive shaft which connects to the MRGB. The coupling is to absorb shock and we would check the rubber pads for condition and disbonding. 

 

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Looking slightly further aft we can see what I assume is one of the Tail Rotor control cables which runs over to the Servo on the left hand side under the beetleback. The correct terminology for this escapes me, sorry. Look up and we see the pressure gauge and charging point for the right hand hydraulic system (which needs topping up 🤔) and a slightly clearer view of the Oil Cooler. 

 

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Last one for tonight, same area looking forwards toward the MRGB.

At centre we see the forward end of the previously mentioned driveshaft. Above left is one of the hydraulic pumps (does anyone have a copy of the Westland course notes???) and below right is..... well I guess MRGB filter housing but lord knows how it got into this condition. It looks like it has suffered a major overheat or some fire damage. 

Before I get back to the delights of nightshift one last question. I recall we used to replace a thing I remember as a cruciform coupling up here which contained a black rubber cross which would loose its shape over time. Can anyone remember what this might have been?

Pip pip,

Tramatoa 

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Well it’s back to the Stygian gloom of nightshift after a week of complying with orders from SWMBO, a real case of mixed blessings. On the minus side I’ve had six hours of BBC European election drivel, on the plus side I won’t have to paint any more flipping fence panels for a couple of days. At least we can continue our tour of the Trans Deck in peace and quiet.

These first two snaps give a slightly different perspective on the rear right hand side of the deck.  

 

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Note the foot was wirelocked with what we referred to as coat hanger wire which took quite a lot of grunt to get twisted correctly. The area was then oversealed (walnut whipped) with Polycast, as previously mentioned a chromate yellow two part setting compound. Behind this you can see another sealant plug in the cross member, in this case it has shrunken with age and both have lost their colour.

 

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The second image gives a good view of the hydraulic pipework and clipping. Nearly done on this side, I hope you are still with me but if you’re cheesed off I won’t be putting it back to the people 🙄.

 

 

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Once more I find myself contemplating Walter while slurping a brew in the wee small hours but this time its a bitter sweet moment. I’m going for a cardan bush replacement in my right hand main landing gear on Tuesday so it’s three months laid up. The lads offered to fit a gash one off an A321 but I’ve politely told them to bugger off in the hope that the medic is slightly more proficient. Let’s be honest if they opened me up the spare would likely be either missing or in Hamburg and I’d wake up to find I was still carrying the ADD. What could possibly go wrong?

Anyhow, where was I? To complete our tour of the right hand side of the transmission platform we have two views of the rear face of the cockpit aft bulkhead. 

 

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At extreme right we have the rear of the pilot’s sliding window with what I assume is a shim designed to hit the stop on the outside of the access door. I was involved in removing the sliding doors a couple of times but I don’t recall adjusting anything when we refitted them.

The bulkhead structure has a surprisingly high number of blind fasteners (pop rivets) but I guess it’s not carrying much load other than the weight of the crew seats. It also has its fair share of what I’ll call fishplates which seem to be widely used on the Wessex. If anyone can confirm what Westland actually call these that would be great.

I’ve been trying my best to remember what the hydraulic component might be in the centre of the picture but I’ve got to admit defeat. It seems to have one pipe in and I’m thinking it might be some kind of damper? To the left is a large, very dead spider who had left cobwebs all over the area which made me chuckle when I opened the platform; it really had been a long time since anyone had been up there.

 

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On this last shot I tried to get a view of the control rods at the top of the mixer unit but it really isn’t very clear. The good news is there is a better view from the other side, the bad news is you are going to have to contain your excitement for a week or two. 

Thanks for tolerating my ramblings for the last couple of months, it’s been really interesting so far and when someone does a Trans Deck on their next Wessex masterwork it will all seem worth it 😉.

Pip, hip,

Tramatoa

 

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19 minutes ago, Tramatoa said:

I’ve been trying my best to remember what the hydraulic component might be in the centre of the picture but I’ve got to admit defeat

Oil Pressure Transducer?

