Aircraft General Discussion

About the noisiest aircraft I have worked near to was NASA's Lockheed U-2 that they were using in the mid 1960s for high altitude research flights out of Christchurch (NZ). The aircraft had to keep it's airspeed down to below 150kts at low altitude, so it climbed slowly at a high angle. It's support aircraft wasn't too quiet either, it was a B-47.

Ian S C

The Mosquito in the photo a couple of pages back is all packed up, and ready for shipping to the USA,having finished it flight testing. When it gets to the States it will get painted in the colours it's owner wants. The next one is out in the hanger being fitted out, it's due for completion in March 2017, and will stay in NZ until 2018.

Ian S C

Hi chaps, I always think that an unexpected sighting of a classic aircraft is a bonus, last Friday ploughing up the A15 past RAF Scampton in the campervan checked for sightings of Red Arrows but no joy, buckled down for the long haul to North Yorkshire but just as I got to the northern end of the airfield there was a tremendous roar & a Hawker Hunter ripped across about 100 yards ahead at about 80 feet, wheels already half way into the wells, it turned away so I could see the instantly recognisable cross section with wing tanks & right into the tailpipe, that set me up for the day!

Anyway, in a similar vein, in years long gone by I spotted several times whilst traversing the north shore of the River Humber the old Humbrol factory of Airfix plastic aircraft kits & the little tinlets of paint for them, outside there was a full size Hunter mounted on a pillar in the manner of a gate guardian, eventually the aircraft & the factory disappeared without trace. Fast forward to the present day, further up the coast overlooking the Humber Estuary is a large museum called Fort Paull, originally built for that nice King Henry the Eighth as a coastal battery to defend the estuary, it was updated over the centuries for that purpose, big old Armstrong guns etcetera etcetera, when we visited it 2 years ago, apart from all the artillery & underground magazines & display areas yes you guessed it there was the very Hunter from the Humbrol factory in apple pie order! They also have the only intact Blackburn Beverley transport plane, which is a big boy if ever I saw one, that you can clamber all over, & finally a Blackburn triplane specifically made for use against Zeppelin airships in WW1, they had more than their fair share of that in the Hull area in those days. So hope some of these ramblings may point some folk toward places worth a visit

later Robjon44

Here's the next Mossie into the hanger for fitting out over the next few months.

With thanks to Slackie/RNZAF Pro Boards

Ian S C

Edited By Ian S C on 19/10/2016 14:04:17

Regarding the posts on Comet, Nimrod & AEW, some years ago I used to work on Typhoon, Nimrod and others and heard that the reason for the demise of Nimrod was that they were all to be upgraded with new wings etc and the wings were built to the drawings and were spot on. The problem was that the RAF had carried out field repairs and mods over many years and so it was very hit and miss as to wether or not the wings would fit the fuselages!

It was probably a good excuse to cancel the project.

That looks lovely, Ian

Thanks for sharing.

MichaelG.

Very strange Brian but at the time I was told it was the other way round. The original aircraft were handbuilt but the new wings were as you say built to drawing (which were probably "metric" whilst the originals were imperial !! ).

Still have fond memories of my day away in a Nimrod especially the looks on the faces ot the 2 guys in the conning tower of that Russkie sub which we dropped in on. Absolute magic !

Alan

Amazing what you can do with MDF!

BAe built us a cradle to lift the radar mod tank through the door of the AEW verson of Nimrod. It had to be modified as I would not fit through the doors of all the aircraft even though it was to the aircraft drawings and within the tolerances. It was always said that Britain built aircraft and America manufactured them. It never really mattered if you left the airframe crew to just get on with it. The made bits to fit what was in front of them not to fit a set of drawings.

regards Martin

I guess the question is "who knows more about the aeroplane?", the design and development engineers (in other words the manufacturer) or the air crew?

A basic philosophical engineering question - do you build the prototype using designers' sketches and produce the manufacturing drawings afterwards or do all the drawings first and then make the prototype?

JA

The people who pay the bills will also know a lot about the aeroplane. And having three different viewpoints on the same object leads to truly spectacular disagreements!

Many jokes have been told and cartoons drawn about the mix-up between SI and Imperial units. Occasionally there are serious incidents - The Boeing 777 had its fuel capacity measured and displayed in kg (we should ignore that kg is a unit of mass) while their earlier airliners displayed lbs. The inevitable happened soon after its introduction when a crew got muddled up and under fuelled their aircraft. The result was that the engines stopped somewhere over the Canadian prairies and the 777 dead sticked onto a disused airfield. Fortunately no one was hurt particularly as the airfield was being used for a motor race meeting.

JA

I think this example is famous for the pilot being both seriously disciplined for not confirming before take-off that he had sufficient fuel AND then getting an award for his extraordinary performance landing the aircraft after running out of fuel!

Just goes to show that we should stick with Imperial to avoid this sort of thing!

That 777 in Canada is generally referred to as the Gimli glider, Gimli being the disused airforce base it landed at. There were two runways, one of which was open for general aviation traffic, and the other was in use as a race track. The pilot chose the wrong one, fortunately without any dire consequences. The aircraft was actually over Lake Winnipeg when everything stopped happening. Apparently the pilot had experience with gliders, so was well aware of how to find the optimum glide speed from the performance information available to him. If he had not chosen the right speed they would most likely have ditched in the lake. As the Hudson incident showed, this is certainly possible, put would have lead to a loss of hull and quite a lot of risk to the passengers.

There is quite a full article on wikipedia: **LINK**

John

When I was a ships drafty, one of the major parts of the job was to do an "As Built" set of drawings. This involved going over the whole ship/submarine and checking, things like bulkhead penetrations and pipe/a/c system runs to see how much they deviated from the drawings. It was a right royal p.i.t.a.

cheers

Bill

I was a draffy at De Haviland back in the early 60s. I remember doing drawings to convert the Comet galley into a fuel tank space. Might not have been done of course. All drawings were in inches, no feet . smaller divisions in decimals of an inch. So metric inch if you like.

Shiaparelli...

...oops.