So much work when you have to make almost every part from scratch. Such dedication and craftsmanship is rare in the world today,especially when everyone is volunteering their time for free. This lady is incredible. You don’t see women doing this kind of work very much. She knows her stuff!👍🏻
such a pleasure to see someone using the English Wheel, and not just a pleasure watching such a rare use but to see a young lady doing this, Simone, thank you for continuing to use this amazing machine and keeping history in the making, just fantastic - and i have always wanted to have a go myself, i knew someone with a English Wheel but it was never used and sadly i never got a chance - love it
This was a BIG surprice Neville! A beautiful and nice Lady sheet metal worker... As an retired aircraft technican it is easy for me to see she is an REAL specialist! Congratulations to The Lancaster Team for also include a Lady! Well done Simonne 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹!
Great viewing on how the fins are built. Over here in the U.S. a lot of specialty car builders use the English wheel, shrinkers and stretchers. Cool to see it used on the "Lanc". Simone did a beautiful job. Thanks Neville for including her work. Another interesting vid!
That was really fascinating! Many thanks Neville for doing important work in documenting the restoration going on at EK. It is a privilege to see an expert performing essential work on the Lanc - thank you Simone Cunningham!
Simone....what a lady! Top marks also for putting up with you watching her all that time. I don't like people talking to me when I'm working and trying to concentrate! Great video
I have to say, a true artist. Miss Simone is as talented as she is lovely. I would trade a Lancaster for a glass of wine and a pleasant conversation with Miss Cunningham. Thanks for the video, and for introducing me to such a talented human.
This woman knows her business ! Very hight skilled worker to dress the four engine old lady. Thank you for sharing this metal work sequence. Great job!
Great film Neville thanks for posting. Simone's making a great job fitting those panels I can see it's highly skilled work and nice of her to take the time to discuss it with you.
Now that was really interesting. Thanks for letting us see the hard work that's put into this project. A real skill....eye, feel and elbow grease (And knowing what your doing of course). :-)
Hi Paul sorry late replying, Simone a good operator make it look easy, B24 at Werribee good lock with this project . Thanks for watching. ( I've been on line to have a look at B24)
Informative video again Neville. This Lanc will feel very much at home, because when it was built at Longbridge there were women like Simone still employed doing this work. It must give her great pleasure doing this on such an iconic plane.
Fascinating to watch a craftswoman at work. I was fortunate enough to get a flight in the Canadian Lancaster in 2014. Great to see the work involved in keeping such planes airworthy.
Good to see an old skill / knowledge still available and put to good use. So much of our old skills and knowledge lost these days. When I left work after 40 years, several of my colleagues all left same time, think there was some combined experience of 500 years or so lost for ever.
Izaak C : Myself and a friend used to visit East Kirkby back in the late 1990's. We were lucky to be there one day when she was out in front of the hangar and performed a full x4 engine test, I don't know of a word that describes the feelings of emotion that induced ! Back then I was led to understand that all that prevented their Lanc from being given an airworthy cert was a full re-revitting session. Your comment per yearly stripdown raises a couple of queries: are you saying exactly that - a complete stripdown, and why? If correct then the demand of the past per a full re-rivet session seems to have become a historical point and now overcome ? I also understand that as ever closer to achieving air worthiness they get the certificate issuers then present a whole new rash of demands, as if the BBMF Lanc is the only one they want flying, full stop.
@@suzyqualcast6269 No, that's like finding a 1946 Austin 'whatever' and the only thing preventing it going back on the road was a new paint job. EVERY part of the old aircraft has to be checked to ensure it is airworthy. If you simply removed and replaced every rivet you wouldn't know if the wing spars were thirty hours from cracking up and you don't need a very vivid imagination to imagine what the results would be. I beleiev the powers that be are giving them leeway by allowing them to refurbish/replace components over a period of years instead of having it all done in one go, which i believe is the norm.
@@suzyqualcast6269 - the only stupid question is the one not asked. FM213 is the serial number of a Lancaster bomber. The full serial number is actually RCAF FM213 as it was built for the Royal Canadian Air Force. Edit: the Lancaster bomber shown in this video is NX611.
