Beaufort A9-141 Restoration – July 2018

Warbirds Online recently visited the Australian Aviation Heritage Centre located at Caboolture, Qld to review the progress on the restoration of DAP/ Bristol Beaufort A9-141. Progress since we last visited has been steady but constant and the hard working team have completed many items required to progress the goal to get the Beaufort airworthy.

Work has continued on the wings with the starboard one due to be fitted imminently with all the mounts finished. The Port wing is nearing completion with just the leading edge skin to be manufactured and refitted prior to mounting it on the aircraft.

Both of the aircrafts ailerons have been completed and are ready to be fitted when the outer wing panels are in place. Both oil tanks have commenced restoration and will soon be ready for fitting. In addition, suitable original straps have been located and are to be refurbished for refitting the tanks.

Work has commenced on the rebuilding of the main fuel tanks and a cradle/ jig has been constructed to ensure the completed items will be accurate and fit into the wings when completed. The main tank capacity is 694 Imperial gallons, so they are quite large components and have to be constructed from scratch using the old ones as templates whilst retaining some of the original refurbished fixtures and fittings.

One side of the aircrafts oil coolers consisting of two items are being pressure and flow tested to ensure they are fully serviceable and the other two are also about to be tested and once returned will be fitted to the wings along with all the associated plumbing. Interestingly the DAP Beaufort and the Beaufighter share the same component oil coolers despite having radically different engines. The complex and difficult covers for the oil coolers have also been manufactured and are ready for fitting – these are amongst the most complex sheet metal work we have ever seen and are beautifully made.

The gun rails have also been restored ready for refitting to the wings. In addition, both the pilots’ windows from the cockpit have been manufactured and one has been fitted with the other to be added shortly.

The molds have also been made for the Perspex wing tips and these will be manufactured shortly. This is a very complex and difficult item as they have to be vacuum “blown” in the mold using heat to reshape the Perspex. On the subject or Perspex, the landing light cover has also been remanufactured ready for fitting.

A major milestone in the Beauforts progress is that the work in rebuilding a set of engines for the aircraft has commenced with the dispatch of several crankshafts for the Pratt & Whitney R-1830-S3C4-G Twin Wasp radial piston engines to Peter Brooke at Historical Aircraft Engines in Brisbane. Once the crankshafts have been tested a start can be made on building up the two power plants needed for the aircraft and hopefully a spare as well. This engine work is both expensive and time consuming so it will take a while to complete.

So work has advanced very well since our last visit to Beaufort A9-141 and progress is expected to gather speed in future months so stay tuned for further progress.

As always, AAHC Qld welcomes financial donations to fund the ongoing restoration and should you wish to volunteer contact AAHC Qld via their website.

© John Parker 2018