salavge squad Gyroplane

[Music] who knows what lurks beneath the quiet facade of a normal suburban street this week the salvage would descend on Stockport but believe it or not behind this garage door is an historic flying machine this is the house of Roger Light he's a gardener by trade but he bought this house under the flight path to Manchester Airport perfect freeze our favorite hobby plane spotty and when he's not potting plants or spotting planes you'll find him working on his dream a museum dedicated a motorbike of the aviation world the giant Lane they're a rare Beast and if you've ever seen one before it was probably a 1967 Bond film You Only Live Twice when double-oh-seven wiped out Blofeld's helicopters in a gyroplane called little nelly but bonds gyroplane wasn't just some piece of kit dreamt up by cue and to prove it Rogers got five of them all line in pieces in easel often garage and it's one of those the cell which would have come to get flying again but if they do it won't be Roger at the controls but surely if you're intervene the best part of it is the actual flying you would have this strong urge to fly I love aviation but I'm not a lover of flying in a sort of light and we do want it put back together so you can fly it love to see it flying again pride of place in Rogers collection is this gyro plane she's named after the last two letters of a registration VK as part of a British Airways display team she attended nearly 200 air shows like this one at RAF abingdon in 1981 it's 13 years since she last flown but the squad already have a booked him for our next appearance in two weeks time they hutch shall take her place amongst the Spitfires and hurricanes at the Duxford air display in Cambridgeshire like all modern gyroplanes VK consists of a simple go-kart like frame onto which all the other parts are bolted to rotor blades provide the lift but surprisingly they're not powered by the engine instead they spin by themselves and reach speeds of up to 400 revolutions per minute the engine is there to power the propeller which drives the Jarrah plane forward just like an ordinary plane they're almost forgotten al but gyroplanes date right back to the early days of flight they were for a while the most maneuverable aircraft in the sky and gyro pilots love to show off their skills taking part in horse races and even landing on the White House lawn decades before the first helicopter but if vkz even going to take off she needs a major makeover so the squad are taking her to Wallingford in Oxfordshire to the workshops of the man who designed and built her almost 30 years ago Peter Lovegrove did the ground jump up and hit it and we found a sad-looking gyrocopter which we believe may have some connection with you this is the propeller as you well know and as you've just rightly pointed out it's not in the best of State and we've actually got the gyrocopter outside Peter he's a brilliant engineer and he has to be VK might look like a go-kart but underneath that eccentric exterior is an airplane anything goes wrong and it drops out of the sky it has to be rebuilt to the same standards as a commercial airliner this is going to be a tough learning curve for the squad as some tasks may simply be beyond them what do you think but superficially it looks right I know but can I just could I just say that the broad terms the Thames is about half a mile down that way wheel it down ooh chuck it in VK looks like the gyroplane Peter design 30 years ago but appearances can be deceptive she's actually a museum piece nice scrap and as the squad begin to strip her down Peter soon spots the real from the fake I don't think so it's not made control natural fun oh we can't we might might be having hey I'd be able to use some bits they are quite nicely made this is actually wrong it's not the right it's not correctly made we can't use the mast pile over here don't you see this guy's but at the moment this is our gyrocopter yeah what a gyroplane job I beg your pardon it's not there's an American train well I didn't recognize it this is it so we've got a bit wire I have the metal and all the wheels right wheel or will we may have three wheels then off should we just should we just knock up a go-kart and call it a day gyro plane or gyro copter the squad of just two weeks to turn this pile of bits into a flying machine to get her airborne claire is going to have to relearn the art of drilling axle would find that even laying a gyro paint RP is a job too far and Jerry will almost caused a divorce and it will all happen under the eagle eye of Peter Lovegrove who will make sure their work is never less than perfect while the squad get down to work I'm off on my travels to find out a bit more about this strange aircraft they are in the autogyro I've ever seen is little Nellie in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice so today I must to see the guy who not only flew in the film actually invented it as well Wing Commander Kim Wallace Ken's 85 now and probably well past flying but still wanted to make sure that wide scene in that Bond film when I was a kid was more than a model with a few strings attached okay 1918 could be started up and flown and this this is little Nelly the name there double-oh-seven yes we thought when you were asked to do that I hadn't seen a Bond film Ken's been designing and