S/V Tattoo: Thankyou - the NX sounds familiar, now both make sense. Wait a minute, are you part of the team that worked on the Canadian example that joined the BBMF a couple of years back, both of which, affectionately, flew over and tipped a nod to East Kirkby I wonder?
The lady is a professional!!! The work she does there is a dying profession. (you must understand what you are doing, and have feeling for that, you must have talent for that!) shrink and stretch and tonne round there is no school where you learn that! I myself am a metalworker and Drukker by profession I used to make everything that is bent on a ship. a Drukker works with a 300Ton(or more!) machine press. (Drukker I do not know the English word for!) unfortunately shipbuilding here in the Netherlands is also dead (am unemployed) greetings from the Netherlands!
@@gary96397 HAHAAaaaa LOL well to see writing, even Dutch writing works well !!! I live in Rotterdam and that is a big port city but everything is changing! it is not going badly with me but I hope to be able to get back to work, preferably no longer in the metal because that is extinct here (the companies move to other countries where the wage is very low, and therefore more profit for the boss!) best regards from Rotterdam again! Rob. HAHAAaaaa LOL nou aan het schrijven te zien lukt zelfs Nederlands schrijven ook goed!!! Ik woon in Rotterdam en dat is een grote havenstad maar alles verandert! het gaat niet slecht met mij maar hoop wel weer om aan het werk te kunnen gaan, liefst ijgenlijk ook niet meer in het metaal want dat is hier uitgestorven (de bedrijven trekken naar andere landen waar het arbijdsloon erg laag is, en dus meer winst voor de baas!) vriendelijke groeten weer uit Rotterdam! Rob.
It would be such an honour to even simply tighten a nut and bolt on such a restoration. Amazing to see something that played such an important role in our cultural history being restored with such care.
Its always good to see craftsmen at work and when its a women its even better, knowing they still have the skills that their mum's or grandma had during WWll
The English Wheel is the most beautiful tool to shape sheet metal. I know the "hand knockers banging forms on metal"(I have no idea what the are called, no disrespect at all) are extremely skillful but seeing a flat surface change to intricate curves in an English Wheel is even more satisfying.
Yes it sure rocked the country, the out grieving of love and compassion in the aftermath was beyond anyone's imagination from all religions and non believers alike. Hope we never see anything like this again in NZ
Jaysus, all this time I've heard talk of the 'skin' of the plane being thin. This is the first time I've seen it. It really is a skin, about as thick as human skin by the looks of it. Those air crews stood zero chance against any enemy fire.
Start with the sheet metal oversize. Roll the edge first. Once it fits trim rest of the panel to fit the ribs and then drill out the rivet holes. This is being done backwards which is making it more time consuming and harder to roll the edge correctly. I know because I have built two aircraft. Just saying .... Great to see us women more involved in aircraft restoration, like we did not have the skill of knowledge of this from the past. Women built the planes helped win the both world wars .... ;)
Yes its great to watch the young girl using the old Wheeling machine and crimping the edge of the Aluminium panel, I did my Panelbeating apprenticeship during the very early 1960s and I was lucky enough to be taught how to use those machine's. The panelbeating shop I served in also did Motor Body Buildings repairs and a number of the tradesman where from Rolls-Royce plant in England, one of them was the late Eric Evans (a Londoner) who taught a crew of young woman to make up aircraft panels in repairing damaged fighter aircraft during the 2nd World War. In 1971 I started teaching young panelbeating apprentices at Otago Polytechnic where i taught them to use the Wheeling machine and crimping machine's and hand-crimping tools to made panels for motor vehicle's, great skills for one to learn. Don Sinclair
When you realise how much of this was being done during WW2 in Britain alone; its amazing. I normally work in stainless. But the approach is similar. I would love to play on that English wheel.
