Centaurus
8th Jan 2013, 08:55
This from a friend of mine who lives on the island of Pohnpei, in the Federated States of Micronesia, a few hundred miles south east of Guam in the Western Pacific region. Can anyone help him with his question, please?
He writes:
"I have been doing a bit of research on Vampires just lately, becaue I used to own an FB-31 sn A79-985 which was used as an advertising sign by the main road at Armadale near Perth. It was removed in the 1970s and I acquired it just before going to Nauru in 1983. I let it go to another WA air museum years later when I was in Nauru the second time. The museum has since folded and the Vampire wreckage was sold for scrap. Much to my disgust. If nothing else it could have been re-assembled to it's original hoarding appearance and kept like that. Still part of WA aviation history.
Anyway, I was studying the French licence-built version that the French called the Mistral and it was powered by the Nene engine. There is no sign of any Elephant ears on the Mistral either on top od below the engine pod areas. It seems to me that the French engineers enlarged the intakes at the wing roots. These intakes do not have fences are anything and the whole plane looks neat and streamlines but the bigger engine makes the Mistral look a little fatter.
It caused me to wonder why on earth the DAP did not do the same, but instead they went through the elephant ear routine, on top which caused a number of accidents and deaths and then the ungainly underside intakes. I had a set of those underside panels with the extra intakes off another wrecks/scrapped Vampire.
If you can shed any light on this engineering problem and the French solution, please let me know."
He writes:
"I have been doing a bit of research on Vampires just lately, becaue I used to own an FB-31 sn A79-985 which was used as an advertising sign by the main road at Armadale near Perth. It was removed in the 1970s and I acquired it just before going to Nauru in 1983. I let it go to another WA air museum years later when I was in Nauru the second time. The museum has since folded and the Vampire wreckage was sold for scrap. Much to my disgust. If nothing else it could have been re-assembled to it's original hoarding appearance and kept like that. Still part of WA aviation history.
Anyway, I was studying the French licence-built version that the French called the Mistral and it was powered by the Nene engine. There is no sign of any Elephant ears on the Mistral either on top od below the engine pod areas. It seems to me that the French engineers enlarged the intakes at the wing roots. These intakes do not have fences are anything and the whole plane looks neat and streamlines but the bigger engine makes the Mistral look a little fatter.
It caused me to wonder why on earth the DAP did not do the same, but instead they went through the elephant ear routine, on top which caused a number of accidents and deaths and then the ungainly underside intakes. I had a set of those underside panels with the extra intakes off another wrecks/scrapped Vampire.
If you can shed any light on this engineering problem and the French solution, please let me know."