You can find details and lots of pictures of our Saturday activities on our Facebook page. For those readers who don’t use Facebook, we repeat the text below.
Saturday 14 February 2026
What a day to be outside! Maybe we just appreciated the blue sky as we haven’t seen it for a while but it made for a great day outdoors. It seemed to attract plenty of drop in visitors too so that kept our volunteers busy, which is what they enjoy.
All credit this week must go to those volunteers that gave up their time to work on the improvements to our mains electrical supply. Some spent every day at the pan and have made great strides running the cables and burying them under floors, in the ground and in ducting. There’s plenty still to do but they’ve definitely broken the back of the work and it’ll be steady progress week on week now as they cut over the circuits to the new supply. In the meantime we’ll make use of a temporary feed but its no worse than the original supply.
On the a/c we had a few gremlins to deal with, left over from last week. The first one had climbed into our refuelling panel preventing us from moving the fuel between tanks as we would have liked. The balance of fuel does 2 things for us firstly it allows us to make the aircraft nose heavy to reduce the risk of the aircraft tipping on its tail if we get too much snow on the wing. Secondly we can make the aircraft tail heavy allowing a better angle for the engines when we haul them back up into the engine bay.
So all in all it puts a bit of pressure on the team to ensure that the system works as advertised, particularly as there is a forecast of snow this weekend. One volunteer had applied a lot of thought to the possible source of the refuel fault but with little access to the circuits in situ we had to remove the relay panel from the refuel panel which resides in the main wheel bay. After a bit of testing in our workshop the refuel relays were checking out so it was back to the drawing board. The next suspect was the system power supply which resides in the port undercarriage bay adjacent to the refuel panel. It’s a unique beast but luckily we have a couple of spares in our store, one of which seemed to check out on the bench. It was hastily swapped out which did the trick. That’s left us with 2 unserviceable power supplies but the aircraft is working once more. We moved fuel around later in the day so its just a bit of homework required to generate 2 serviceable power supplies as spares.
The next priority was the reinstallation of our No1&2 engines. They were both installed at the start of today but we needed to lower the No1 slightly in order to create some space for an engineer to reinstall a flexible pipe. The winches were quickly repositioned and the engine lowered. No problems. So after a while the No2 engine was lowered once again to allow access to the rapid start manifold and the unions which were tightened up ready for a pressure test.
In the background members of the team were replacing the motor in one of our compressors which would allow us to pressurize the system and thus test our newly installed manifold once again. The compressor worked fine and we’ve left the system pressurized so we’ll check things out next Saturday and hopefully haul that No2 engine back in.
Needless to say the painters made the most of today and they finished prepping the surface of the stbd landing gear door. The warmth generated around midday allowed them to repaint too, they take every opportunity they can, particularly at this time of year.
Work also continued on the Sentinel with plenty of the stripped now parts from the winch area receiving a coat of primer and there’s also a new stock of bolts to replace those that were damaged during their removal.
All in all quite a productive day and everyone seemed gainfully employed either working around the aircraft or escorting visitors. Hopefully todays pics will do justice to everyones efforts. We’ve all enjoyed ourselves and we’ll be back for more next weekend. Maybe we’ll see you there.
Tuesday 10th February 2026
Electrical Update Progress Report
The team has been putting in extra hours this week, returning to site both yesterday and today to reconfigure our electrical supplies as we move toward a 3 phase mains supply to spread the load from our activities which should prevent our recent problem of blown mains fuses.
As always when you already have a setup its more about managing the modifications to reduce or eliminate any outages as we carefully make the changes. The team made a start yesterday by introducing our new mains distribution board into our workshop and the next steps will hopefully place our new supply cable into our existing duct which runs underground from a nearby building. We will need to remove the existing supply cable from the duct as we introduce the new one hence we’ll definitely disrupt our power. Today was about running a temporary feed to bypass the duct and luckily the weather was on our side enabling the cable to be run, changed over and successfully tested. On that basis we can now press ahead and remove the original supply cables without disrupting our aircraft activities.
We also managed to lay a small cable under our paint store so hopefully the route will be large enough to use this as pull cord for the larger new 3 phase feed although its connection to the supply may be a stretch in one day.
All in all a good day and as it was so wet driving home I figured the weather definitely played its part today. Fingers crossed for the team tomorrow.
Saturday 7th February 2026
After a 3 week break, for me, it was great to be back on site and it was interesting to see the progress that the team had made in my absence.
Needless to say it was a typical Winter day. It still didn’t deter our volunteers or our drop in visitors and I was surprised that the first family were on our doorstep by 9am!
