FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mary E Emich
Director of Marketing, Sales and Visitor Services
Arizona Aerospace Foundation
6000 East Valencia Rd
Tucson, AZ 85756
Phone 520 574-0462
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COME OUT FROM YOUR BUNKER MAY 18th TO SEE THE BRITISH INVASION, including the newly restored Avro Shackleton, AT PIMA AIR & SPACE MUSEUM
Tucson, AZ—Apr. 18, 2013. The British have landed! Mobilize your crew to explore all things English as PASM celebrates the 60th anniversary of its newly restored Avro Shackleton marine patrol plane on May 18th. Spy classic United Kingdom Triumph motorcycles and other wheels. Sample culinary delights of the Commonwealth at our Flight Grill. Gather reconnaissance in the Shackleton’s belly. Climb into the English Electric Lightning cockpit too, the only domestically-developed Mach 2 operated by the Royal Air Force. Climb aboard the “British Invasion Trolley” for a free ride to see 12 of our 13 British aircraft outside. (Lucky 13 is in an air-cooled hangar.) All included with paid admissions on May, 18, 2013 during normal operating hours (9 to 5, with the last admittance at 4:00pm).
ABOUT THE SHACKLETON:
http://www.pimaair.org/collection-detail.php?cid=386
Soon after the end of World War II the Royal Air Force issued a requirement for a new four-engine long-range maritime patrol plane to replace its American-made Liberators and Fortresses. The Avro company responded with a new design based on the Lincoln bomber. The aircraft used the Lincoln's wings and landing gear as well as parts from the earlier Lancaster bomber but with a shorter fuselage and higher powered Rolls-Royce Griffon engines driving six-blade counter rotating propellers. The new design was named Shackleton after the famous British South Pole explorer and entered service in February 1951. Beginning in 1971 a dozen Shackleton MR.2s were modified into Airborne Early Warning aircraft by the addition of radar systems and domes removed from the Fairey Gannet. These aircraft served with the RAF until 1991 when the last of them were retired.
| Technical specifications | |
|---|---|
| Wingspan | 120 ft |
| Length | 87 ft 4 in |
| Height | 17 ft 6 in |
| Maximum Speed | 300 mph |
|
Service Ceiling |
20,200 ft |
| Range | 3,660 miles |
| Engines | 4 Rolls-Royce Griffon Mk. 58 with 2,450 horsepower each |
| Crew | 10 |
http://www.pimaair.org/collection-detail.php?cid=97
ABOUT PIMA AIR & SPACE MUSEUM
The Pima Air & Space Museum is one of the largest aviation museums in the world, and the largest non-government funded aviation museum in the United States. The museum maintains a collection of more than 300 aircraft and spacecraft from around the globe and more than 125,000 artifacts. Exhibits at the museum include some of the world’s greatest aviation heritage, including military, commercial, and civil aviation. Among them are the SR-71 Blackbird (the world’s fastest spy plane), a B-29 Superfortress (the WWII bomber that flew higher, farther and faster and carried more bombs) and a rare World War II German V-1 "buzz bomb." The museum has five large hangars totaling more than 177,000 indoor square feet—almost four football fields¬—of air/space craft, heroes’ stories and scientific phenomena. In addition, the 390th Bombardment Group (Heavy) Memorial Museum is located on the museum grounds. Pima Air & Space maintains its own aircraft restoration center and offers exclusive tours of the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), also known as the “Boneyard,” on the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base grounds. Pima Air & Space Museum is located at 6000 E. Valencia Rd. in Tucson. More information about the museum can be found at www.pimaair.org, on Facebook, or by calling 520 574-0462.
Note: the 390th Bombardment Group (Heavy) Memorial Museum, also located on the PASM museum grounds, is temporarily closed for remodeling.
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Attachments: Photos of the Shackleton as it is being restored. Note the intricate riveting covering about 50,000 square feet of surface area. Before painting, the entire surface must be hand sanded; a machine would grind up the rivets.
