This Supersonic Age

[Warmtoast]

New to me full colour 1950's video including a splendid glossy All-Black Valiant

see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-CTsFwJ9Sk

[Two's in]

So which country was producing all those fantastic aicraft designs in the 1950's? They must have a really impressive aircraft industry by now...

[forget]

:bored: Shall we now compare your lots 'firsts' with the USSR. Thought not.

Good link 'thawes'.

[GeeRam]

New to me full colour 1950's video including a splendid glossy All-Black Valiant
Loved the mass Jav scramble.....and that LOW pass from the Swift.
The black Valiant was the 'Black Bomber', which was one of the 3 original Valiant prototype's of which this was an advanced version, or B.2 and painted gloss black.
It was intended as a "pathfinder", penetrating to a target area at low level and marking it with flares for a follow-up strike by other bombers. The Air Ministry ordered 17 B.2s, including two prototypes and 15 operational aircraft, in April 1952. Only one was actually completed, flying for the first time in September 1953.
For center of gravity reasons, the B.2 featured a fuselage stretch forward of the wings for a total length of 34.8 meters (114 feet), in contrast to a length of 33 meters (108 feet 3 inches) for the Valiant B.1. Since the B.2 was intended for low-level operations, the wing was strengthened, which required rethinking the main landing gear. The B.2's main landing gear, featuring four wheels instead of two, retracted backwards into fairings called "speed pods" in the wings.
The Air Ministry eventually realized that target marking was an outdated concept. Although the Valiant B.2's low-level capabilities would later prove to be highly desireable, the B.2 program was cancelled in 1955. The B.2 prototype was used for tests for a few years, including evaluation of the tanker system, then incrementally destroyed in the humiliating role of "ballistic target" for ground gunnery.
And of course we all know what happened when the B.1 Valiants were moved over to the low-level role for which they were not designed for but the cancelled B.2 was.......spar fatique and withdrawn from service....:ugh:

[WhiteOvies]

Fantastic film but is it just me who has no sound with it??

[The Flying Pram]

No sound for me either. Wonder if it was shot with a camcorder in a cinema?
Great film though...

[Cyclone733]

Oh to have been alive to see airshows like that. Laughed seeing the guys right next to the runway edge, best view I've had so far was from the top of a squadron minibus some years back (and about 700m from the display line:bored:)

[pr00ne]

Two's in asks;


"So which country was producing all those fantastic aicraft designs in the 1950's? They must have a really impressive aircraft industry by now... "

Actually, THAT country now has the 2nd largest Aerospace industry on the planet, your point?

[Another St Ivian]

Would you care to cite a source for that claim, pr00ne?

[forget]

http://www.sbac.co.uk/community/news/newsview.asp?n=2525&p=931

At present, the UK has the world’s second largest aerospace industry. UK based aerospace activity had a turnover of more than £17bn in 2004, supporting a highly skilled workforce of over 255,000 people.

Ba boom!

[Two's in]

So again, excellent that we have a really big Aerospace Industry (Aerospace Industry also includes the manufacters of barf bags and earplugs), but list all those successful (in terms of sales) British designed aircraft that are in production today or planned for the near future. Let's take out all the ones that were planned or designed more than about 20 years ago, (Nimrod, Harrier, Hawk, Merlin) but keep in all the commercial airliners where we do more than make an excellent wing set.

[Another St Ivian]

Just curious; As a soon-to-be AeroEng graduate I'm supposed to take an interest in these things ;)

[airsound]

pr00ne asks Two’s In what his point is
Actually, THAT country now has the 2nd largest Aerospace industry on the planet, your point?
Without wishing to put words into Two’s In’s pen, my point would be to ask what that ‘2nd largest aerospace industry’ actually does in real aircraft terms.

That magnificent British Movietone film above was made at what we now know to have been the apogee of the British aviation industry (aerospace hadn’t been invented). That industry was clearly one of the great national aviation industries in the world, and it depended on extraordinary companies like Avro, Bristol, de Havilland, English Electric, Fairey, Folland, Gloster, Handley Page, Hawker, Percival, Shorts, Supermarine, Vickers, Westland.....