flying gyroplanes it's the end of world war two and has even knocked up a couple of two-seaters well let's try it out let me get behind it well it's not going to topple forward is it actually what this passenger was thinking was I'll bet you 50 quid this thing can't really fly so Ken's out to prove me wrong 85 years of age aims off the ground in about 20 foot is buzzed around like a teenager I've always seen myself as a bit of a double O seven and as soon as Ken was back on the ground I was making all kinds of stupid promises for when the squad gets a gyroplane flying again whatever make a deal with you and if we get the right type works or today you take day two and the squad are beginning to turn the ten air worthy pieces of vacatur gyroplane back into a flying machine Clare is working with VK is original designer Peter Lovegrove to make a new keel the main member onto which all other pieces are to be bolted this is what the restoration starts with a piece of brand-new material for the main member hard to think we're gonna turn this into flying machine first the metal will have to be drilled with dozens of holes to take all the other components first hole is 64 millimeters from the end and as Clare's about to find out when someone's life depends upon it drilling becomes more than just a skill it's a high art fake Hayes mainframe is made from ultralight aluminium as a result every nut and bolt has to fit precisely we would take this across now faced with drilling this many holes any normal person would whip our quarter inch drill bit and get on with it but the problem is that a quarter inch drill bit almost always results in a hole which is slightly off-center and slightly bigger than a quarter of an inch not a problem when putting up shows on a wall but a big problem when it comes to putting planes up in the air so Claire and Peter will drill each hole not once but four separate times first they drill a tiny pilot hole right through the center of the dot this ensures that the next slightly larger hole is exactly centered on the original position so just making the whole tiny tiny bit bigger drill will find it accurately yeah you don't need to go right away to you say what it was you just relaxed a bit you've got a bit carry and then it caught you on next clay uses a drill bit mm of an inch smaller than the final size she wants the hole to be finally the last bits of metal no thicker than a human hair are removed using a special drill called a reamer you've got a nicely polished surface so to get the final hole you have to mark out one pilot hole slightly larger pilot hole main drill and then ream it yeah that's for operation yeah that's why I say attack we've only done one edge of two sides we've got the other edge of this side and all of these to them it's gonna be late night Wow the result is a hole that's as near to perfect as a human being can achieve so we've done one edge of one pair sides over speed up it's taken Peter and the squad two whole days to make the parts for V Kay's frame but at last they're ready to bolt them together every nut and bolt is crucial and Peter won't let the squad do anything unless he's watching not something they used to it's the type of assembly job that normally doing their stride but this is like going back to school because by the time VK flies Peters determined to turn them into aeronautical engineers whether they like it or not [Music] at the end of day 4 the squad of completed vks mainframe work to Peter's exacting standards and they take it off to a specialist for painting happy to be out of the hot house I wanted to find out more about the early days of the gyroplane whatever happens at a huge machines of the 20s and 30s and why did they end up as little sports machines like VK that's why I've ended up at the helicopter museum in weston-super-mare to meet the curator elven a police and look at the remains of one of the most famous gyroplanes of them all the see ever see 30 a all right so Alvin this is the granddaddy of them all that's right this is the oversea 30a this looks slightly different from yes the altar jars in that period and this is a model exactly like the airplanes of the day were built that's right canvas covered fuselage engine in the front of the aircraft and of course turning but the principle is exactly the same even though this one-hour one we've got the propeller behind yeah the pilot the inventor of the gyro plane was juan de la cierva a spanish mathematician who originally invented the free spinning rotors as a kind of parachute for a conventional airplane allow it's a land almost vertically if anything went wrong although he never actually thought of power in his rotors it was his work on the gyroplane that paved the way for the helicopter certainly these successful helicopters as opposed to the old various funny attempts that went on relied on some of the sea ever patents to make it work and really the basic difference was that of course the helicopter could actually stand still in the air yeah and move backwards which the autogyro couldn't do it could almost stand still if there was a good headwind but the helicopter was just that much more maneuverable and that was really why after the war development of big autogyro stopped but developments of the small ones for people to build as kits developed out of that and became very popular