1. The first job following the fabric was to make good the interior paint in and around where the fabric overlapped the openings, so we have prepared and repainted the inside of the cockpit entry door, the rear fuselage door, the browning gun doors and the fuselage side panels.

2. We have refitted the hinges and latch to the cockpit entry door enabling us to position the door on the fuselage and begin fitting the exterior closing strips. These have now been trimmed to shape. The fuselage side panels have also been bolted in place. The straps and joint plates have been check fitted. The missing joint plates have been fabricated as required. The remaining bomb and canon door hinges have been bolted to the lower edge of the side panels.

3. The main fuel gallery has been trial mounted into the R/H side panel along with the access door and previously refurbished dzus fastener brackets. Washer plates and shims fabricated as required. Gallery and door still to be refurbished.

4. We have completed the installation of the fuselage camera hatch and downward identification lights.

5. Rudder and elevator trim cable pulley brackets refurbished and bolted to bulkhead #7 along with tail cone attach angles, wiring terminal blocks and rudder trim jack. Some slave hardware has been replaced with the correct bolts. Rear fin attach plate castings bolted back into place following the fabric work.

6. The external doublers have been shaped and fitted to the underside of the nose. The access panel has also been refurbished. This is in the area where access is gained to the gun bay to remover the spent browning gun shells.

7. New sleeves have been rolled and shaped to fit in the cockpit R/H side wall for the drift sight door and the gun bay exhaust gas exit duct.

8. Wiring junction box ”J” located and mounted on the rudder pedal box following the fabrication of a special packing block.

Woodwork

Because of the hold up with the delivery of the heavy grades of ply from England, the focus for this month has shifted to the flaps.

The flaps ribs, spars and trailing edge assemblies have mostly been fabricated. The flap is built in a very traditional wooden aircraft style with fabricated spruce ribs, a spruce and ply spar and a wrapped ply leading edge. The unique feature of the flap is that it is spit into two sections by the engine nacelle. The two sections are joined together thru the nacelle by a large torque tube and center bearing assy. Various steel fittings are attached to the ribs, and these are being sent to the metal shop for processing.

Although the ply has not arrived, work has continued on the components for the spar with numerous high density blocks being completed for attachment to the booms in the spar buildup. These ash and tufnol blocks will be fitted in the area where rib one (the fuselgae joint) is mounted.

The components for rib one have also been fabricated and are reday for attachment to the rib web when the ply arrives.