The Myrsky Group of Tuesday Club completes its job

Maanantai 23.9.2024 - Tuesday Club member


Suomeksi

The eleven-year project of the Myrsky Group, to restore the aircraft registered as MY-14 of the WW2 fighter VL Myrsky II, has been brought to its conclusion. The restoration project was started in the autumn of 2013. In concrete terms, the Myrsky Group of the Tuesday Club and the Finnish Air Force Museum shared responsibility of carrying out the restoration, the latter concentrating in restoring the fuselage.

Generally, we talk about the restoration of the Myrsky, but there is also good reason to call it renewed production, as most of the Myrsky with its mixed construction had to be entirely built anew, based on the original drawings of the aircraft. This is how the construction of, among others the wood-structured wing, the vertical and horizontal stabilizers, the rudder, and the aluminum NACA ring, wing root fairings, engine cowlings, and air ducts of the oil cooler were produced.

The largest single original part in the restored Myrsky is the fuselage framework of the MY-14. It defined to identify the project as restoration of the Myrsky MY-14. There are other original metal parts of Myrsky as well, but most of even them had to be manufactured.

The original plan was to transport those parts of the Myrsky that were built by the Tuesday Club at the Finnish Aviation Museum in Vantaa, to the Finnish Air Force Museum at Tikkakoski already in June 2024, to receive their surface painting. Some of the parts were sent as planned, but mostly the transport was delayed until the autumn, as everything wasn’t ready yet by June.

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Photos by Lassi Karivalo.

The packing of the remaining parts of the Myrsky for transfer to Tikkakoski was started in August. The packaged parts were tied onto pallets that could then easily be moved by forklift onto the platform of the transport lorry. The wings were not packaged, but instead fixed onto wheeled transport frames that proved handy in moving around each heavy wing, weighing over 200 kilograms. Specific braces were tailored for the wings, to enable stacking them on top of each other on the lorry platform. This stacking procedure was tested in advance before the transport in the restoration workshop of the Finnish Aviation Museum, separating the wings and laying them on top of each other, like they would be travelling during the actual transit.

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Photos by Lassi Karivalo

On Wednesday, 18 September, a lorry of the Defence Forces with its trailer arrived at the Finnish Aviation Museum to fetch the parts of the Myrsky to Tikkakoski. The loading of the parts began. Each wing was loaded (with ailerons, flaps, landing gear, wheels, and wheel well doors packed separately), parts of the tailplane (vertical and horizontal stabilizers and the respective rudder and elevators), the oil cooler (with air intake and exhaust air ducts), the aluminum wing root fairings, and a great number of small parts. Previously the NACA ring, the lower engine cowling, air duct and air horn had been already delivered to Tikkakoski.

After all the Myrsky parts had been loaded either on the platform or the trailer of the lorry, the journey to Tikkakoski commenced. After arrival at the destination, the freight was moved inside the FAF Museum.  

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Even though the Myrsky project has now been completed for the part of the Tuesday Club, the whole restoration project is by no means over yet. At Tikkakoski, the parts of Myrsky with primer painting will be getting their surface paint of green / black camouflage pattern, national insignia, and the identification code of the aircraft. This task is already underway. Would one dare to say that the Myrsky MY-14 will be assembled on display at the FAF Museum still during this year, as there have been so many failed predictions?

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The restoration project of Myrsky is one of the most extensive restorations ever in Finland, of aircraft used by the Finnish Air Force. The working hours used for the project speak for themselves. By mid-September 2004 the restoration of the Myrsky MY-14 during eleven years had taken working time as follows, with numbers rounded. Total work input: 40,000 hours. To this total, the Myrsky Group of the Tuesday Club had contributed 28,000 hrs. The share of the FAF Museum is 9,000 hrs. Outside the project, either paid or donated work amounts to 3,000 hrs. Based on the numbers, the Myrsky Group of the Tuesday Club has produced most, i.e. 70% of the restoration effort of the Myrsky.

However, there will be more working hours waiting for the Finnish Air Force Museum to accrue to the total amount at stake for the Myrsky restoration. Those will be coming from the surface painting of Myrsky, presently underway, as well as from the final assembly for display at the Finnish Air Force Museum.

Photos by Jouni Ripatti except if otherwise mentioned.

Translation by Hannu Mononen.

Avainsanat: aviation history, restoration, MY-14, VL Myrsky, Tuesday Club