the problem with early helicopters was keeping them stable but this was a problem that Sierra had solved over 15 years before the key was in the rotor head that bear him right in the middle between the two rotor blades only helicopter designers had simply bolted their rotors onto the rotor head it was only when they adopted service design which allowed each rotor to hinge a little where he joined the rotor head did they end up with a stable aircraft assembling vacates complex rotor head is Jerry's next job but he soon comes up against a problem what's that word I'm searching for we have a problem we have a problem Houston or somebody that needs to travel all the way around that's supposed to come past okay let's not cry over it problems are there to be solved know is this a problem with me or is this of knowledge you know I said you I couldn't understand why I had that drawing yes it's because that drawing is probably not the one that we finally used that's an original which I changed later in flight V K's rotors don't need any power but to start them turning they have to be temporarily connected to the engine via this small cog once they're spinning fast enough the engine is disconnected leaving them to spin freely on their own and it's the lever that disconnects the engine that's causing all the problems Jerry persuades Peter that a bit of bhajan is in order he lobs off the end of the lever and subjects it to a bit of drilling and finally hey where's your ring that's perfect you say yeah two hours later and amazingly Jerry's bow Jim passes Peters inspection thank you while the boys are finishing off the case frame and rotor head Claire takes the powerful two-liter Volkswagen engine off to Henstridge in Somerset to be repaired by specialist mechanic Tony melody I recognize that it's an old friend of mine this one Henstridge airfield is one of the few places you can learn to fly a gyroplane what's more Tony's a test pilot well capable of teaching Claire the basics okay regardless of deadlines she can't resist donning a crash helmet Tony's giving Claire a lesson in a gyro glider a driver plane attached to a car which pulls it through the air [Music] all they need is a bit of elbow grease to start the rotors turning and they're soon reaching the critical speeds necessary for takeoff back on the ground clearance Oni have to get to work meanwhile I'm on my travels again I wanted to find someone who actually knew VK when she was in her prime and who better than the man who flew a 180 air shows John kitchen the marvelous piece of kit really is this so maneuverable that's the nice thing about the audit area and you commit to anything on a sixpence you move law get around this guy even though John's day job was captain in a try staff British Airways and he'd clocked up over 250 hours in VK he was not immune from the dangers of flying so I understand you had a little bit of a prank I just flown in from Durham overnight and I was a bit tired and this was a big mistake and the gremlins in aviation wait until you're they're not quite ready for him John's engine failed which on a gyroplane is usually no problem the case should have descended gracefully on a free-spinning rotors stopping a few feet after touching the ground but John was too low to take the appropriate action I literally fell out the sky just into the ground bounced up in the air the boats hit the ground all flailed around but one of the broke off I think or perhaps - I can't know but now it doesn't matter and they're all the bits of fell to the ground and there I was just lying in there in the in the cockpit yeah what an idiot having heard the expense till go ding ding several times so I strapped myself and get out no probs at all I wasn't thinking me at all but it was quite impressive I think perhaps you'd be quite pleased anyway the next thing was that all the bells started ringing as the the blood wagons and the fire brigade were all preparing the world having a good go something to you see I'm charging it for goodness sake stop it fellows I tried to stop them and I think did yeah and so way towards the crowd and they all stood and looked at me as if I was a spook absolutely and I got in front of them I said I bet you enjoyed that didn't you especially the last partner but within a few months VK and John were back in the air again and soon had a new sponsor she continued to fly at the air shows until he sold her over 15 years ago so when was the last time you saw BK flying flying oh gosh well I passed VK on back in nineteen eighty five eighty five so we're looking like fifteen sixteen because two extended invitations here now if we get BK flying again would you like to come along and see if we can get up in the sky I can't promise that it's going to happen you know you can come along at very least you can look at it the squad are beginning to turn the gyroplane back into a flying machine I wanted to find someone who actually knew VK when she was in her prime and who better than the man who flew a 180 air shows John kitchen the fact that John was able to walk away after crashing VK was no doubt due to Peter loved Rove's painstaking approach to building her in the first place like any aeronautical engineer when Peter designed VK he specified the amount of twist or talk to be applied to each and every nut that way nothing would be damaged