About the fuselage frame of VL Myrsky MY-5

When the restoration project of VL Myrsky was launched, three damaged Myrsky fuselage frames were available at the Finnish Air Force Museum in Tikkakoski. The rear section has been violently cut away from all three fuselage frames. The least damaged fuselage frame of MY-14 was chosen for the restoration project. This is how the project became the restoration project of the VL Myrsky MY-14 fighter. The MY-14 fuselage rear section, which has been cut off, has disappeared and therefore the rear section of MY-9 was chosen to be connected to the MY-14 fuselage frame. Also a fourth Myrsky fuselage frame (MY-10) exists, in a private collection, and there have been negotiations about purchasing it for the Myrsky project.

The MY-14 fuselage with its engine and control equipment is mainly restored at the Finnish Air Force Museum in Tikkakoski. The main task of the Aviation Museum Society’s Tuesday Club is to build in Vantaa in co-operation with the Finnish Aviation Museum the other parts of the fighter, such as the wings with all their equipment, the parts of the tail and to build the parts for the nose, e.g. the front engine cowling, NACA-ring and the engine cowlings on the sides.

Photo: Jorma Laakkonen.

The restoration project started in 2013 and the development of the project has been followed all the time on homepages of the Aviation Museum Society and Myrsky Project, and also in yearly journals. In Tikkakoski the restoration of MY-14 fuselage is already quite far. In Vantaa the Tuesday Club has prepared the tail parts and the wings to the point where their surfaces can be honed smooth and painted. The aim is that the restored – but static – MY-14 can be placed on display during the year 2021.

The second best Myrsky fuselage from Tikkakoski, i.e. MY-5, was also taken into the restoration project with its separate rear fuselage and engine mounting. The MY-5 fuselage frame has its own important role in the Myrsky restoration project. Some useful parts have been dismantled from the fuselage frame and repaired in Tikkakoski for the needs of the MY-14 fuselage frame restoration. On the other hand, the fuselage frame of the MY-5 will be used by the Tuesday Club for the fitting of Myrsky’s wings. The wing positioning and fastening will be tested on the fuselage frame by the Tuesday Club before the wings are sent to Tikkakoski to be installed on the fuselage of MY-14.

Additionally, an even bigger role has been planned for the MY-5 fuselage frame. It will be used to build a demo-fuselage of the Myrsky-fighter to illustrate the metal and wood structure of the aircraft. The 2.5-meter piece of the starboard test wing and the 1-meter piece of the port test wing will be fastened on the fuselage frame. Before building the actual wings, the test wings have been built to test the methods how to build the complicated root of the wing with the landing gear and how to lock the wing halves to each other with steel plates.

The rear fuselage of MY-5, brought from Tikkakoski to Vantaa to the Finnish Aviation Museum, has already been used in the Myrsky-project. The badly rusted rear fuselage frame was straightened in a jig, specially made for the purpose, and sandblasted and painted, using grey alkyd paint. After this the rear fuselage has been used by the Tuesday Club to fit and support the horizontal and vertical stabilizers when they are being built.

The fuselage frame and engine mounting of MY-5 were brought from Tikkakoski to the Finnish Aviation Museum in Vantaa on July 21st, 2020. The MY-5 fuselage was transported by the Myrsky-project’s PR-man, on his holiday trip to Ostrobothnia. On Friday 10.7 on his way there he took the trailer and “some Myrsky items” to Tikkakoski. On Tuesday 14.7 a group of Tuesday Club members travelled to Tikkakoski and moved, with some assistance from the Air Force Museum, the MY-5 fuselage frame and engine mounting on the trailer to wait for the transportation. The unusual load travelled successfully to the Finnish Aviation Museum on 21.7. Fortunately, the traffic was rather quiet and it wasn’t raining.

When the fuselage frame was outside the museum, the cargo straps were unfastened. Then the MY-5 fuselage was lifted from the trailer with a forklift and placed on the ground to wait for cleaning and repair. The badly rusted and partly bent and damaged fuselage frame will be straightened and cleaned by sandblasting, straightened and repaired, and then painted grey. Behind the cockpit some frame pipes have been bent and some are even missing.

Left photo: Heikki Kaakinen.

The assembly jig, which was made from square steel pipe for the straightening of MY-14’s fuselage frame, was re-assembled and modified for the MY-5 work. The jig was fastened on the four brackets by the cockpit on the MY-5 fuselage. These brackets are used for fastening the wings with four fastening bolsters on the wings.

Photo: Heikki Kaakinen.

The MY-5 fuselage frame, now fastened on the assembly jig, will be measured carefully and straightened. The places of some parts or their fastening brackets will be defined and photographed before they are dismantled for cleaning. Also the rusty engine mounting, brought from Tikkakoski, will be cleaned by sandblasting and painted.

When the fuselage frame has been cleaned and painted, the rear fuselage frame (which has already been restored earlier) will be welded to it. Then the MY-5 fuselage frame will be ready to serve as the fitting frame or assembly jig for the MY-14 wings, and later as the basis of the Myrsky demo fuselage. The MY-5 demo fuselage will be restored so that the structures remain visible in the way they were left visible when building the short test wings. The restoration of this demo fuselage is not the main priority at the moment, the work will be started when the restoration of the MY-14 has been completed.

Photos (except if separately otherwise mentioned): Lassi Karivalo

Translation: Erja Reinikainen.