Greatest ever blunder in the history of the UK aircraft industry?
Supermarine Swift, no good as a Fighter, apparently it use to stall when the cannons were fired?
Good as a Tactical Recce aircraft (FR5) though I undertand!
FB
Good as a Tactical Recce aircraft (FR5) though I undertand!
FB
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@Jetex Jim
I'm afraid I can't help you on the details of Martin's methods when "re-standardising" the Canberra, but I always found that having a full-size example was useful (if available) when a drawing wasn't clear enough to my not-very-expert eye !
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@Tailsar
I've a feeling that the reason Weybridge didn't get UK government support for the 3.11 - even after the major changes to the A300 after RR pulled out - was simple shortage of money, and perhaps a cynical attitude of "If we go in with Europe and the thing fails, we stand to lose less than if we go into competition with it".
Being no enthusiast for putting engines on the back end of a larger aircraft than Caravelle/DC-8/One-Eleven, I didn't think that putting 2 RB211s was the right way to go, but I'm no expert !
Being no enthusiast for putting engines on the back end of a larger aircraft than Caravelle/DC-8/One-Eleven, I didn't think that putting 2 RB211s was the right way to go, but I'm no expert !
IIRC, the cannon installation in the Swift added to the already marginal handling characteristics at altitude for reasons of weight distribution rather than hot gas ingestion problems. I understand that Sapphire Hunters were prone to that particular problem though. 
Regards,
Frank
Regards,
Frank
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understand that Sapphire Hunters were prone to that particular problem though.
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@JG54
'Twas the Avon which stuttered when the Hunter fired its guns ... There was scurrilous rumour that RR used a version of the Sapphire's compressor in later Avons. I think Dr Hooker confirmed that in his book "Not Much of an Engineer" and from experience I remember that later Canberras didn't suffer from the low-speed hang-up problem when spooling up for take-off in a cross-wind. I think it was because the 2-position inlet guide vanes changed their setting at a certain rpm on the early Marks and you "lined up" roughly into wind till those rpm were reached, after which you swung the aircraft onto the runway heading and headed for the Wild Blue Yonder. OK(ish) for singletons, but not very practical fo formation take-offs ...
NutherA2 & Jig Peter:
Thanks for the correction Post in haste, repent at leisure etc....
What a marvelous donk the Avon became, though - a true success. (Thread not withstanding, there were some!).
The Sapphire has always seemed the poor relation in comparison despite its many applications (and J65 license) - wonder why - perhaps lack of a developed reheat system? I suppose any future was put paid to when RR absorbed Armstrongs though...
Regards,
Frank
Thanks for the correction
Post in haste, repent at leisure etc....What a marvelous donk the Avon became, though - a true success. (Thread not withstanding, there were some!).
The Sapphire has always seemed the poor relation in comparison despite its many applications (and J65 license) - wonder why - perhaps lack of a developed reheat system? I suppose any future was put paid to when RR absorbed Armstrongs though...
Regards,
Frank
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The Sapphire has always seemed the poor relation - wonder why
As far as I know it was the only engine to suffer from centreline closure
Hopefully modded out / solved at some point?? (Pictures Javelins & Hunters falling from the skies....)
Regards,
Frank
Hopefully modded out / solved at some point?? (Pictures Javelins & Hunters falling from the skies....)
Regards,
Frank
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Not long after my arrival, I was asked to see if I could find out why the turnover of workers from Scotland was much higher than from other countries. Talking to them I was told that what they found intolerable was being classified as "inefficient and bad workers" by German supervisors, for consistently taking longer to complete a task than others. What the Scottish lads were used to was "fettling to fit", while the standard practice at the Ruhr factory was to reject any part that needed such "fettling" and get a replacement, while also reporting the discrepancy for corrective action further up the supply chain. This, to the canny Scots, was a "shocking waste"
Compare to:
Eli Whitney
As early as 1798, Eli Whitney had turned his talents to the manufacture of firearms. He had established his machine shops at Whitneyville, near New Haven; and it was there that he worked out another achievement quite as [important] as the cotton gin: namely, the principle of standardization or interchangeable parts.
What is Standardization?
Standardization is the foundation of all large-scale production. Manufacturers produce separately many copies of every part of a complicated machine to use on an assembly line. Standardization also allowed owners of machines to order and replace any broken or lost parts, taking it for granted that the new part would fit easily and precisely into the place of the old.
