Dwelle Hawker Sea Fury First Flight

[Music] you so the history is it was built by Hawker for delivery to the Royal Navy it flew with the Royal Navy for five or six years and then it was brought back by Hawker converted to a target tug it was the prototype which went down to Germany its registration was d4 Deutschland Co te the Germans operated this airplane as a target tug from 1958 to 1975 and it was up at a base called Lubeck in northern Germany right on the coast of the Baltic in something about the post-war agreement the Germans weren't allowed to build their own airplanes so they bought the sea furies from hawker before that they were Spitfire mark nines they were using at target tugs and they would so this airplane flew for 58 to 74 or 75 and down the baltic coast and the the german triple-a gunners would would shoot a windsock essentially on a 2000 meter cable the rear cockpit was occupied by a winch operator and there was a Swiss built winch with a propeller five bladed propeller about this big on the side of the fuselage which provide motive power or the winch so most of the dual control sea furies that are left in the world were all German target tugs as the Royal Navy flew this airplane just for five or six years and they became obsolete because of the advent of the jet aircraft you [Music] good morning I'm Tom dwelle this used to be my airplane now belongs to the boys between the airplane when I flew it which is here right 3350 we were pumped up to more than 4,000 horsepower but the wings are short as you can see I had short wings compared to the original 38 foot wings so three feet off of each side inside to the ailerons and the original engine the Bristol Center and Taurus asleep valve engine was twenty-five hundred fifty horsepower and I had more than 4,000 and it was it would go like you know I've seen five hundred and fifty miles an hour coming off the chute [Applause] rim which looks a wing down as the wing comes down this goes into here and then the pins go forward and back and that's unobtainable there are no more in the world and we're lucky to find it at least do we have one more that's a spare but it's correct it's not really a spare I don't know what we're [Music] can what are you checking back what have you text so far well I've checked everything about 27 times but what's happening now is dennis is having a look at it and it's just a different set of eyes dennis has been working on the sea furies and building them and he owns he and his brother and his family on three flying sea furies they have a shop that maintains sea furies you know there's there is experienced as anyone currently living I would expect on the sea fury so this is a opportunity to have a different set of eyes having a look to see if you know what what we missed we got the burp valve yep doing the controlling all the oil tank we got the pressure air pressure analyzing the fuel system you have the burp mouth below the fuel tank drop tank selector go in connect it to this yes nope it's still operating it's still in there it's still in there and I know you told me to put it all up in there just weld the end up at the Oliver's drop it in there I make a solid aluminum one take the madrasa one out little a yeah okay it's got a brass or steel all of them it pull that all about making aluminum one out of a plug of burden okay you do won't hurt anything if you don't but what it'll do is it'll start dripping oil here because the if the two valves aren't matched in pressure this one will start doing the work of the air oil supper are the pressure relief for the tank uh-huh and then it'll make a puddle of oil there okay that's easy you know it's easy enough squirt a corner the washers not doing something the bolt looks like it's out just a little bit to me uh-huh the washer gets worn and gets a little ramp on it the bolt will want to ride up the ramp and jump out you got to make a square washer got it remember I'm talking about yeah see the split mm-hmm and then that first hang and it may have been square when you put together in the clamps squished it and popped out a little mm-hmm but see here look at the see how close the Tang is to the edge if it's gonna have a problem that's where it's gonna be but put large-area washers on the springs okay both ends I think it's time we're out of excuses so here we are at Auburn California which is 1500 feet elevation ka unz identifier the runway runs east-west seven to five it's headed the climb right up to down Blaine after takeoff as in case if there is an issue need a place to put the airplane down so straight ahead is not a good option but if you can get 90 degrees through the turn there's a lake here and there's also a golf course here in once you get to downwind of course if you're high enough you can make the runway as we got closer and closer to Saturday than July July first it became clear that that was the day and it became clear that the airplane was ready that evening before which was the 30th of June I pulled the airplane out and we gassed it up and we've done a lot of taxi testing and so forth but we'd never filled the fuel tank all the way up to the top and I did not want to do that on fly day because I was fairly certain it was gonna leak but it didn't leak and we filled it up that evening and I ground ran it attack