With work continuing from where I left off 3 weeks ago the plan was to reinstall the No1 engine which, as I recall, was installed in the aircraft when I left. It seems the team had uncovered a crack in the manifold connecting the rapid start air bottles. They had no choice but to have a replacement manifold manufactured and it appears to have been expertly produced on a CNC machine. I bet the original wasn’t made that way. So after fitting some blanks it was pressure tested in a bucket of water then fitted to the aircraft connected up and pressure tested once more before refitting some of the engine bay inner skins to be followed by the re installation of the No1 engine.
Whilst setting up for the engine refit we needed to move a bit of fuel around in order sit the aircraft at a better angle and it was around this time that the electrical gremlins came out to play. The first one climbed in to the motor of our rapid start compressor and began its quest to destroy out stock of 13amp fuses. The 2nd gremlin entered our Houchin and prevented it connecting to the aircraft. Luckily we could make use of the alternator in our AAPP to supply the voltage for the fuel pumps. However our 3rd gremlin pitched up to prevent us reading the AAPP engine temperature. It didn’t stop us moving fuel but we have a problem to investigate next week.
Meanwhile, in the background, other members of the team were progressing tasks on our Winter list. There was another refuel valve removed last week so that was refurbished and refitted. Only 3 more to go and we will have completed the whole aircraft set.
Needless to say the painters were still painting, under the aircraft on the stbd undercarriage door. Its proving difficult remove the old paint but this area is probably the driest at this time of year.
Lots of activity in the workshop with the preparatory work for our forthcoming electrical supply upgrade. A hole has appeared in the floor to allow the new cable to come in, and various clever-looking boxes are appearing on the walls. And in the middle of doing that one of our electrician volunteers was dragged away to fix a problem which developed on the Houchin GPU. Happily that one didn’t take long to resolve successfully.
Work continues on Sentinel winch refurb and a lot of its back end structure has been stripped out and repainted in our workshop. One change of plan is that we won’t be removing the winch assembly. After much head scratching its thought that the tug was built around the winch and as we’ve proved it works we’ll paint, inspect and lube everything in situ before reassembling the back end once more.
So back to the No 1 engine. After hauling it back in to the engine bay this afternoon it was time to move the fuel once more. This time moving it forward as a precaution against snow, forecast next week, which could make the aircraft tip up if it settled on the wings in any quantity. Whilst the Houchins gremlin had been put down by this point another appeared in the port refuel panel preventing us for selecting the fuel movements we would have liked. We’ve moved sufficient fuel to prevent any likelyhood of the aircraft tipping back but we’ll have to apply some thought to this gremlin before next weekend.
I think that summarizes today’s activities. We had quite a few visitors who managed cockpit visits between our activities.
Finally, just to let you know that we will be hosting a photoshoot on the 28th of Feb. Here’s how to find out more: https://thresholdaero.ticketsrv.co.uk/tickets/VulcanXM655
Saturday 31st January 2026
A nice bright start at Wellesbourne this morning and although the promised rain arrived later in the day, there’s plenty of shelter under that enormous wing.
The rapid start manifold which was found to be cracked last week has been copied by a local engineering firm, so that was the first task to be addressed. As you will see from one of the pictures, something which would originally have involved drawing board and pencil now requires a computer. Before the manifold could be fitted to the aircraft, it had to be hydrostatically tested to confirm its integrity. That was successful and it was then slotted into place in the bulkhead between the nos 1 and 2 engines and the pipework was reconnected. The rest of the day was spent trying to get rid of all the small air leaks, and it looks like that will continue next week.
As our regular readers will already have guessed we removed yet another refuelling valve, this time from the no.3 port tank. Our valve repair specialist was most unusually absent this week, so repair and reinstallation will have to wait. When this one is complete, there will only be three left to do out of the installed fourteen valves.
Work continued once again on the Sentinel tug and with the remainder of the rear chassis items now removed, we have access to properly examine the winch for the first time. The extent of the (many years old) damage is proving to be something of a puzzle, so there will be more head scratching to do. The information in the Sentinel manuals is somewhat limited so if any of our followers has a manufacturer’s manual for a Darlington 15 ton winch we’d love to hear from you.
We were able to extensively test the “built-from-parts” pfcu in the workshop this week, and it passed with flying colours. No leaks, fully operational and with the new paint it looks like a brand new unit. So that one can go on the shelf as a fully serviceable spare and attention will now turn to refurbishing one of our spare rudder pfcu’s..
