How to change the nose wheel on a DH Vampire?
Even after draining the jet pipe an asbestos blanket was thrown over the horizontal stabiliser to protect it from the ensuing conflagation when the excess fuel plus that on the ground caught fire. This was in the AVtag days.
Join Date: Feb 2008
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Venom 1 start
When the Venom FB1 came into service (the ones after other units bent theirs through pulling too much 'g' and the aircraft had to have red lines painted on) on every start an asbestos blanket was put over the tailplane to protect the tailplane. Before taxying out, our doughty groundcrew showed us the blanket ...
When our Venoms eventually arrived (non-red line), Pilots' Notes included the nots "These aircraft are not 'g'-limited", and 'g' meters were fitted well in the pilot's line of sight ... Lots of fun for those strong of biceps, though it was considered cheating to trim hard back before pulling and so record a super-high 'g' reading. "Sir" soon stopped all that when airframes twisted.
Sorry, all this doesn't help in getting a Vampire's nosewheel off ... BTW - Vamp 10 or a "real" one with the slim cokpit?
When our Venoms eventually arrived (non-red line), Pilots' Notes included the nots "These aircraft are not 'g'-limited", and 'g' meters were fitted well in the pilot's line of sight ... Lots of fun for those strong of biceps, though it was considered cheating to trim hard back before pulling and so record a super-high 'g' reading. "Sir" soon stopped all that when airframes twisted.
Sorry, all this doesn't help in getting a Vampire's nosewheel off ... BTW - Vamp 10 or a "real" one with the slim cokpit?
After several fatal crashes in 1957 all the Swinderby Vampire FB5 & 9's were grounded for a month after they were found to be twisted beyond safe limits. Badly dented bullet fairings around the tailplanes/fins were also blamed for the loss of control during high speed/mach dives. When our then senior course was extended by two weeks they made us fill the time in cleaning and polishing all the Vampires chosen to be re-rigged and de-dented.
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Do any of you youngsters remember the joys of changing the voltage regulator under the flap nearest to the engine on the vampire and trimming the voltge with the exhaust of the jet pipe about 3 ft behind you (no ear muffs1949/50)screaming its head off and being deaf as a post for at least 20 mins afterwards, happy days.sorry about thread drift
Swinderby was issued with half a dozen brand new T11's to fill the gap caused by grounding the single seaters. Naturally us students were very keen to get out hands on these pristine flying machine. i drew a long straw and was allocated a shiny new T11 for a solo medium altitude aerobatic sortie. After conscientiouly completing the required exercises over north Lincolnshire I headed south towards Swinderby, diving and rolling as I played with the cumulus clouds. During a tight turn there was loud bang and out of the corner of my eye I saw green and silver peices of the left wing flying upwards. The T11 ficked on to it's back, I reduced the power and extended the airbrakes. The Vampire was controllable with a generous dose of right aileron down to 100 kts if I remember rightly and landing it was not a big problem. An enquiry established that the port wing had been built at Chester and was at least half an inch thinner than the starboard Hatfield wing. To make up the difference a generous layer of filler had been applied! My last high G turn had been enough to flex the wing and shed all the filler on the top of the port wing.