Over the decades, all of those companies except Westland eventually coalesced into one, which called itself British Aerospace. British Aerospace thus became the sole inheritor of a uniquely inspirational and successful aviation ethos. But the sad thing was that, by then, it was no longer building any whole aircraft on any scale, with the possible exception of Hawk. Everything else was collaborative. Some collaborations were highly successful - such as with Airbus, where British Aerospace became an important part of the amazing success story that took on the otherwise total American hegemony in the big airliner stakes.

But then British Aerospace changed its name to BAE Systems. Henceforth, refer to them as British Aerospace at your peril. That should have told us all we needed to know. The company was no longer interested in being the sole upholder of the great British aviation industry. It sold its stake in Airbus, and partly decamped to America, there to build fighting vehicles and guns and submarines. and other non-aviation stuff.

So now there are virtually no aircraft projects left from that once wonderful aviation industry, regardless of what the SBAC’s statistics tell you. Yes, I know you can point to the collaborative Typhoon and F-35 Lightning 2, and...... erm..... Nimrod MRA4. And of course Hawk, thank goodness for Hawk.

I believe we have sold our magnificent, uniquely inspirational aviation heritage down the river.

That’s my point, pr00ne. Sorry if it went on a bit.

airsound

[Fishtailed]

Where we are now we can't do anything about, just enjoy those fantastic shots of beautiful aircraft, (apart from the Javelin).:{

[Number2]

Let's not forget the 'bullying' of previous British and Canadian governments by the USA to ensure cancellation of excellent aircraft such as the TSR2 and Avro Arrow.

[Amos Keeto]

Don't know why there is no sound, as the credits at the end give a narrator. If it was shot with a camcorder in a cinema, then surely that would record the sound also? Strange that Twenty Century Fox should be involved in such a short film on Farnborough that no one seems to have seen before? I only have footage of that show on DVD in b/w and would love to have a DVD of this with sound, of course. Looks like the air-to-air footage was taken from a Beverley, judging by the high tailplane.:D

[Fishtailed]

Does anyone know of any good still shots of the Valiant, like the one of the Victor in the 'just a picture' thread?.

[nacluv]

I was looking at the main gear on the Valiant. The gear looked to me to be a 4-wheel bogie exactly like the main Vulcan gear, but folding up and retracting backwards into the wing instead of forwards.

Weren't the production versions twin tandem type swinging sidewards in an outward direction up into the wing?

Anyone know why it changed?

Excellent clip, by the way!

[forget]

All Mk.1s had this style of undercarriage; the sole B.2 had a stronger undercarriage using a four wheel bogey.

From 'Thunder and Lightning'. Do a Google. Or maybe this'll work

http://www.******************************/valiant/history.html

[Sunk at Narvik]

Great movie- thanks very much for posting it. Always had a soft spot for the Valiant- my uncle (ex RAF) gave me a model of one when I was about 8- remember carrying it home in the back of Dads cortina!

Ok, can't resist- fantasy airforce time? Always wondered about a high wing Nimrod variant with a couple of rotary cruise missile dispensers in an enlarged bomb bay, with a "Victor" style dropped nose containing a second missile bay full of self defense sidewinders/AMRAAMs etc...

Ok, I'll fetch my coat..:O

[brickhistory]

Shall we now compare your lots 'firsts' with the USSR. Thought not.


But we're still around...............:}

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Sunk at Narvik. Your high wing Nimrod would have a very interesting undercarriage.

nacluv. As mentioned earlier, the 2 wheel bicycle bogey needed more wheels to take the increased weight of the MK2. Even if it had super strong wheels and tyres, it would be limited by the LCG of the operating runways and taxiways.

forget. For those of us without inside knowledge, what were those Russian firsts in aviation (apart from getting the first SST into service)?



I wonder if the soundtrack is absent to get around any copyright claims? Still brilliant footage without it! I've seen Canberras roll off the top of a LABS profile but seeing one roll at low level is truly spectacular. Nice to see a Scimitar in the air as well (where is that sound track when you want it).

[Sunk at Narvik]

Similar to a Valiant's you mean? I did warn you....:eek:

[forget]

Without looking too hard -

1956. The Tu-104 makes its debut as the world's first commercial jetliner.

1965. Mil's Mi-12/V-12 makes its maden flight. It is still the largest helicopter ever build.

1968 (December 31). First flight of the Tu-144, the world's first supersonic transport.

