WESTLAND LYSANDER V9312

History
Lysander V9312, owned since 2003 and under restoration by ARCo was built by Westlands during 1940, taken on charge at 33 M.U. on the 4th January 1941 and subsequently served with 612, 225 and 4 Squadrons. On 26th April 1942 whilst serving with 4 Squadron it suffered Category B accident damage. Repaired at Fairfield’s Watford, it was converted to target tug status and sent to Liverpool, from where it sailed for Canada arriving on 18th October 1942. In Canada, it served with the Commonwealth Air Training Plan at Mossbank, Saskatchewan.

V9312 last flew on the 30th December 1944, then came into the possession of Harry Wherreat at Assiniboa, Saskatchewan. It was kept in storage until sold to Kermit Weeks at Polk City, Florida. No restoration work took place by Week’s organization and the aircraft subsequently came to ARC at Duxford.

Restoration Progress

The wings were the first items to be restored. All of the wooden ribs had rotted away, but initial examination of the spars, leading edge ‘D’ section and tubular rear structure, showed only a small amount of surface corrosion.

The wings were jigged and striped down to their basic components, and the aileron flaps and slats removed. These would be restored by volunteer staff while the main wings would be worked on by an ARCo engineer. Leading edge skin and tubular sections were removed and the wing stripped down to the main spar. Each piece taken off was cleaned, inspected for air worthiness, labeled, and put on the shelf ready for painting. Both wing attachment mounts had been bent and new ones were made. Apart from this, only two tubes missing on one wing had to be replaced, plus two leading edge skins and the wing tip on the other. All components were primed and painted before assembly, the tubular structure being held together with fitch plates and ferrules. These ferrules are an interference fit and held in by long rivets, hand made to suit each application.

Once assembled the wooden ribs were manufactured. These consist of two pieces of spruce which are steamed into their aerofoil shape and glued together. A rebate is machined into the top surface of each one. The rib is then constructed around the tubular structure of the wing, each stretcher between top and bottom rib is glued into place and reinforced by birch ply facings. The fabric is held to the rib by a split pin passing through the rebate cleated over a burr washer and held down by a wire passing through each split pin. Each rib consists of about twelve to fourteen hours work and there are 21 wooden ribs per wing.

Volunteer staff restored the slats, flaps and ailerons. These were stripped back to component form, paint stripped, examined, repaired or renewed as necessary, painted and put back together. In the meantime, the slat and aileron control systems were refitted to the wings along with new wire and balance control cables. To date, both wings are complete and stored awaiting fabricing.

The fuselage then moved into the workshop. As with the wings, the Canadian environment had been fairly kind to the metal, but all of the woodwork had rotted away. Before stripping of the components, we visited the RAF Museum, Hendon, who kindly let us examine their Lysander to take numerous photos and measurements of the woodwork. Their Lysander is the only one in the UK on which the woodwork is totally original. With this information we were able to make hardboard templates and by using the existing witness marks still showing on the fuselage were able to make the templates with a great deal of accuracy. These were put to one side for future use.

The Bristol Mercury engine was found to be the original fitted when the aircraft left Westlands and it is hoped to restore this engine.

Work on the front fuselage commenced by removal of the components. Each piece was paint stripped, examined for air worthiness, painted and put on the shelf ready for use. The fuselage is constructed using ferrules, rivets and bolts through fitch plates, and the tubes are open ended so we were able to examine the insides of the tubes, happily found to be free of corrosion. The only tubes that required removal were the front and rear spar tubes in order to allow examination of the wing attachment points.

Control column, rudder pedals, instrument panel and pneumatic systems were removed, cleaned, examined and painted, then added to the shelf whilst the fuselage went away for bead blasting. Upon return this was painted and re-assembly commenced.

The rear fuselage is of different construction to that of the front in that it is a steel tube and welded construction. This had to be x-rayed and some internal corrosion on a small number of tubes was indicated, these will have to be replaced.

Watch this sight for further updates on our ‘Lizzie’.