a couple other things and it was happy and shut it down chocked it put the lower cowl on it and the belly skin which goes last two panels to go on the airplane because they're always off because you're always working in those two areas put those two covers on check the oil and gave her a little pat on the wing and they went home and the plan was that we were going to meet and fly the thing at 8 o'clock the next day and I think Judy would tell you I was probably not a lot of fun to be around on Friday night you know as there was not I just don't think I was much fun to be around and I'm uh I think that when you build your airplane and test fly your airplane in my opinion you have too much information too many data points because you're you know what about this what about this what about this I think that checked at all friends have checked it I knew the airplane was ready but still so I just wanted to get it over with I was tired of everyone I asked him once again fly it was it gonna fly it [Music] [Music] and cycle the landing gear to make sure that it comes to a three green and box if we do have landing gear ratios we will resolve them if we aren't able to resolve them then we'll go to maida because they have a big wide runway at the crash rescue so you're gonna take a bonanza please meet us down there yeah I'll just soon as you're gone orbiting overhead I'll go okay that's so listen to 2165 and 22:7 just join up and see if we can get that's big sure let's get the first 15 minutes out of the way first suggestions input thinking about it for too long there's grass it's just tender to go fly yeah how do you want to help me pull through a few plays it's got a gear reduction - so you're over driving the engine we've just pulled the propeller through a few blades pre-flight stops were standing around interesting [Applause] [Applause] State on a chase plane not sure my way around the final turn got on the runway and canopy shut lock the tail wheel loose bump on mixture all the way forward I say here we go just powered up and launched now to offer [Music] [Applause] [Music] your doors didn't closed after takeoff and so I told Kenda Bunn it just a little bit just requires a little bunt and once involved main landing gear have made the up locks it sends power through both switches up lock switches which your wire didn't know series and that provides the electrical power to the closest solenoid to close those doors and that that happened no big deal we got over Ione and what I wanted to do is drop the landing gear at altitude to make sure that we're gonna get the wheels down because that's the next worst-case scenario as the damn wheels don't lock down so I want to get the wheels lock down I want to slow the airplane down install it to verify the airspeed indicators accurate as to what I think it should install that so that the landing could be a safe one with the indicated airspeed I said expected and I threw the wheels out and I could feel them unlock and from my flights and the Sanders airplane it you know it's pretty quick you can feel it you can hear it clunk clunk three green and I threw the wheel scale and nothing I know they're unlocked but I have no greens I have two Reds for the interior doors and no greens and I'm waiting and waiting and I called Dennis and I said well what do you see and he said well they're out I said well they're out of there down so well hold on let me go look a little bit closer and about that time I got a tail wheel lock green light on the tail way well there's a tail wheel and so so I yog one direction a little bit and it locked down I got a green light so out the other direction and I got a green light well I got three green and Genesis good don't touch anything well yeah I agree I agree we're at 8,000 feet over IO I'll stall it and I'll just put some flaps down and come on around and land anyway got the airplane on the ground he went around I turned around and parked the airplane on the ramp and shut it down and shortly thereafter he's he's out there as well and I'm out of the airplane and and I got to tell you Roger I felt pretty damn good Judy showed up with my brother and friend Scott Carter in the bonanza five or ten minutes later and that's that's a pretty good feeling the fact after we got done you know slapping hands and so forth I just sat in the shade next to the sea furiousness just looked at like wow there it is it's flown and it's in one piece and it's happy and there's no oil on it and here we are at iOS [Music] you well this the front cockpit of the sea fury the it's got a proper British spade grip this is one of the more difficult things to find for the project it's just a very nice natural way to put your hand this is for transmit this is a proper switch it's not wired to anything but back in the day that turned on the gun camera and you can also armed the guns and the rockets that would be fire the guns that would be dropped the bombs and/or fire the Rockets that's all safe we try to retain as much of the Britishness as we could with the understanding that we intend to fly the airplane you

Channel: rogerawhite

Views: 328,766

Keywords: Dwelle Hawker Sea Fury, Hawker Sea Fury, Sea Fury, Airplane Restoration

Id: RZD-neFeIxc

Length: 20min 14sec (1214 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 28 2017