Hello everyone!

I'm EXREMELY sorry not to have posted here for a while but i've been
very busy with medical exams AND whitley related matters!

Here is an update for you.

REBUILD WORK
At the moment we are rebuilding our starboard outer
wing. Many parts are in excellent condition and it
would be a shame to premove the original internal
paint - there is also writing inside the main spar (it
is a huge box spar) presumably from when it was
assembled at the AW factory at Baginton.

We are expecting delivery of the remains of a port
wing later this year so will be able to switch tooling
to that without too much trouble. We have taken
delivery of 40m of specially constructed channel
section needed to construct the main members of the
missing wing ribs and the have had the aluminium tube
that spans these lengths fabricated from scratch to
original tolerances. We have also fabricated the
tubular rivets that hold these structures together
from scratch. This will enable us to reconstruct the
missing wing ribs for both wings, although we will
still need to get another batch of channel section,
with a slightly different cross section made up (which
as a bonus is the same extrusion used for the
stringers). The whole wing spar needs to be cleaned
which will happen in due course.

We have quite a collection of Whitley parts now
including a Merlin X from a Whitley under rebuild in
Scotland.

Progress has been made with several companies which
supplied parts for the Whitley including Dunlop,
Automotive Products (now APPH) and Bulgin. We have
access to original drawings from all three companies - APPH have sent
copies of all their remaining drawings - approximately 200 which will
be very, very useful. This is very helpful as APPH supplied all the
Whitley hydraulics. BAE alas have not been so helpful (as you
may well expect).

We have been fabricating various crew instument panels
to original tolerances including the engine primer
panel, the pilot bomb and flare release panel and main
instrument panel which are all in various states of
completion. The Very pistol holder that goes in the
centre of the pilots panel has also been constructed.
We have most of the instruments to go in them and many
systems parts such as generators and oxygen regulators
now (some are very hard to find and/or expensive these
days).


RECOVERIES
We have carried out several recoveries this year the
last of which yielded some very interesting parts:

1. Forced landing flare chute
2. DF loop scale
3. Base of 2nd pilots control column
4. Various bomb shackles in reasonable condition given
that they are steel
5. Bomb bay door parts
6. Lots of engine parts - pumps, carb butterfly,
thermostats, a mag etc
7. Trailing edge parts
8. Compressed air bottle for brakes
9. Hydraulic jacks for flaps, rad and undercarriage

That's all for the moment - we are hoping to move the wing into a
larger workshop soon and we are also expecting a consignment of more
parts from Scotland in the near future. Please feel free to email me
on elliott1940@... if you have any questions.