We reconvened at Teesside yesterday for our first visit to the Trident of 2011, determined to make progress on the horizontal stabiliser which had delayed us so much. In tow we had MSD Cranes along with their cutter, Stan, SAS Access with their cherry picker and operator, and Henderson Engineering ready to cut the bolts. [...]
We’re looking for an experienced disc cutter to join the team on site at Durham Tees Valley Airport over our next few visits to G-ARPO. Can anyone help out? We’ll need someone on 13th January if possible, and then further days in late January/early February, and then a couple of days in March. We need [...]
Let us take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year and all the best for 2011. For us, we hope it will bring swift progress on our bid to take G-ARPO up to Sunderland, and we’re aiming to meet in the next couple of weeks to start again. We now have the [...]
As you would expect, the wintry conditions have put a temporary halt to work on G-ARPO. More than 1ft of snow fell over a few days, and freezing conditions have made the site very icy. While we await warmer times, here’s two pictures of our Trident looking serene and chilly in the winter sun with [...]
With the problems we’re having removing the horizontal stabiliser from G-ARPO, we’ve been in touch with Henderson Engineering to arrange them cutting out the eight bolts which hold it in place. It is obvious that we can’t lift the stabiliser off without removing the bolts, so with recommendation from Serco, Hendersons have agreed to do [...]
We convened at Durham Tees Valley again yesterday to have another go at removing the horizontal stabiliser from G-ARPO. This time we arranged for two cranes to attend, in the hope that these would keep the stabiliser level as it was lifted, and thus keep the bolts and pivot point from locking it in place. [...]
The team were poised to meet at our Trident on 4th November, armed with extra cranes and cutting equipment to ensure the horizontal stabiliser would finally come off. However, on safety grounds we were unable to meet as a severe weather warning had been put in place. We can’t operate at height when wind speeds [...]
SAS Powered Access have stepped in to provide a cherry picker truck to give access to the tail of the Trident when cutting it off. This company are based in Leeds and are experts in this kind of equipment. They kindly donated the use of their truck and an operator to help us when using [...]
Hire Station’s Cannon Park branch in Middlesbrough have been helping us out with our recent work on the Trident by giving us some great deals on the tools we need to use. This is a national company with branches all over, but I can only talk of this particular branch and say they’re a great [...]
We took some time on 30 September to make a little more progress with the horizontal stabiliser ready to lift it off. We are learning a lot about Trident 1′s as we progress – for example later models have access panels on top of the stab to give access to the pins holding it in [...]
