D.H. Noses

[Dr Jekyll]

Looking round an aircraft museum in Coventry there were a couple of DH Venoms and a Heron. Never noticed before but especially with the nosewheel down the noses look almost identical.

Did they just like the shape or did they really re use some fighter tooling to build a small airliner?

[By George]

Vampire and Dove too. Also, the main gear looks similar with the same style of operation on the Heron, Dove, Vampire et all. DH loved air operated systems. I flew Herons many years ago and once parked one at a remote bush strip and went into town. We didn't have chocks there and omitted to put on the rudder cleat. The light breeze working the rudder bled off the brakes and it rollled away to explore another corner of the strip. No damage done but I thought on arrival someone had nicked it. With a fully charged system the gear came up very quickly and you could do fighter pilot take-offs. Needless to say, all frowned upon these days.

[jumpseater]

Having worked in product support at Hatfield in 146 days, there was commonality of components across several types. By this time they were only physically small components, in a business sense it would have been sensible to use larger components in a similar fashion for other types.

[Noyade]

Anything to do with "easy access?"

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/4739/noseu.jpg (http://img718.imageshack.us/i/noseu.jpg/)

[777fly]

If I remember correctly the DH 106 Comet nose section, including cockpit, was used on the Sud Aviation Caravelle twin jet.

[NutherA2]

Vampire et all. DH loved air operated systems.The Vampire had pneumatic brakes, but the undercarriage was certainly hydraulically operated. I never flew a Venom, but believe it had a similar arrangement.

[henry crun]

I depends which mark of Venom you are talking about.
It is so long since I flew the the Mk1 I cannot recall the type, but I think they were pneumatic.
The Mk3 was hydraulic discs with Maxarets.

[WHBM]

If I remember correctly the DH 106 Comet nose section, including cockpit, was used on the Sud Aviation Caravelle twin jet.
and has now been reused on the Boeing 787 :)

http://ofwnow.com/wp-content/uploads/image/_2010/july/boeing%20787.jpg

in passing, were the Caravelle nose sections actually built by De Havilland as subcontractors and sent over to Toulouse, or did Sud just buy the drawings ?

[VX275]

I used to stand in front of a Dove on the airshow circuit and ask the public to guess what was the hydraulic powered circuit on the aircraft, other than the propellers. Undercarriage, flaps and brakes were pneumatic, flying controls were manual. So what was left to be hydraulicly powered? Well it was a system that the public expected to be electrical - the windscreen wipers!

[Senior Pilot]

So what was left to be hydraulicly powered? Well it was a system that the public expected to be electrical - the windscreen wipers!

The original Sea King HAS1 had hydraulically powered wipers, which were good for a maximum of ~3 minutes non stop. After that the needle valve control heated up enough to block hydraulic flow :ooh:

The work to retrofit electric wiper motors took over a week per airframe :hmm:

[spekesoftly]

.... were the Caravelle nose sections actually built by De Havilland ....The first two prototypes used DH.106 Comet cockpits and nose assemblies made in Hatfield (later versions used licence-built ones)

From Claims to Fame - Aviation - Aircraft (http://www.hatfield-herts.co.uk/fame/aviation_aircraft.html)

[NutherA2]

The original Sea King HAS1 had hydraulically powered wipers

The Vampire T11 windscreen wiper was hydraulic-powered too.

[Wander00]

About 10km from us at Coulanges sur l'Autize, on the road to Niort is a night club constructed of all sorts of odd things (eg railway carriage) but also a virtually complete Caravelle fuselage - anyone know its origin?

[Cornish Jack]

Senior Pilot
Sea King and hydraulic wipers - an oddity from memories of 'D' Sqdn at Boscombe - some sort of cross connect between the wipers and the gear. It was either that, if the wipers didn't work you raised the gear, or if the gear wouldn't raise (or lower) you operated the wipers. The passage of many moons confuses the memory!!:uhoh: Either way, another of those 'character building' peculiarities of our aircraft builders.:p

[Jig Peter]

DeH's at Hatfield built the Caravelle noses, which were then transported to Toulouse. The quite complex jigs for the Redux-bonded nose section being at Hatfield from the Comet programme, it made sense to have the job done there.

[VX275]

Apart from the Comet (and therefore by default the Nimrod) and the Caravelle name one other aircraft that flew with a Comet nose?
And is this number of uses a record?

[spekesoftly]

I recall you mentioning this on another thread - the Airspeed Horsa. It also gets a very brief mention on the link I posted earlier, something to do with Comet cockpit visibility trials?

[Brian Abraham]

It's not some thing I've researched to confirm, but there was gossip that the two seat Vampire used the Mosquito nose, and the very early models used the Mosquito birdcage canopy. Any truth?

[avionic type]

I believe the licence for the Comet nose section was swapped for the licence of the Caravell rear engine installation design to be fitted to the DH 121Trident aircraft If memory serves me correctly there used to be on the port engine mounting stub a plaque saying that the installation was accredited to Sud Aviation though this was only fitted to the Trident 1 can't remember it on the later marks