 

20 minutes ago, Tramatoa said:

I’m going for a cardan bush replacement in my right hand main landing gear on Tuesday so it’s three months laid up.

Good luck with that, remember to do what the Medics tell you and you'll be up and about as soon as you know it, if you don't, well...

 

...the clunking in my knees is serving as a warning to take better care of them!

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I’ve been trying my best to remember what the hydraulic component might be in the centre of the picture but I’ve got to admit defeat.

 

Its the Rotor Brake Accumulator, holds the pressure in the system when the brake is applied to the main rotors. A bloody big spring inside makes is act against the hyd fluid. The rotor brake is seen in May 21 post, it’s the first picture. The three sets of two brake callipers are silver coloured on the tail drive shaft. 

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Good day, Gentlemen,

 

I learn a lot about HC2 by reading this post and very pleased to know that many are interested in the HC2 instead of the HU5!

 

I do have a question, on Post #81, #200, #248, #273, I noted some very small round plates and a few large round plates near the bottom, are they only on HC2?

 

I made special reference to the instruction of the 1/32 Fly Model kit, PE-B26 x 8, those are the large round plates and it states HC2 only!

 

I appreciate any assistance in this matter.

 

Keep up with the good works.

 

 

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30 minutes ago, Alan NG said:

Good day, Gentlemen,

 

I learn a lot about HC2 by reading this post and very pleased to know that many are interested in the HC2 instead of the HU5!

 

I do have a question, on Post #81, #200, #248, #273, I noted some very small round plates and a few large round plates near the bottom, are they only on HC2?

 

I made special reference to the instruction of the 1/32 Fly Model kit, PE-B26 x 8, those are the large round plates and it states HC2 only!

 

I appreciate any assistance in this matter.

 

Keep up with the good works.

 

 

 

Not being a Walter Wallah, I can't help you with the round plates but along with the excellent references in this very thread, may I also recommend @hendie thread on building the Fly kit here...

 

 

Edited by Wez
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The thing that I really like about this forum, and in turn this thread, is that so many people are happy to contribute and when my grey matter lets me down they will prod me in the right direction without being patronising. I tried writing a few years ago and it is terrifying because every fact needs to stand scrutiny which means you have to cross check everything or risk loosing credibility. I take my hat off to people who can do it (particularly Mike O’Connor who was a gentleman and an inspiration) but it doesn’t work at four o’clock in the morning when you’re having a well deserved cuppa. 

Pip pip,

Tramatoa

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For or those of you who don’t have the kit in question this is what Alan is referring to. 

To be honest other than carrying out functional checks on the SACRU I didn’t spend much time underneath in contemplation of access panel locations. It’s a shame we don’t have anyone from one of the Major teams involved as they may be able to provide some background info. My money would be on access to wiring, as far as I know the fuel systems on the HU5 and HC2 were the same.

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5 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

I can't remember seeing them either. Maybe a trip to the walkaround section is required.

Of course, Fly seem to have got a couple of things wrong before.....

Maybe they looked at a cab that had been used for BDR training?

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In the walkaround section there are some pictures of XV725 at Manston.

I can see a round plate just behind the U/C arm and another further aft.

They look to be factory fitted, perhaps for access to fuel tank structure during the build?

The rubber tanks were clipped into place using fasteners accessed from inside them.

These fasteners clipped into receptacles in the structure which may have been riveted into position.

Whichever, Fly may well be correct, though why only on the HC2, I don't know.

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This photo from NABE3 of XT604 shows the area pretty well.

 

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Again be aware  that a SAR Wessex wouldn’t have the cabin step fitted unless it was going on a specific tasking where it was required.

Looking at the panels they must be riveted on, if they were screws there would only be one row surely? They don’t look like they were intended to be there from the outset, and I would suggest that they may have been cut for a wiring mod, then fixed in place with blind fasteners. If it was a fuel related mod would not the HU5 have needed similar treatment? 

Bag tanks generally were either laced in or held in with odd little studs which pushed from inside the tank. I don’t think you would need external access, they would be fitted through the manholes in the floor. 

Edited by Tramatoa
Talking absolute cobblers as a result of advancing senility
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