The boys have been busy now that the the airshow is over. They have had a number of jobs on the go, one job recently completed was belt winding spool for a Sopwith Triplane. This was machined from an original drawing from aluminium.
We are excited to have one of our 100hp Gnome engines being fitted to a locally based Sopwith Pup that will be displaying at Yealand Classic Fighters being held over Easter Weekend here at Omaka Airfield. As part of this process we have taken the 80hp LeRhone Rotary engine off the airframe, and we [...]
The original P40 Hydraulic Hand Pump barrels were cast in steel. CAMS intended replicating the casting but when the cast units did not arrive on schedule, in order to meet delivery times CAMS decided to machine them, absorbing the additional cost. The machined barrels were bead blasted than cadmium plated. The [...]
When parts are fitted, classic or modern, they arrive from the manufacturer set out with pilot holes. When the new part is fitted into the receiving part the final rivet holes are drilled out using a hand held drill. While the final hole should exactly follow the pilot hole, for various reasons that is not [...]
The Royal Aircraft Factory Farnborough developed the RAF 1A based on the 70 HP Renault Aero engine. Approximately 2800 RAF 1A's were manufactured by 6 different manufacturers. No operational RAF 1A engines remain. The engine is rated at 90 HP at 1600 RPM and short bursts of 100 HP at 1800 RPM (getaway mode). [...]
We have been reverse engineering and remanufacturing hard or impossible to get aircraft parts for many years. We have previously made Gnome cylinders too and we reverse engineered the RAF-1A V8 motor - so we had no concerns about our technical capabilities. But there’s a difference between making one-offs and a production run. We [...]
HISTORY REMADE On Friday the 31st January 2014 at 3.35pm history was remade at the Omaka Airfield, Marlborough, New Zealand. A moment of great excitement and relief after some initial issues around timing were resolved – then the distinctive firing of one cylinder – a puff of smoke - a moment’s hesitation and then [...]