Very few visitors this week, the promised and eventually actual rain probably kept most sensible people indoors, but our volunteers are made of hardy stuff and we will be back to do it all again next week. We would love you to join us.
Saturday 24th January 2026
A nice dry day at Wellesbourne today and when sheltered not too cold. The trouble is there isn’t much shelter on an airfield so the wind chill was very noticeable.
We had a lot to do today and a firm plan in place, so the no.1 engine doors were off before the sun had made an appearance. After moving fuel aft to set the aircraft rigging angle, the no.1 engine was disconnected and lowered into its stand before lunchtime, and the leaking rapid start manifold was quickly removed. Not corrosion or porosity as we had suspected, the fault proved to be a crack in the body. The offending item has now been whisked away to a local engineering firm to be copied.
Work continued on the Sentinel tug with the removal of the second chain hanger for the ground anchor and part of the roller fairlead for the winch cable. It’s amazing how much has to be removed simply to access the winch that we are intending to refurbish.
In the workshop the “built-from-parts” pfcu had passed its week-long static pressure test so it was time to fit a motor and run it. Not a full test but just enough to reposition the piston for final assembly. Hopefully we’ll be giving it a full test next week.
A few walk-in visitors braved the cold, and we also had a visit from a Caledonian Coaches tour this afternoon. We love showing off our wonderful aircraft and we hope they all enjoyed their visit.
Saturday 17th January 2026
The threatened showers never arrived and the wind was relatively light so a reasonably pleasant day to work on the Vulcan.
Two major tasks today, one very successful and one significantly less so.
The no.5 port refuelling valve which had held us up last week was fixed as homework during the week by one of the volunteers, and after testing was successfully re-installed today. This has been the most difficult one we have done so far due to very limited access and non-flexible pipes. We have four valves left to complete, hopefully not all as difficult as this one has been.
More volunteer homework involved the procurement and modification of pipe unions to replace the leaking one identified last week. The good news is that installing one of the replacement unions fixed the leak we found last week.
The bad news is that the testing revealed another leak in the same area which had been masked by the first leak. This is going to be more difficult to fix, and will require multiple engine removals and refits as the faulty component is housed between the nos. 1 and 2 engines and we will need access both sides. As a start, all the associated pipework was removed today and the no.2 engine was lifted back into position. It will have to come out again later, but for now it is back in the airframe so we can remove no.1 to access the other side of the problem.
Whilst most of our volunteers were working on the airframe, the ground equipment wasn’t neglected, with lots of very old, very rusty and very tight bolts being removed from the rear of the Douglas Sentinel Tug in preparation for the removal and refurbishment of the Darlington 15 Winch.
We only had a small number of visitors today, but we hope they enjoyed their time with us. It is the fact we can show them our wonderful aircraft that keeps us going through the winter Saturdays, and we’ll be back to do it all again next week.
Saturday 10th January 2026
Considering the weather warnings this last week I think we’ve got away lightly. Although we had our usual frosty start to the day we had little or no wind, therefore no wind chill, and no snow to contend with either which is the last thing you need on a Vulcan as there’s a risk it can overbalance and end up on its… backside(!)
You’ll see lots of blue sky in our pics today which is always good no matter what the temperature is.
We had a few things planned for today and top of the list was our quarterly committee meeting, mainly because it’s held in the lovely warm environment of the Flying school!
As usual, our early volunteers got the day underway by opening our port engine doors and positioning the ground equipment. The intention was to take off the inner panels of the no2 engine and expose the connections to the rapid start air bottles then charge the system and use a bubble mix on the joints to see if we could locate the leak. Not too different from locating a puncture in a bike tyre really.
The inner panel removal was mostly straightforward although the angle grinder came out in order to grind the head off one of the fasteners, the next job will be to replace its anchor nut….more grinding required.
The good news is that once the panel was removed and the system charged the team did manage to locate a leak at one of the joints. Not sure if they are going to replace the affected union but I think the seal has been replaced in the short term.
Another job supporting the No2 engine work is the scuff and repaint of 2 removable panels in the intake area. The painters definitely stripped the panels, which would allow access to the airbrake components, and they were about to apply primer the last time I checked in.
There was much cleaning of the No2 engine taking place, both ends from what I could tell, so the team are already planning the reinstallation. Its all covered up again now to protect it from the weather but once the leak is confirmed as resolved the engine will be hauled back in position.