1988 (November 30). Rollout of the An-225, the world's largest airplane.

[Warmtoast]

For those of us without inside knowledge, what were those Russian firsts in aviation (apart from getting the first SST into service)?


What about Sputnik-1?

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/Sputnik.jpg


On 4th October 1957 an R-7 Semyorka rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, carrying Sputnik, the Earth’s very first artificial satellite. Sputnik was named from the Russian phrase for “Simple Satellite” (Sputnik Zemli). This date symbolically marked the dawn of Space exploration, and beat the Americans into space by several months, but perhaps the most amazing thing about the spacecraft is that it only took around a month from inception to launch.
In the post-WWII years, rocketry was still an imprecise science. Great leaps were being made on both sides of the Atlantic. In the USSR the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7 Semyorka (SS-6 “Sapwood” in NATO parlance) was being developed as part of the arms race against the USA. The R-7 proved its ability to propel several tons of payload over great terrestrial distances, and calculations showed it could launch a smaller mass into orbit. So the go-ahead was given to develop and launch a satellite.
Sputnik-1 was launched on the night of 4th October 1957. The Soviet Union had initially planned a heavier and more complex design for the first satellite. However, under pressure to launch in the International Geophysical Year, the simple and aesthetically pleasing design for Sputnik-1 was chosen.
The satellite was a sphere of aluminium 23-inches (58 cm) in diameter and weighed 184 lb (83.6kg), with four long protruding antennas and it circled the earth once every 96 minutes. The sphere’s skin was just 2mm in thickness and it was filled with pressurised nitrogen gas. Internally, the payload consisted of batteries (which made up most of the weight) and a pulsing 1-watt radio transmitter operating on 20MHz and 40MHz. The transmitter was intended to convey simple telemetry about the capsule’s temperature and internal pressure by varying the transmitted pulse lengths. Sputnik’s mission was largely political — the famous “beep-beep” signal was broadcast on a frequency that anyone with a good shortwave radio could pick up, thus ensuring the widest possible audience, but it was also used to study the physical properties of the upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Reaction
The launch of the world’s first satellite grabbed headlines across the globe — except, strangely, in Russia. On the day of the launch, Pravda only carried a small report buried in other news. Western papers, on the other hand, trumpeted about the event: the New York Times, for instance, ran a three line banner headline:
“SOVIET FIRES EARTH SATELLITE INTO SPACE; IT IS CIRCLING THE GLOBE AT 18,000 M.P.H.; SPHERE TRACKED IN 4 CROSSINGS ACROSS THE U.S.”
Other papers carried similar headlines. This response took the Soviet Union by surprise, but the following day saw much more reaction in the official Russian press, with a far more triumphant tone to the headlines. After 57 days aloft, Sputnik-1 re-entered the atmosphere and was destroyed. Sputnik-1 was followed a month later on 3rd November 1957 by the launch of Sputnik-2 which carried a small dog, called Laika (meaning “barker”), the first living creature in space (it died on re-entry).
The Americans responded by launching their Explorer-1 satellite a few months later in January 1958.

Subsequent Developments
For a while the USSR held the lead in space -the first man (and woman) in orbit, the first object to orbit (and land on) the moon. But all the while the USA was racing to develop its own space technologies.
By December 1958 the US had placed its first communications satellite into orbit (Project SCORE) and in 1962 Telstar provided a useful transatlantic link with sufficient bandwidth for television signals. And of course by the end of the sixties, the Americans had put men on the moon.
Today, satellites are taken for granted. We can receive TV via a dish pointed at the Sky satellite; most of our internet and telephone traffic is carried around the world by satellites; we see weather pictures from space, use our SatNavs to navigate and use Google Earth to gawp at our houses as seen from space.
But unless you were there at the time there was nothing like the excitement of tuning in a radio to hear the bleeping signal that came from that little aluminium sphere, the first man-made object in space — so Happy 50th Birthday, Sputnik!