Eli Whitney was one of the first manufacturers in the world to carry out standardization successfully in practice. Eli Whitney wrote that his objective was "to substitute correct and effective operations of machinery for that skill of the artist which is acquired only by long practice and experience," in order to make the same parts of different guns.
Eli Whitney went to Washington, taking with him ten pieces of each part of a musket. He exhibited these to the Secretary of War, as a succession of piles of different parts. Selecting indiscriminately from each of the piles, he put together ten muskets, an achievement which was looked on with amazement.
...
Eli Whitney - Firearms and the Birth of Standardization
Compare to:
Eli Whitney
As early as 1798, Eli Whitney had turned his talents to the manufacture of firearms. He had established his machine shops at Whitneyville, near New Haven; and it was there that he worked out another achievement quite as [important] as the cotton gin: namely, the principle of standardization or interchangeable parts.
What is Standardization?
Standardization is the foundation of all large-scale production. Manufacturers produce separately many copies of every part of a complicated machine to use on an assembly line. Standardization also allowed owners of machines to order and replace any broken or lost parts, taking it for granted that the new part would fit easily and precisely into the place of the old.
Eli Whitney was one of the first manufacturers in the world to carry out standardization successfully in practice. Eli Whitney wrote that his objective was "to substitute correct and effective operations of machinery for that skill of the artist which is acquired only by long practice and experience," in order to make the same parts of different guns.
Eli Whitney went to Washington, taking with him ten pieces of each part of a musket. He exhibited these to the Secretary of War, as a succession of piles of different parts. Selecting indiscriminately from each of the piles, he put together ten muskets, an achievement which was looked on with amazement.
...
Eli Whitney - Firearms and the Birth of Standardization
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People sneer at the Belfast(slow), but should remember that its original purpose was to ferry components of the Blue Streak rocket to Woomera
But why was it necessary to fly Blue Streaks to Woomera?
Present day Boeing Delta and Lockheed Atlas* missiles are assembled in northern Alabama and transported to KSC Florida and to Vandenberg AFB in Mexifornia via barge and ship. There is a canal and rivers which connect northern Alabama to the Gulf of Mex.
Wikipedia sez: ... The CBCs are built in Boeing's factory in Decatur, Alabama. They are then loaded onto the M/V Delta Mariner, a roll-on/roll-off cargo vessel, and shipped to either launch pad.
The Atlas and Delta missiles are probably bigger than Blue Streaks. I do not see why the Belfast had to exist in order to get Blue Streak missiles to Australia.
* ( Neither the Delta nor the Atlas is used as an ICBM. Instead, these missiles are used to launch DoD payloads into orbit. The present day Atlas is an entirely different design than the Atlas ICBM of the 1950's and '60's. The newer Atlas and the old Atlas share the same name, but not much more. The older Atlas and the Blue Streak must have been similar. Both used liquid oxygen and kerosene for propellant. )
But why was it necessary to fly Blue Streaks to Woomera?
Present day Boeing Delta and Lockheed Atlas* missiles are assembled in northern Alabama and transported to KSC Florida and to Vandenberg AFB in Mexifornia via barge and ship. There is a canal and rivers which connect northern Alabama to the Gulf of Mex.
Wikipedia sez: ... The CBCs are built in Boeing's factory in Decatur, Alabama. They are then loaded onto the M/V Delta Mariner, a roll-on/roll-off cargo vessel, and shipped to either launch pad.
The Atlas and Delta missiles are probably bigger than Blue Streaks. I do not see why the Belfast had to exist in order to get Blue Streak missiles to Australia.
* ( Neither the Delta nor the Atlas is used as an ICBM. Instead, these missiles are used to launch DoD payloads into orbit. The present day Atlas is an entirely different design than the Atlas ICBM of the 1950's and '60's. The newer Atlas and the old Atlas share the same name, but not much more. The older Atlas and the Blue Streak must have been similar. Both used liquid oxygen and kerosene for propellant. )
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Here's Wikipedia re Blue Streak:
... Post-war Britain's nuclear weapons armament was initially based on free-fall bombs delivered by the V bomber force. It soon became clear that if Britain wanted to have a credible threat, a ballistic missile was essential. There was a political need for an independent deterrent, so that Britain could remain a major world power. The use of an American missile would have appeared to hand control to the United States.