I saw this aircraft take off from Sydney in 1965, after the initial restoration by Hawker De Havilland Australia enabled it to return to the UK. Wonderful to know so many are working on restoring it to flying condition. I think her sister ship NX665 is currently in Auckland, New Zealand at the Museum of Transport and Technology - www.motat.org.nz/collections/collection-online/aircraft-avro-lancaster-b-mk-7-957/. NX611 and her were both used by the French Navy out of New Caledonia, until about 1964/65.
Wheeling as a hobby seems to be coming back into fashion with aircraft resto as well as cars. Simone know that job and id doing a gtood job. I guess when these were made during the war all of these would have been presssed and probably drilled in a jig. The one of done here would mean about a wing a week.
I am pretty sure a presstool would have been made for this skin back when the aircraft was in mass production. I have a personal interest in this Lanc’ as a now long passed friend John Roast, one of the technicians involved in the start of the venture back in the early seventies told me of his role and the flight back from Oz. Recently we had an excellent presentation from Liz Dodds for the Exeter British Motorcycle club ( another highly committed lady involved with the aircraft) detailing the history and the ultimate aim of putting NX611 back in the sky where she belongs, so a three ship Lanc fly past is possible with Vera and PA474 LETS HOPE THE KNOCKERS ,BUREAUCRATS , DETRACTORS AND DENIERS OF HISTORY DO NOT PREVENT THIS.
Very nice, it's therapeutic. I get the same satisfaction restoring my TR6 albeit l don't have the space for an English wheel, and dare l say the wheeling skills. Not enough practise!
Simone would have happy times talking over techniques with Terry English. There seems to be a lot of similarity between aircraft skin shaping and plate armour creation. They might even be able to exchange a few new ideas!
So when the planes were being manufactured new, I presume there was a complex mold that made the pieces to specification in one or two pressings. Can't imagine this much touch labor on a wartime footing. This would seem to be yet another example of old work being much harder and expensive than new work.
Geoffrey, "Just Jane" is a Mk VII Lancaster, which used a Martin mid-upper turret, rather than the Fraser-Nash turrets used on the earlier marks. The earlier fairings covered a cam track which mechanically prevented the guns being fired at certain points of their circular azimuth travel to prevent the gunner from shooting his own tail off. This was achieved in the Martin turret by an electrical system within the turret itself, so the fairing was not needed. The Lanc looks a little naked without it, though, doesn't it?
@@frankmcvey G'day Frank yes i knew the Mk VII was fitted with both the FN 50 (a small initial run and classed as Mk I or interim Mk VII aircraft) and later fitted with the martin turret. I actually thought work was underway to bring it up to a representative of a MK I/III fitted with an FN 50 turret. Im now guessing this was put in place for the aircraft's taxi rides allowing patrons to experience all crew positions in the aircraft. In the background of this video, what looks like a Martin turret mounted on a stand, is this earmarked to go into the aircraft once she approaches the end of her restoration to airworthiness? Wow with her wartime scheme and this turret fitted she will look like a representative of a Canadian MK 10.
Does Simone Cunningham work, or did she and her husband work in a unit at Bournemouth Hurn?. If so, i met them both some years ago when Aim had a test house adjacent to their workshop. They were working on some Spitfire, or possibly Hurricane skins back then.
Amazing skills. I wonder if,during the war, those panels were formed in a press, using dies. Hand forming, while beautiful to watch, would surely be too slow. Does anybody know?
Coming along very very nicely ,when her time comes to fly ,will it be a crew from the BBMF who take her up ? as there can't be many crews current on a Lanc lol
This lady is from my era, "like a thrupenny bit". Wonder how many millenials will understand that? Great craft(wo)manship, I'd love to listen to a conversation between her and Terry English.
The curve inducing English Wheel: is that what was used when the Lancasters were being factory produced by the ton? Reminds me of what I thought was 'panel beating' witnessed applied in EMMS/Cfld garages and auto repairers on a smaller scale.
Hi Neville, is this Lan located in East Kirby airport that sometimes does engine runs? I saw a Lanc doing engine runs last October 2018, in East Kirby airport.