In October 1957 I was a young RAF airman serving at RAF China Bay on the east coast of Sri Lanka and as soon as the radio frequencies being used were published we tuned in the ATC HF radio and listened to the “beep-beep” signals as it passed overhead.
Word soon got around and each time Sputnik was in range a crowd of eager airmen gathered in ATC to hear the “beep-beep” signal.

[forget]

Or this - left the US Navy in tears. :ugh::ugh: I remember, at the time they were proudly telling the world that they were getting their experimental fighters at up to 60 degrees Angles of Attack.

http://www.indyarocks.com/videos/Cobra-manoevre-of-SU30-3544

[con-pilot]

Ah yes, the Russian SR-71.

The Russian Moon landings.

The Russian Space Shuttle fleet and missions.

The Russian stealth bombers and fighters. (Must be really, really good, no one has ever seen one.)

Course we all know that the Russians exceeded the sound barrier way before George Welsh did in an F-86.

That the TU-144 flew before the Concorde has nothing to do with the US.

And the first supersonic Bomber was the Russian B-58 Hustler.

Dang clever them Russians.

[GPMG]

Oh dear, looks like one of those ego malfunctions again, bless.

I suppose you have to 'big-up' your history when you havent got much in the first place.

By the way , you seem to have forgotten the biggest first.....didn't something happen at Kittyhawk a while back??

And some chap called Chuck went pretty quick didn't he? Although you didnt get the first guy in space....blah blah blah....our willies are bigger than yours etc etc.

[forget]

con-pilot - Sound familiar ;)

Project Cancelled

Within a few weeks of the American's visit, the Air Ministry Director of Scientific Research, Sir Ben Lockspeiser, cancelled the British supersonic project, saying:

...in view of the unknown hazards near the speed of sound ... [it is] considered unwise to proceed with the full-scale experiments.

Despite 90% of the design work being completed and half of the construction finished, the project fell, apparently due to a Treasury savings measure.
The Air Ministry ordered Miles to break up all jigs6 and to send all their design data to Bell Aviation. As it seems likely that the M.52 would have been flying by the summer of 1946, and since it would most likely have achieved its specified performance, it is hard not to believe the British government was pressured by the Americans to cancel the M.52 project.

This allowed the US become the first 'through the barrier', in October 1947, using the rocket-powered M.52 lookalike, the Bell XS-1. As an added bonus, the Americans' first jet engine, the General Electric Type 1, drew heavily on the designs of the British jet.

[Self Loading Freight]

Fun though willy-waving is, it's even more fun to work out what sort of future aircraft design would actually sell. No point in making Concordes when everyone's hauling around in 737s.

So what's it going to be? Manned FJ development seems faintly pointless; it's not as if there's a plausible threat that demands this generation, let alone the next. Transports - haven't we got that covered? A-10: yes please, but why not just buy A-10s? (never understood why we don't). Civil aviation is all about incremental improvements - nobody's got the stomach for HOTOL - and the cost of entry at almost any level is unthinkable.

The near future is automation, economy, environmentalism, flexibility... and dull. (When automation gets stuck in, some really exciting things will happen, but it won't be for a while.)

Might as well enjoy the Youtube clips. Won't be long before it's all as quaint as cavalry.

R

(and yes, of course I think there was every point in making Concorde. At least as much as building cathedrals. But it's nothing to base an industry on)

[Jetex Jim]

it is hard not to believe the British government was pressured by the Americans to cancel the M.52 project.


This kind of stuff as been hinted at before, and also in regard to the TSR2 and Avro Arrow cancellations. As a bonus from the Arrow cancellation its been said that the Apollo project got a bit of a boost from all those redundant Avro Canada engineers, well maybe but is any of this in public record anywhere or is it just a nice notion to write a book around?

[torquewrench]

its been said that the Apollo project got a bit of a boost from all those redundant Avro Canada engineers

This is in fact quite true.

Allow me to bring to the attention of interested parties Chris Gainor's Arrows To The Moon, which carefully explores the contributions of former Avro science and engineering staff to the 1960s US space program.

Some of those Canadian expatriates also made significant contributions to Apollo's precursor, Gemini.

The CF-105 was a remarkable aircraft in the context of its time, and a tribute to its designers and fabricators. It is truly a shame that those who worked so hard on it never saw the Arrow enter service. However, let us pay honorable tribute to their efforts.