In April 1954 the Americans proposed a joint development programme for ballistic missiles. The United States would develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) of 5,000 nautical mile (9,300 km) range, while the United Kingdom with United States support would develop a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) of 2,000 nautical mile (3,700 km) range. The proposal was accepted as part of the Wilson-Sandys Agreement of August 1954, which provided for collaboration, exchange of information, and mutual planning of development programmes. The decision to develop was influenced by what could be learnt about missile design and development in the US. Initial requirements for the booster were made by the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough with input on the rocket engine design from the Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott.
De Havilland won the contract to build the missile, which was to be powered by an uprated liquid-fuelled Rocketdyne S3D engine, developed by Rolls-Royce, called RZ2. ...
...
Eventually the project was cancelled because of its lack of credibility as a deterrent. Some[who?] considered the cancellation of Blue Streak to be not only a blow to British military-industrial efforts, but also to Commonwealth ally Australia, which had its own vested interest in the project
.
The missiles used liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants. Whilst the vehicle could be left fully laden with 20+ tonnes of kerosene, the 60 tonnes of liquid oxygen had to be loaded immediately before launch or icing became a problem. Due to this, fuelling the rocket took 15 minutes, which would have made it useless as a rapid response to an attack. The missile was vulnerable to a pre-emptive attack, launched without warning or in the absence of any heightening of tension sufficient to warrant readying the missile, if such a circumstance were ever likely. ( But every engineer and scientist had to have known about the drawbacks of liquid oxygen oxidizer from the beginning of the program. And why assume that the Reds could knock out all or almost all British MRBM's in a surprise attack? I suspect that many Atlas ICBM's were deployed above ground.-- Elmo.)
To protect the missiles against a pre-emptive strike while being fuelled, the idea of siting the missiles in underground silos was developed. These would have been designed to withstand a one megaton blast at a distance of half a mile (800 m) and were a British innovation, subsequently exported to the US. ( I'm not sure that the missile silo idea originated in UK. Can anyone comment on this? -- Elmo.) [I]However, finding sites for these silos proved extremely difficult and RAF Spadeadam in Cumbria was the only site where construction was undertaken. This was also the site where the RZ2 rocket engines and also the complete Blue Streak missile were tested. The best sites for silo construction were the more stable rock strata in parts of southern England, but the construction of many underground silos in the countryside carried enormous economic, social, and political cost.
( Shoulda thought of that earlier in the program. -- Elmo. OK, Atlas ICBM's in the USA could be based farther from population centers than MRBM's in the UK. Not as much Not in My Backyard trouble in USA.)
As no site in Britain provided enough space for test flights, a test site was established at Woomera, South Australia. Whitehall opposition to the project grew, and it was eventually cancelled on the ostensible grounds that it would be too vulnerable to a first-strike attack. Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma had spent considerable effort arguing that the project should be cancelled at once in favour of his Navy being armed with nuclear weapons, capable of pre-emptive strike. Around £84m had been spent.
...
Civilian programme
After the cancellation as a military project, there was reluctance to cancel the project because of the huge cost incurred. Blue Streak would have become the first stage of a projected all British satellite launcher known as "Black Prince": the second stage was derived from the Black Knight test vehicle, and the orbital injection stage was a small hydrogen peroxide/kerosene motor. This launcher never progressed beyond the design stage.
This also proved too expensive, and the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) was set up. This used Blue Streak as the first stage, with French and German second and third stages. The Blue Streak first stage was successfully tested three times at the Woomera test range in Australia as part of the ELDO programme.
Although a total of eight launches were made of the multi-stage vehicle, the French and German components proved unreliable leading to the project's final cancellation, and the end of Blue Streak. The final launch was made at the French site of Kourou in French Guiana.
So, it seems that some Blue Streaks, at least the first stages thereof, made it to Australia and to Kouru without a Belfast.
... Post-war Britain's nuclear weapons armament was initially based on free-fall bombs delivered by the V bomber force. It soon became clear that if Britain wanted to have a credible threat, a ballistic missile was essential. There was a political need for an independent deterrent, so that Britain could remain a major world power. The use of an American missile would have appeared to hand control to the United States.
