| Month |
News |
| November 2004 |
Container arrives at Stennis. During the beginning of November 2004 the UK
sent a 20 strong contingent to aid the USA team. The team in the USA welcomes Bill Norman who
has now joined the team as our new USA Chief mechanic. Bill has a wealth of legacy fast jet
experience and cut his teeth on the likes of F101, 104 and F4 Phantom. Bill’s last job was
doing upgrades on C-130’s and so is the ideal person to lead the team forward in the USA.
The primary goals during this UK visit was to progress restoration cockpit. Having been fully
stripped the rebuild has been started in earnest and great strides were made. Both engine bays
received attention with the goal of first engine fit being a real possibility in the not too
distant future. The final fuse to wing connections were completed and the electrical system is
finally getting connect-up. |
| September 2004 |
Shipping in a container to the USA was carried out in September 2004 this was timetabled to
arrive during the UK Engineering team visit in November. |
| August 2004 |
Preparations are underway for the UK teams annual working visit in
November |
| April 2004 |
Final UK push in April 2004 of all spares completed and container readied for
shipment to the USA. |
| March 2004 |
UK team continues with several tasks including packaging spares for
shipment to the US, reheat unit refurbishment, and protecting (Waxoil) our spare rear
fuselage, wings, fin, etc. |
| January 2004 |
Ejection seat #3 arrives in New Zealand for refurbishment |
| November 2003 |
November UK team visit for a 4 week period for an intensive work program on XS422. The team set to work quickly and also got the basic logistics in place for the next four weeks. The primary items that were required to be worked up were the rebuilding of the starter system. This was a ground up rebuild as no components were left whatsoever, having been robbed on 422 retirement from active duty. Therefore we had stripped the spare fuselage section (ZF596) at Bruntingthorpe prior to the visit and brought the required items over. Together with the available spares in holding the starter system has been practically completed. The only omissions being the HT boxes, which we have, brand new components in the UK.
Restoration of ventral tank and lower hatch. These had acquired a varying amount of damage during the original storage and transportation. Dave Cruddas took the helm and together with his apprentice Rebecca Skinner spent 2 hard weeks working these items up to flight status.
Jason Skinner who is an Avon specialist concentrated on the power plans and spent many hours checking them over and applying new inhibitor as specified in the maintenance manuals. Jason then went through the throttle runs making a list of required spares and also checking routing and connections.
The number 2 engine bay treated with the fire resistant paint.
Electrically both AC/DC systems completed. Once the cockpit has been finished mechanically then the latter parts of the electrics to be finished. John and Simon work up a gradual “Power On” sequence.
Aircraft Assisted Escape System (AAES) AALO shipped a further spare seat to the Warbirds Escape Systems New Zealand. This arrived in early January 2004 at Glenâs workshop. Glen Turner had stripped both seats and found that there was a lot of corrosion on one of the seats. It was decided that the best option would be to work another seat up to operational standard then waste precious time and resources on the corroded seat. This seat would now become a spares source for the two seats being worked up to operational condition. Otherwise Glen Turner was happy with the seats and AALO would in the next 12 months start to work up the canopy jettison system up to flight status. The intent being to test the system with cold gas to prove it prior to final seat fit and arming. |
| April 2003 |
Cockpit rebuild commences. Phil Kingsbury completes an
artist’s rendition of XS422
(prints for sale in May) |
| February 2003 |
Spare rear fuselage in the UK was readied for use as our
air turbine testbed |
| December 2002 |
Hydraulic system re-activated and functional tests completed |
| November 2002 |
UK-based team arrive at Stennis for two weeks at intense activity |
| August 2002 |
UK Team acquires additional ground support rigs
and completes sorting of 66% of our spare parts |
| July 2002 |
Refurbishment of the ejection seats commences at
Warbird Egress Systems in New
Zealand |
| April 2002 |
Engines and misc. spare parts arrive at Stennis |
| January 2002 |
FAA grants US registration (N422XS) |
| December 2001 |
Refurbishment of cockpit commences |
| November 2001 |
UK-based team spent two weeks at Stennis and completed identification
of the hundreds of wires that must be reconnected |
| September 2001 |
Airframe reassembly complete |
| July 2001 |
Airframe reassembly commenced. Wings, rear fuselage, and front
fuselage mated. |
| May 2001 |
Spare Front Fuselage and other items needed for structural
reassembly were shipped to the US |
| April 2001 |
In order to raise funds, the AALO has sold its US-based
spare aircraft (ZF 597) to the Olympic
Flight Museum in Olympia, Washington |
| December 2000 |
Bob Simms (ex-English
Electric employee) joins AALO as US Project Manager |
| October 2000 |
UK-based team make third visit to Stennis and work
on various restoration activities |
| February 1999 |
UK-based team make second visit to Stennis to conduct
restoration tasks |
| November 1997 |
UK-based team and US team unload XS422
from shipping containers and begin restoration effort |
| October 1997 |
Max Waldron (Active
duty RAF with 10 years of Lightning restoration experience) joins
the UK-based team |
| September 1997 |
Phil Wallis (active
duty RAF and Lightning expert) joins AALO as UK-based Project Manager |
| August 1997 |
Andrew Brodie (UK)
and Jon Roth Jr. (US) form AALO
and purchase XS422 |