On the port wing the refuel valve refurb team were attempting to remove the 5tank valve having set up early doors. The valve on the stbd side had proved to be difficult to remove due to a seized nut which was hard to access so they were prepared for the worst on this one. As it happened it wasn’t as bad as expected with the difficult nut spinning off with fingers alone. It wasn’t all good news. Although the valve was removed with less effort than expected the testing after the seal replacement proved impossible today. The flange connecting the valve to the fuel system had damaged threads and we were unable to attach our test equipment. The team had to resort to grinding off the flange but the original attachment ring was not going to come off due to corrosion and the valve has been taken offsite as homework this week. There’ll be more cutting and grinding involved for sure and I guarantee that flange won’t be attached to the valve next Saturday! We’ll rob a flange from a spare.
There’s an interesting issue with these valves. Generally speaking they all look the same however,
they all have a different part no. so we assume there must be something different about each one. Unfortunately without detailed documentation we don’t know what the differences might be. We’ll just replace the flange which will leave most of the original components intact and leave the valve in its original build state.
The Sentinel is going to figure in the reports for a while yet. With the winch drive tested last week the plan was to continue the strip of the back end leading towards the winch removal. This is going to follow in the footsteps of our SABT with lots of heat and hammering before anything moves. I think after a day of H&H I think there were a handful of nuts removed. Expect more of the same in future reports!
I should touch on our committee meeting which became centred on the improvement of our electrical supply. We’ll be focussing on this in the coming weeks and hopefully we’ll end up with 3 phase on site. That’ll take a bit of work but I am sure we’ll get there.
Finally, we had plenty of ‘drop in’ visitors today and they were still being shown the cockpit as it got dark. This aircraft always attracts so many aircraft enthusiasts! Fantastic!
Saturday 3rd January 2026
The first volunteering day of the new year and there was no shortage of help that’s for sure. It was below freezing when I got to the pan but the usual crowd of early starters were already stuck in which was a good job really because we were headed to the airfield cafe for opening time. There’s nothing like a Touchdown Cafe breakfast to warm you up on a frosty morning.
The breakfast was excellent as always but it wasn’t long before we headed back up the taxyway to continue our tasks. It was definitely colder than last week but with little or no wind and a blue sky it felt so much warmer and we definitely made great progress all day.
Top of our list was the continued work on our port engines. There was the continued reassembly of pipework and wire locking on the No1 but we were determined to drop the No2 out today and on that basis the team were soon fitting the winches into the No2 engine bay, sliding the jetpipe rearwards and removing the intake transition piece. We had thought that the aircraft was a bit nose heavy so made time to install the plumbob and star plate in the cockpit then push the fuel load rearwards to give the aircraft a better attitude for lowering the engine.
Other jobs on the go were the replacement of the No5 tank stbd refuel valve so one of our volunteers replaced the valve seals before testing the valve under fuel pressure provided by the height of our Giraffe (steps). The volunteer who spent all day removing the valve last Saturday donned a new protective suit in preparation for the reinstallation and with all the experience gained last week managed to fit the valve in no time at all. Santa will be pleased that one of his presents is a major success!
Needless to say the painters were in town and they headed straight to our removed engine Jet pipe end cap. They thoroughly prepared them and stored the freshly painted parts away from the frost.
With it being a bright sunny day the aircraft attracted plenty of drop in visitors and the cockpit seem to be occupied most of the day. Some visitors got to see the removal of our No2 engine too.
The Sentinel tug was also high on our list of today’s jobs seeing as we struggled to make progress last week. Repairs to the slide hammer, which broke during last weeks efforts, had been carried out midweek so the first time I checked out Sentinel progress the ground anchor pivot pin had already been removed and the ground anchor was on the floor several feet behind the tug. The Sentinel engine still didn’t want to run but our Ground Equipment volunteer keeps a spare set of plugs on site so it was later in the day that they were fitted. I’m pleased to report that the Sentinel now works fine and following a bit of tinkering around the air pressure pipes we were able to test the winch. It works fine too. What a difference a week makes and all those things that were so frustrating last Saturday have now been resolved. There’s much more to do but at least we’re back on track.
We had pumped the fuel around the aircraft earlier but it never made much difference to the CofG. It did prove the successful replacement of the No5 Stbd refuel valve so all that activity moves to the port wing next week. We’ve already repositioned the tug in anticipation. Some of our younger volunteers were engaged in a full ‘new year’ stock take and tidy-up in the relative warmth of the shop, which was much appreciated!
I think that sums up todays efforts and in hindsight its been a great start to the new year. We hope all our visitors enjoyed their tours. We’ll be back next week when we’ll be looking for leaks in the No2 engine rapid start system. Thanks to all those that came today, we look forward to hosting more of you once again in future. Fingers crossed it’ll be warmer!