Several respondents here seem to have parsed this comment,

So which country was producing all those fantastic aicraft designs in the 1950's? They must have a really impressive aircraft industry by now...

as having been a slap. I don't know in what sense it was intended, but I for one reacted to it with sadness. There was a tremendous capability for innovative design and construction in the British aviation industry at the time in question, and much of that capability was squandered due to shortsighted industrial policy.

To me, at least, that loss is as much of a shame as was the premature cancellation of the Arrow. TSR2, for example, was a superb aircraft, killed by political mediocrities and tight budgets, and by the presumed overlap with the F-111 (which turned out to be largely unsuitable in what would have been the TSR2 niche).

Note as well that many British boffins who had worked on programmes and for employers in the UK during the 1950s and 1960s, and who then found their skills being neglected for political and economic reasons, then did as the Canadian Avro staff had done, and brought their talents to work in America on advanced systems -- to our very considerable national benefit at a time when the US was facing significant technical and military challenges from the Soviet Union. For which contributions they deserve our fervent gratitude.

--

[Cyclone733]

Who wants to be an aerospace engineer these days? Finish off a project someone else started 25 years ago, by 'cost cutting' features and functionality. Or perhaps just design the 'new' Hawk varient or 'new' Nimrod (remove wings, build new wings, take lump hammer to new wing to make it fit hole)

Not really a dig at the Hawk, but really what major new aircraft projects are there and of those which are UK based?

My great Uncle was involved in work with the RAE back in the days of multiple new aircraft and test beds. Some of his stories really make you wish for those days.

[con-pilot]

con-pilot - Sound familiar

Not really, I wasn't born then, believe it or not. :p


(Wasn't born until 1947. :()

Who wants to be an aerospace engineer these days?

Sadly you are correct. There is nothing really exciting for aviation anymore as compared to the 50s and 60s. All the major countries in the world were 'pushing the envelope' in designing and building new aircraft that were going faster and higher. Now where are we, supersonic airliner has come and gone. The Airbus 380, a fat 747, nothing really earthshaking there. Modern manned fighter design has gone as far as it can go, leaving UAVs, how boring.

I guess there is still space exploration, but can never be another first man to step on the surface of a body other than earth. I suppose that the first person to step on another planet would be somewhat of a first.

I realize that technology in the Aviation field is improving and that is nice, but earth-shattering, not hardly.

And I'm sorry, I just cannot get excited about stealth.

[Jetex Jim]

TSR2, for example, was a superb aircraft, killed by political mediocrities and tight budgets, and by the presumed overlap with the F-111

I suppose the question is were planes like the Arrow and TSR2 as good as we all like to think they would have been? And the only reason they didn't make it was because Uncle Sam leaned on his friends and allies, are we just kidding ourselves with conspiracy theories?

Perhaps if Concorde had been cancelled some bright spark would have written a book by now about a potentially world beating aircraft that would have sold in hundreds, still be flying today but was lost because of pressure from the USA..

[thermick]

:) Brilliant movie of the good old days of the Farnborough Airshow when it was all British.
Each year there would be new types on display with lots of very noisy displays when a fast fly by really was a FAST fly by.
It was all very exciting and we all seemed to be proud to be British.
In those days it was a real treat to go to the SBAC show, what a contrast to now when it is held every other year, has very little British content and, apart from things like that Russian jobby that demonstrated a jet doing a tailslide then lighting the fires up and carrying on flying! can be quite boring.

[8-15fromOdium]

JJ...


Perhaps if Concorde had been cancelled some bright spark would have written a book by now about a potentially world beating aircraft that would have sold in hundreds, still be flying today but was lost because of pressure from the USA


wasn't that exactly what happened in the 70's??

Good idea for a book though ...

[Jetex Jim]

There may have been some anti-concorde lobbying in the USA from environmentalists but I think history will record that Concord was the wrong plane for the time and possibly technically questionable for the passenger market -- fuel tank penertrations by exploding tyres had been reported before the French crash.

Considering some of the other technical debacles that older readers may remember: the Spey engined Phantoms that gave the RAF the worlds most expensive slowest F4s, the RB211 carbon fibre blade debacle, not to mention the Comet.

