What’s happening at PIONEER AERO RESTORATIONS
It’s been a long
time between drinks newsletters.
The La-9 is obviously long gone and has made appearances at the Paris Airshow and the Flying Legends at Duxford. It appears to have made quite an impression despite having been plagued with a misfire which restricted power application to 850mm ( max being 1200mm )
Ray had the Czech engine people ( who rebuilt the engine ) fly over to Duxford from Prague and after a quick check they made some adjustments to the injector and ‘voila’! – no more misfire.
Since then Ray has made his first ( and successive ) flights and has stated that he thinks it out performs a Bearcat or a Sea Fury. He did one take off using full power which he said made things “interesting” on the take off roll and once airborne it went upward like an express lift in the Empire State Building. Too bad Keith Skilling was experiencing the misfire problem and couldn’t demonstrate this at the Flying Legends.
Back at the shop more sedate things are happening. Judy Pay’s wings were finished on schedule at the end of June. We still have them in the shop as Judy subsequently wanted us to rebuild the undercarriage fairings and doors. This is almost complete and the wings are scheduled to be shipped to Judy in Australia at the end of August.
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| Judy’s wings ‘all done’ | RH undercarriage fairings complete |
.....and the other nearly finished |
The shop is still busy on the other projects including the repair and re-skinning of Rob Mackley’s Lockhead 10 wings. These are basically in great shape and we have ‘de-skinned’ them to tidy up some minor issues internally and are re-skinning with fresh alclad so that the finished article can be polished.
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| Rob’s wing - topside re-skinned | .........and underside getting the same treatment |
Another new comer to the hangar is Andrew Wallace’s Pilatus Porter. Andrew has had a substantial amount of work already done however he wants to accelerate the process so he has delivered the aircraft to us to finalise the fuselage restoration and fit out.
This is one big aircraft ………even when it is in pieces
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The most significant thing that has happened to us over the last few months has been our accreditation by the NZCAA as a Part 145 (Maintenance) Organisation and Part 19F ( Supply ) Organisation
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The Part 145 accreditation was a most interesting exercise. Most organizations involved in maintenance are dealing with aircraft that come in as 99% serviceable and 1% in need of remedial action. In our case nearly everything that comes into the facility is 100% unserviceable so the manner in which the certification proceeded required some reassessment. We would like to thank Peter Kirker of the NZCAA who was a great help in resolving the issues involved and making certification possible.
Work is continuing on P-40N1 A290414 however it is not of the visual progress form. Nearly all the work done recently involves the rebuilding of components. More resources are going to be applied to the project when other current jobs are completed in January.
And we have other projects coming. And one of them will be another “Only one flying in the World”. More on this next time!
And who’s this getting ready to fly our P-40. It’s Pete Hunt that’s who. Pete lives for part of the year in San Diego and part if the year at Beachlands which is just down the road from us here at Ardmore. He is an ex US Military Pilot and owns a T6 in the US where he has been actually involved with FAST and it’s warbird application. Now he’s also a P-40 pilot!
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Garth