A tale of wood and metal planes

Apparently my last post on downsizing has struck a chord with many.  Who knew it was such a popular subject??

Strangely enough, since publishing it, friends have been bringing me some of their "stuff".
Go figure :-)

The first plane to land at my door was a wooden try plane, followed a few days later by another plane, this one a 1/72 scale, metal model of a CF-18 Hornet painted in my former squadron,
425 Sqn  60th anniversary colour scheme.  How cool is that ?? :-)

Thank you Keith for the Try plane and thanks to Ian, my last Sqn Chief and friend, for thinking about me with this CF18 model of one of my former Sqn.
Much appreciated guys.

The taped repair is my own BooBoo.

Rudy ever expanding toy box in background for size.

Rudy is off the frame just long enough to snap this pic.

Where are you going with my toys Dad??

Lets look at them in the order I received them.

The Try Plane

At 21 inches, in wooden plane parlance it's a Try plane or short jointer.

The discoloration on the side of the nose is just that. It's solid wood. 

That discolored side spot does not extant to the sole.

The sole has a big scratch

The strike button at the nose has been saw off flush a long time ago, but why???

The handle shape fit my hand very well.

Its style look early to my eye. Early 1800s.

Not sure about the strange whitish line.  An earlier messy re-glue operation? 

That handle is sitting correctly and secured.  Looks original.

The wedge is proper and came off easily, after shocking the plane body

The blade on the other hand is solidly frozen in place

You can see how much I moved it forward by tapping the nose.

Followed by tapping the heel to retract it.

These apparent large cracks do not go very far but I opened them

 up a bit while driving down the blade to unstuck it.

That blade is really tight.

It finally came out after much tapping on the heel and tapping 

on the captive brass nut with a wooden stick to push it out. 

OK so I may had been getting overly aggressive

 tapping it out with my wooden carpenter mallet.

Oups...  It's beech wood incidentally

Blade is 2-1/4 in wide

Robt Sorby tapered blade with a solid chip breaker

I did not saw any makers name on the toe, but there may be something, 

just cant see it much ...yet.  I'll play with my USB microscope and find out.

The construction details looks more shop made

 than commercial made.  To my eye.

The ends of the wooden wedge are rounded up (wear) and looks like 

will cause some shaving trapping.  May have to reshape the ends 

or make a new wedge.  Will see.

So off to the Evaporust bath with the metal bits while we look at the next plane to land my way.

Since I had some room I added  a chisel and a round plane blade.

They both look like they are due for a soak before it's too late to salvaged them.

Other recent attractions that followed me home (Tm). 

What can I say, I have a magnetic personality, hence I attract rusty objects :-)

The Demo bird, CF18 in its 60th anniversary 
of 425 Sqn, paint scheme in 2002

Each year they paint one demo jets with a theme paint job.

In 2002 there were two Demo jets painted, the usual one,

 plus one for celebrating 425 Sqn anniversary

I served in 3 Wing from 2006-2011.  After doing a turn at the maintenance Squadron 3 EMA (AMS in English) I moved to the Operational Sqn, 425 ETAC from 2009-2011

The Maint officers and Senior NCMs of 425 Sqn,

in front of the ill fated 2010 demo bird.  It crashed.

I was the Master Warrant Officer (Adjum in French) 

Senior Aircraft Maintenance Superintendent.(SAMS)

of the Squadron.  The world's best job!! :-)

The other side of the aircraft, sport l'ecusson de la troisieme Escadre.

3 Wing Bagotville, where the Sqn is co-located with 433 Sqn.

Underside shot, featuring the false canopy.

And amazingly, it evens has a feature that solved the Funky chicken dancing phenomenon of the vertical stabs (on the early birds we got off the assembly line).  The addition of a big bulky ugly bracket at the juncture to the fuselage and the Lex fence, to re-direct the airflow.   

Wonder if the model also has any trace of its then  recently performed center barrel section replacement project to build up more flying hours?? :-)

All that to say, its pretty well and accurately detailed. 

I did purchase a metal scale model of an airplane in Bagotville before leaving, but I did not remember which one.

So off we go fetcher the model in question.  Still in its box, has yet to be opened and assembled (small pieces).

My model in question was the Avro Arrow CF-105.

The old cardboard box is from the early plastic model that was released by Aurora.

It is incidentally the model in question which spurred my interest in aviation.

I thought I knew my military aircraft models, but I never heard of the Arrow before purchasing the model in 1964.  That, and it was a Canadian plane??   This infamous fighter aircraft that could had been, was, as most Canadian projects are, well ahead of its time and bloody expensive.  They were also planing a Mach 3 version. It got cancelled in 1959, and everything ordered destroyed.  The resulting brain drain of some of our best Aerospace engineers went on to work on the Franco/Anglo supersonic Concorde and helped put man on the moon.   

I'm guessing both my newly acquired Hornet, 

and this Arrow, are the same scale, 1/72 

Try plane has its new booboo fixed, blade assembly

 is de-rusted but not sharpen.

Bird has been A Checked, ready for the barn.

Bob, who has a mess of stuff soaking in Evaporust,,, a suivre :-)