Come to that the UK taxpayer is still paying for the poor level of DH build standard in the current delays to the Nimrod MR4. And in a similar fashion if we go back to the 1940's when the US car company Packard were contracted to build Merlin engines under licence that had to completely redraw all the blueprints with correct tolerances in order to produce the engines in quantity.

It all looks very cottage industry.

Maybe those goverment advisors are correct and the British aircraft industry can't really manage without being subject to adult supervision from European partner companies...

[Wader2]

1968 (December 31). First flight of the Tu-144, the world's first supersonic transport.

I thought this was a BAC design :} - even the name.

[tmmorris]

It wasn't just the aviation industry - for British Aerospace read British Leyland...

Tim

[GPMG]

So Jetex Jim, your saying that the Merlin was a poorly designed engine? Or that Packards understanding of correct tolerances was different to Rolls Royce's?

[8-15fromOdium]

Found some cracking films in the National Archive thread, my personal favourite being:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/1945to1951/filmpage_wtw.htm

make sure any speakers you have are turned on full. The film tells us what the CAS & the AFB do (pertinent to another popular thread at the moment). It also has some American stuff in it to keep JJ happy (not the B-57).

Apologies if this has been posted before, I'm fairly new.

[Jetex Jim]

So Jetex Jim, your saying that the Merlin was a poorly designed engine? Or that Packards understanding of correct tolerances was different to Rolls Royce's?


As I understand it the engineering drawings did not define the tolerances as well as those typical in a 1940 US car plant, RR adopted the position that all aero engines must be assembled by skilled fitters, which is quite costly but permits a lower investment in fixtures and good quality drawings.

Similarly D Haviland assembled the Comets with the minimum of tooling, as we know from BAE most recent excuses all those old airframes are different, as is often reported regarding Vulcans, etc.

This sadly seems typical of British engineering, and actually it doesn't matter that much if you only build small handfulls of aircraft.

Which is why I call it a cottage engineering approach.

Thats not to say that the Merlin was a bad design, just that RR were like so many British companies trying to balance their budgets week by week instead of investing.

By the time Packard had finished re-drawing the original blueprints they could assemble engines as good for far fewer manhours.

[goudie]

Which is why I call it a cottage engineering approach.



I think Jetex has a point. Whittle's attempts to develop the jet engine is a typical example.
Designing and building large aircraft requires massive amounts of highly skilled labour that can be hired and fired at will (Boeing policy).
With all the will in the world the UK or for that matter other European countries could never produce the manpower and funding required to go it alone, hence the joint venture that has produced Airbus

[Jetex Jim]

Boeings' observations regarding the Comet were that DH seemed to be hammering them together in a shed in Hatfield using less tooling than they would typically use on a one off prototype.

One might also observe that in terms of 'cost of ownership' British aircraft were somewhat lacking, much as I love the Lightning having seen the engines fitters burning the midnight oil taking out the top engine yet again because a nut or washer, on an engine change has dropped down and the whole engine has to be pulled because the lose articles can't drop through.

And lets not even get on to the ergonomics of the cockpit or the lack of nose wheel steering .

Ships spoiled for a haporth of tar comes rather easily to mind.

In fairness to the aircraft industry its perhaps worth remembering that aviation is not the only area where Britain made innovative strides and failed to capitalise on them through under investment.

Britain’s have for years been happy to foster the notion that we are so smart that we can maintain technical leadership in a demanding fields without sensible levels of capitalisation. One can see how such a line would work at corporate level

And the industry itself has pushed the myth that if it wasn’t for those neddies in Whitehall the British Aircraft industry would have capitalised on it post war lead and still be a major force. For me without the forced megers of the 60’s and 70’s there’d be no industry left to carry on whining about Whitehall bullying, American bullying or even the poor quality of its own legacy products. Indeed the fattest balance sheet years for BAE were the ones when it was capitalising on the sale of all those older establishments, turning those old aircraft factors into shopping centres and multiplexes.

In fact one might argue that one of Duncan Sandy’s big mistakes was not forcing industry to concentrate on missiles in the 1960s, after all he, unlike most of the aviation pundits and writers of the time had been privy to German wartime research in guided missiles, and this was information that didn’t come generally to the public eye until the mid seventies. Though one suspects that a pilot centric air force that was aware of what had been wasn’t keen to go down that route.