In April 1954 the Americans proposed a joint development programme for ballistic missiles. The United States would develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) of 5,000 nautical mile (9,300 km) range, while the United Kingdom with United States support would develop a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) of 2,000 nautical mile (3,700 km) range. The proposal was accepted as part of the Wilson-Sandys Agreement of August 1954, which provided for collaboration, exchange of information, and mutual planning of development programmes. The decision to develop was influenced by what could be learnt about missile design and development in the US. Initial requirements for the booster were made by the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough with input on the rocket engine design from the Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott.
De Havilland won the contract to build the missile, which was to be powered by an uprated liquid-fuelled Rocketdyne S3D engine, developed by Rolls-Royce, called RZ2. ...
...
Eventually the project was cancelled because of its lack of credibility as a deterrent. Some[who?] considered the cancellation of Blue Streak to be not only a blow to British military-industrial efforts, but also to Commonwealth ally Australia, which had its own vested interest in the project
.
The missiles used liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants. Whilst the vehicle could be left fully laden with 20+ tonnes of kerosene, the 60 tonnes of liquid oxygen had to be loaded immediately before launch or icing became a problem. Due to this, fuelling the rocket took 15 minutes, which would have made it useless as a rapid response to an attack. The missile was vulnerable to a pre-emptive attack, launched without warning or in the absence of any heightening of tension sufficient to warrant readying the missile, if such a circumstance were ever likely. ( But every engineer and scientist had to have known about the drawbacks of liquid oxygen oxidizer from the beginning of the program. And why assume that the Reds could knock out all or almost all British MRBM's in a surprise attack? I suspect that many Atlas ICBM's were deployed above ground.-- Elmo.)
To protect the missiles against a pre-emptive strike while being fuelled, the idea of siting the missiles in underground silos was developed. These would have been designed to withstand a one megaton blast at a distance of half a mile (800 m) and were a British innovation, subsequently exported to the US. ( I'm not sure that the missile silo idea originated in UK. Can anyone comment on this? -- Elmo.) [I]However, finding sites for these silos proved extremely difficult and RAF Spadeadam in Cumbria was the only site where construction was undertaken. This was also the site where the RZ2 rocket engines and also the complete Blue Streak missile were tested. The best sites for silo construction were the more stable rock strata in parts of southern England, but the construction of many underground silos in the countryside carried enormous economic, social, and political cost.
( Shoulda thought of that earlier in the program. -- Elmo. OK, Atlas ICBM's in the USA could be based farther from population centers than MRBM's in the UK. Not as much Not in My Backyard trouble in USA.)
As no site in Britain provided enough space for test flights, a test site was established at Woomera, South Australia. Whitehall opposition to the project grew, and it was eventually cancelled on the ostensible grounds that it would be too vulnerable to a first-strike attack. Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma had spent considerable effort arguing that the project should be cancelled at once in favour of his Navy being armed with nuclear weapons, capable of pre-emptive strike. Around £84m had been spent.
...
Civilian programme
After the cancellation as a military project, there was reluctance to cancel the project because of the huge cost incurred. Blue Streak would have become the first stage of a projected all British satellite launcher known as "Black Prince": the second stage was derived from the Black Knight test vehicle, and the orbital injection stage was a small hydrogen peroxide/kerosene motor. This launcher never progressed beyond the design stage.
This also proved too expensive, and the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) was set up. This used Blue Streak as the first stage, with French and German second and third stages. The Blue Streak first stage was successfully tested three times at the Woomera test range in Australia as part of the ELDO programme.
Although a total of eight launches were made of the multi-stage vehicle, the French and German components proved unreliable leading to the project's final cancellation, and the end of Blue Streak. The final launch was made at the French site of Kourou in French Guiana.
So, it seems that some Blue Streaks, at least the first stages thereof, made it to Australia and to Kouru without a Belfast.
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I cannot remember the exact year but I suspect 1960 when I was at Air Movements Richmond, when the first of the Blue streaks came through.
But carried by USAF C124B's and we were told the RAF had no airplane to uplift them.
Regards
Col
But carried by USAF C124B's and we were told the RAF had no airplane to uplift them.
Regards
Col
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As an outsider, in reply to the OP I'd have to offer...
.... your industry's inability to produce a modern, simple, reliable, mission-flexible, capable and quite unique aeroplane.
What's that? It did? And it was called the Hawk 200? AND YOU DIDN"T BUY AND DEVELOP IT?
You really are a nation of complete w*****s.
.... your industry's inability to produce a modern, simple, reliable, mission-flexible, capable and quite unique aeroplane.