by being too tight or full off by being too loose to do this axel uses a tool called a torque wrench it can be set to tighten a nut a precise amount and no more once the nuts been tightened the wrench will click and Axel won't be able to tie any any further three days to go before V K's first test flight and Claire brings back the engine the squad get cracking first they've got to fit the tail plane in the main controls then they have to fit a brand new pilots pod the pod is the main body of the gyroplane it provides a mounting for the instruments and protection for the pilot it's been made out of glass fiber by a specialist but given the on proves a bit fiddly the job of applying VJs registration letters to the pod is right up Jerry Street when he's not working with the squad he spends much of his time restoring and racing classic sports cars and if there's a transfer or a paintbrush involved then Jerry's your man I'm gonna use Peters technique very nice cherry it's not on yet did I break the bottle of champagne nobody who's head or something I wear we're doing this it seems for the rather dramatic that's a lovely perfect even Peter's applauding buoyed up and raring to go Jerry can now indulges artistic side by painting up the pod fake A's appeared in a number of liveries over the years but the one we are going for is the original paint job she had when she was made in 1974 and for that a handlebar moustache worthy of any Squadron Leader needs to be applied cubed the first job is to mark out the shape of the moustache with tape which is when Jerry's individual approached the restoration becomes apparent that's an improvement on the original I'm gonna leave that be the original true to form Jerry's attempted to improve on the original which doesn't go down too well with these more purist colleagues on the can fine look you've got too deep here that is - that is too exaggerated yes why because in my humble opinion that looks ridiculous and this one but half reasonable I need to close enough approximation yeah yeah it's much much I've got it much deeper Jerry you you you can't make those sort of decisions like buy yourself one to enjoy just enjoy no problem because I'm sure you'll do much better job than I will it's not about who's the better sign but you understand the problem don't you Jerry thinks this is a new improved version it might seem trivial but the argument goes right to the heart of restoration make it how it was or make it better Jerry's vote is for better but the others don't agree and soon it's grounds for divorce so are you winning no we're still talking about it well having thought it over yes what about a compromise personally I think that looks a lot better yes right but you want more than the star shape right we're happy for 20 hours of this until we get it right we're just afternoon afternoon if Joe is just gonna do what he thinks is the best of your ability to do this the original design I will do this to the best of my ability but this is not about you [Music] because you think you know better you end up with nothing yeah and this is not one of your cars at home you can muck about with and improve the engine all the rest of it an original jurist raishin if you can't do its original then we stop someone else to do okay that concludes all lines yeah all right finally the shape of the moustache is agreed and everybody loves each other again but they've wasted precious time by now they should have had the engine fitted instead Gerry's left to paint on into the night by himself back at the helicopter museum I'd uncovered an amazing chapter in the history of the gyroplane having inspired the helicopter the gyro plane was gradually replaced by the more modern machine until it became not much more than James Bond's plaything but before that it's been a vital part of Britain's air defenses in the Battle of Britain he was sign about they had a military application what did they do because I don't remember anything about them during the war No very early days they were actually used to try and spot for the guns for instance in the Battle of France but after that they actually had a very important role in the Battle of Britain and about the Britain in the Battle of Britain are you sure cuz I've seen the films top secret radar was our most important secret weapon of the war and it turns out that the gyroplane was the key to making it work it was central to our victory in the Battle of Britain and it allowed us to detect incoming aircraft and guide our fighter planes towards them but at the time the gyroplanes involvement with radar was so secret that even today few people know the story which is why I traveled to an old world war 2 gun emplacement above the Bristol Channel to meet Squadron Leader Bazarov Arkell the last surviving pilot of the RAF five to nine gyroplane squadron it was a very secret we weren't allowed to say anything about it even to other people in the RAF you see when radar first started having these very sensitive aerials calibrated from an from a known position known Heights the radar works by firing a beam of radio waves at an incoming enemy plane and then recording its echo with a receiver using a bit of fancy maths you can then work out exactly where the plane is and send a Spitfire up to deal with it the problem was setting up the area was in the first place so