But for all that I still love the Lightning.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Similarly D Haviland assembled the Comets with the minimum of tooling, as we know from BAE most recent excuses all those old airframes are different, as is often reported regarding Vulcans, etc.


How "often" has that been reported? AVRO built their later machines in a totally different way to De Havilland, Handley Page and Vickers. High mass, temperature compensated jigs, including the use of Fairey patent envelope jigs, provided a build accuracy rarely achieved for Comets at Hatfield and Nimrods at Hawarden.

Sorry but it's not wise to tar all British manufacturers with the same broad brush. As the CF105 was mentioned earlier, it is notable that much of the production expertise at Chadderton and Woodford was utilised in Malton.

[Cyclone733]

Although older manufacturing processes may not have been as precise as newer methods, I was trying to get at the fact that bolting a precision wing to an airframe that has been in a salt water environment at low level at reasonably high speeds and loads may not be exactly the same shape as it was when it left the factory almost 40 years ago. Still can't see how a new cabin would add that much to the project cost

[Jetex Jim]

How "often" has that been reported?

My comments regarding Vulcan differences should have been more carefully worded. However the acount of the Vulcan Black Buck raids (my copy out on loan so I can't check wording) does record that when it comes to Vulcans some were more equal than others. Other postings on this forum that suggest there were often considerable handling and performance differences between aircraft of same type and model. Recent comments regarding Lightning performance for example. But perhaps they all left the factory with identical characteristics and then drifted over time due to local rigging practices etc.


Regarding the planemakers generally one might argue that even in wartime the country has not been best served by its industry and procurement policies. The Lancasters, Halifaxes and Sterlings were all equiped with power operated turretts and while these made good sense for the American daylight raids where aircarft flew in tight mutually defensive box formations and moreover had effectivly gunned turrets that covered the aspects where fighters flew, which is to say underneath. This equipment made far less sense for night time raids.

The gunners, it is said, rarely saw the aircraft that shot them down and the turrets made for a heavy performance penalty. The astronomer Freeman Dyson, many years ago produced an acount of his wartime years in Operational Reasearch. OR had produced reports that 4 engined heavies without turretts would fly significantly higher and faster. Indeed the German radar equiped nightfighters of the time were very performance limited. Moreover in the event of the total loss of an unturreted aircarft the loss of life would have been less.

And of course those unharmed Mosquitos managed quite well and when the V bombers were being speced they were ungunned.

However its probably debatable if this is a specification or a design issue though I assume that messers Dowty etc didn't argue too hard against fitting turrets.

[GeeRam]

As I understand it the engineering drawings did not define the tolerances as well as those typical in a 1940 US car plant, RR adopted the position that all aero engines must be assembled by skilled fitters, which is quite costly but permits a lower investment in fixtures and good quality drawings.

There was nothing particularily wrong with what RR had done. RR designed the Merlin in peacetime to it's traditional methods of low volume and high quality.
The war resulted in the urgent requirement to mass produce a product that had not been designed for mass production, which is why HMG went to the USA, and as you say Packard had to reverse engineer the engine (under the leadership of Jesse Vincent) to produce the required engineering drawings to enable the engine to be built on a mass assembly line in the way they were used to doing it and that suited their tooling.

However, it's often quoted that the RR versions were nearly always more powerfull than the equivilent Packard version, but that the Packard versions were generally more fuel efficient.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Wasn't that because the Packard jobs had Stromberg carbs whereas the home growns had SUs?

[GeeRam]

Wasn't that because the Packard jobs had Stromberg carbs whereas the home growns had SUs?
Merlin Types 66, 70, 76, 77 & 85 used the Bendix-Stromberg carb, all others used SU I believe.

[India Four Two]

Packard had to reverse engineer the engine (under the leadership of Jesse Vincent) to produce the required engineering drawings to enable the engine to be built on a mass assembly line

This episode is well documented in Stanley Hooker's autobiography "Not Much of an Engineer". He designed the two-stage superchargers for the Merlin and went on to become Rolls Royce's Chief Engineer.

The book is a great read by the way.