What's that? It did? And it was called the Hawk 200? AND YOU DIDN"T BUY AND DEVELOP IT?
You really are a nation of complete w*****s.
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Standardization is the foundation of all large-scale production. Manufacturers produce separately many copies of every part of a complicated machine to use on an assembly line. Standardization also allowed owners of machines to order and replace any broken or lost parts, taking it for granted that the new part would fit easily and precisely into the place of the old.
The legacy airframe components were difficult to integrate with the new build elements and they give an insight into just how bad the older generation aircraft were. There were differences of up to 4 inches in length between parts of the legacy fuselage components. By comparison, for the Boeing B777, which first flew 15 years ago, Boeing claim each aircraft to be within 3/100th of an inch of each other over a fuselage length of 200 feet.
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Quote:
Incidentally, until much later, Ford worked to US standards in the US, and to Metric in its UK and German factories. When the company decided to build its first "world car" (long before the Mondeo) which would be built in all its worldwide factories, the company decided to change its US factories to Metric standards
Indeed. There was a time (late 70s/early 80s?) when Ford sold cars in the UK with metric, imperial and US fasteners. Fortunately, most of the UK/US stuff was just about interchangeable as I recall (Whitworth and UNC, or was that UNF? Too long ago now) The wonders of threadology!
Incidentally, until much later, Ford worked to US standards in the US, and to Metric in its UK and German factories. When the company decided to build its first "world car" (long before the Mondeo) which would be built in all its worldwide factories, the company decided to change its US factories to Metric standards
Indeed. There was a time (late 70s/early 80s?) when Ford sold cars in the UK with metric, imperial and US fasteners. Fortunately, most of the UK/US stuff was just about interchangeable as I recall (Whitworth and UNC, or was that UNF? Too long ago now) The wonders of threadology!
Still happens today on Aircraft, buy any puddle jumper from Europe such as a Socata or Robin ( cringe) and the Airframe will be metric but the US produced engine will be A/F, UNC and UNF and have US Fasteners..
OLD RED DAMASK
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The wonders of threadology!
Seem to remember vividly a TSR2 accompanied by a Lightning either side coming over our school in Blackpool at low level, so it must have originated from Warton for its flight.
Valiant must rate as a blunder, not many built and those that were had tail failures.
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Fettling V engineering
Eli Whitney
As early as 1798, Eli Whitney had turned his talents to the manufacture of firearms. He had established his machine shops at Whitneyville, near New Haven; and it was there that he worked out another achievement quite as [important] as the cotton gin: namely, the principle of standardization or interchangeable parts.
As early as 1798, Eli Whitney had turned his talents to the manufacture of firearms. He had established his machine shops at Whitneyville, near New Haven; and it was there that he worked out another achievement quite as [important] as the cotton gin: namely, the principle of standardization or interchangeable parts.
There are significant intial costs in mass production, drawings have to be very carefully prepared with all dimensions and tolernaces specified in great detail, and components made to higher tolerances if they are to be assembled without rework. Often tooling, parts which must be manufactured in order to manufacture and form other parts, must be made. Consequently the start up costs are much higher.
In 1930s while Germany was stamping out the first Beetles priced so that workers could drive them on the new autobahns, the British car manufacturers were still proudly elitist and held on to methods which called for a level of ‘fitting’ during assembly. This approach was presented as a virtue, the low volume luxury car makers held that their cars were built by craftsmen and this was promoted as exclusivity.
The British aircraft industry of the 1930s worked in a very similar way to its car manufacturers. And, borrowing the rational, they held that skilled fitters were essential whenever airframes and aero engines had to be manufactured. When the war was imminent and the British government wanted to increase aircraft production big problems were encountered when experienced mass producers attempted to adopt the aircraft industries' drawings and processes. Even relatively straight forward sub-assemblies such as bomb racks, when sent out to be manufactured by manufacturers such as Hoover and Electrolux, created problems. The supplied drawings were not always complete and tolerances were insufficient to define parts that could be assembled without extensive hand rework. The subcontractors ended up redrawing the original blueprints produced by the aviation big boys such as Avro and Handley Page to the standards that were customary in vacuum cleaner manufacture!
I'm sure I've read somewhere that when Packard were initially invited to manufacture the Merlin, they advised Rolls-Royce that they couldn't make them to the RR drawings because the tolerances were either unspecified or far too wide for mass-production...