Supermarine Aero Engineering Ltd

A bit of a diversion for this post but as you may be aware Supermarine Aero Engineering Ltd is located in Spitfire Designer Reginald Mitchells home city of Stoke-on-Trent, our works is located in the mother town of Stoke-on-Trent, Burslem. Many Potteries flourished in the town over the years including Royal Doulton, Burleigh, Wades & Moorcroft to name but a few. Our works was part of the former Sadler's Tea Pot Factory which has sadly gone the way of many of the local "pot banks" and has now been demolished and replaced with a modern apartment block.
The two photos show the changes in Burslem since world war two, the first was taken in 1937 with the many pottery bottle kilns, the second in 2009 during the demolition of the Saddlers site, we have highlighted our humble abode with white arrows.

Another batch of parts added to our stock list are the parts required to rebuild Spitfire undercarriage selectors. The unit shown here was assembled using all new internals, sleeves and seals as well as all external covers and functionally tested on our jig shown on a previous post.

Also shown here is one of the more artistic jobs we carry out from time to time, in this case the recovering of an original spade grip for one of our Duxford based customers, looks easy but takes quite a few hours to get it looking right, results in a very hard wearing but original looking item. As you can see those Airfix model building skills in our childhood still come in useful on the full scale item!

A couple of varied jobs requiring our attention. The first, a new cowling rail for one of the BBMF's Spitfires, sheet metal forming, riveting etc, it replaces the old one which was worn suffering from cracking.

Another string to our bow is the recent addition of control cables to our inventory (sorry)
These are manufactured in house using our own swaging equipment and then batch destruction and proof tested using our calibrated load cell pull test jig. These have been available from other sources as one off orders in the past but we will now add these to our stock to be supplied same day if required.
Pictures show the swaging tool, end fitting after destruction test and completed cables which match original specifications and design.

One of our contributions to the recent superb work by ARCo at Duxford on the BBMF's Avro Lancaster during her major maintenance. We were asked to recreate this radio aerial insulator from a rather frazzled original which took many hours of remodelling by one of our engineers, Andy Minton to recreate it.
As a bit of a quiz, these are now fitted to the Lanc now she is back in service, can anyone spot them on the aircraft? They are only about 6" long and fitted to the outside of the fuselage, no prizes I'm afraid!

As a result of the jig testing shown in the previous videos, here is the completed tail wheel retraction ram assemblies ready for release to customers.
This version includes a "shuttle valve"(the assembly that is wire-locked) which enables the tail wheel to be lowered using the emergency pneumatic blow down system if there is a failure of the aircrafts hydraulic system

The information gathered from work such as this gives us the information we need to release parts for customer use.

In this test we are proving the new cup seal which after a static pressure test is then subjected to 1000 operations, which is about 10 years worth of a typical Spitfires current life.

The jig is basically a complete Spitfire undercarriage system mounted in a condensed form on a mock up Spitfire fuselage frame(Frame 5)
The videos show it in operation where it can be used to test the undercarriage selector operation and seals, main undercarriage rams and tail wheel retract rams which is mounted on opposite sides of the jig.

Here's an example of our ongoing development work showing the lengths we go to ensuring our parts are fit for purpose.
Shown here is the work towards the manufacture of the tail wheel retract ram seal, a simple little item when shown in isolation but here we see the work required to return it to production.
The photos show the seal pack used in the ram, then the rather large and complex moulding tool to manufacture it and an image of the powered test jig we manufactured to test undercarriage hydraulics.

Just completed and added to our range, new manufacture rudder trim jack assemblies (Part No 37166-Sht-16), first batch on their way to the BBMF. This project has involved new castings, gear-cutting and precision machining of internal screw jacks, as always they are direct replacements and interchangeable with original wartime units.

Behind you!! Just completed and available ex-stock is a new batch of Spitfire Mirror stalks, new castings to suit the later round type mirrors which were also favoured by P51 pilots in World War 2

Just added to our range of parts available from stock are these tail wheel pivot blocks (Part Numbers 34926-25 & 26). These are the pivot point for the tail wheel leg, this type is for the Spitfire types using a fixed tail wheel.

Manufactured for an overseas customer these are a pair of Undercarriage Pintles, basically the main pivot for the undercarriage leg that takes all the impact of landings, many hours of work have gone into ensuring these items match the originals in every way.

A piece of precision work from our engineers, this time fuel gauge face plates for use on Spitfire fuel gauges.

Another small job for the BBMF, a new build camera window for a PR19 Spitfire, ready for fitment and paint.