Monday 4 January 2016

A new Basket for Lindy!

In December I asked a question to a friend at Cobham Aviation, formerly Flight Refueling Ltd about the possible chances of replacing some of the Air to Air Refueling kit fitted to the Victor, if anything suitable was available.

Luckily, I was offered a serviceable Mk17B Hose Drum Unit basket which is actually a Victor one and which we soon eagerly went to collect from Cobham Aviation!


This will soon be replacing the one currently installed in the bombay in XL231. In the main due to the fact that during service some of the basket spokes were bent during a bad contact with a receiver aircraft. The damage is commonly known as being 'spoked'.


Saturday 2 January 2016

Auxiliary Power Unit fuel valve

Artouste Auxiliary Power Unit fuel solenoid valve

After numerous unexpected shutdowns of the APU over recent years it was deduced that the valve which controls the fuel supply for starting and running the APU was sticking. Several attempts at repairing the valve have met with limited success so I decided to look at replacing the valve as a 'New Years Resolution!'.  Obviously, with 1960's era equipment its difficult to locate a replacement so, I decided to go for a modern equivalent. A commercially available valve used in domestic fuel oil heating systems! In fact some fuel oil is reclaimed jet fuel.  A couple of replacement adaptors were required because the original valve had male threaded adaptors and the new valve had female threads and this required a bit of homework. Anyway the end result is ready to fit back in for testing and wirelocking in place.

New valve fitted and the old valve shown for comparison