that they gave you accurate readings for that you needed to park an object in the sky it's a known point and then tweak the system until it gave you the right answer it would have been a perfect job for a helicopter but in 1940 the only planes that came close to hovering where the gyroplanes of 5 to 9 squadron flown by men like Boswell Kell we carried a special responder device that the radar controller could direct his aerials onto and get a signal back from so you go out to a point just fly in a circle and so that we could control the machine without Basile when the Jarrah planes of five to nine squadron it's a good bet that we'd have lost the Battle of Britain but within four years basil was being retrained in the newfangled helical just in from America and the age of the gyroplane was coming to an end they done an incredible job during the war and it was all after that it was all helicopters it's now the final day of the restoration of vacatur gyroplane and the squad are working flat-out to get it ready for a flight test tomorrow there's the engine to go on Jerry's rotor head they'll have to stick down the carpet in the bottom of the pilots pod at last a job anyone can do just a bit of sticky tape or is it straight line come on COBOL your smoke please as far as anyone knows no aircraft has ever crashed because the carpet fitter didn't get the sticky tape perfectly straight but Peters not a man to take chances and 20 minutes later Vijay's carpet is finally stuck to perfection all she needs now is her instrument panel and a bit of last-minute tweaking and she'll be ready to fly the next morning with less than 24 hours to go before the Duxford air show VK is wheeled out onto a lonely airfield to undergo her all-important test flight the controls that she takes to the air for the first time in 13 years he's the man who rebuilt her engine gyroplane test pilot Tony melody only if he's completely happy with the squad's workmanship will he grant or a permit to fly it's a tense moment as he begins his preflight checks anything wrong and VK won't be going to Duxford Tony straps himself in time to fire up Vijay's engine the engine sounds sweet now Tony chicks are brakes and ground handling roses rotating for this pre-rotate push it yeah that'd be interesting next he engages the engine to spin up Vijay's rotors the nature takes over and the rotors are now spinning freely at almost 400 rpm tony's throttles up the engine for the first fly in 13 years the front wheel lifts and VK is heading for the skies yeah that's unbelievable with the squad cheering on VK is soon climbing through one hundred and fifty feet but Tony has sensed a problem and it looks like the Swan celebrations might be premature as Tony touches down the squad still don't realize there's a problem it's flying engine oil pressures failing and the temperatures coming up as well it definitely requires some attention I think we have to call a halt to it at this stage to push on will be tempting fate not really I mean the engines got all new parts in and in theory it should be perfect first thing to suspect is the gauge and go from there well I suppose the gauge is the simplest thing there could be something as simple as a faulty gauge it could indeed let's hope it's something so it's motor out take it away and get some indeed we will yes we want regular bulletins from the hospital all the squad can do is pack her up and head for home the next day dozens of historic aircraft begin to fly in for the Duxford airshow but sadly VK is not among them it wasn't a 40-hour gauge and Tony's had to strip down the whole engine to replace a leaking seal worse still it's a specially made part and it would take at least two weeks to get a new one dozens of historic aircraft begin to fly in for the Duxford airshow but sadly VK is not among them undaunted the squad decides to hold their own Leo show two weeks later VK is the only entrance and the invited audience consists of a current owner Roger light and the man who flew over 250 hours in ER Captain John kitchen I'll be honest with ya I expected it to be flying first kind of saw ya for it was a bit of time truthful it's not the sorry now it looks like great flying machine may be joined you might be a pilot talking to the guys in there excellent job almost doesn't matter didn't think it'd be possible but looking up sit somebody's got a lot of time yeah it wasn't me no John honest opinion the freighter boys and gay was done a good job Marvis really nice it's very pretty isn't it what do you think it's Punto I do think it's much better than when we first found it I have to admit and if we can get Tony to make it work properly and show us how it really flies it's gonna make my day thanks a lot strapped in for the second time Tony can only hope that Vijay's engine doesn't fail again try pulling out the choke [Music] do we start panicking he's coming really very nice Jenny she's almost Achtung landing with toothpicks degrees drop it in I'll even remove as the champagne corks were popping that came the sound of another gyro landing premise that if this flew you would fly in a two-seater oh my god

Channel: The Hot Red fox

Views: 5,498

Rating: 4.7446809 out of 5

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Id: zOxVglBTLJg

Length: 46min 29sec (2789 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 09 2016