John B (Sc)

Austers. like Chipmunks and Tiger Moths, are an affliction - once you have succumbed the attraction is lifelong, despite the oddities of the breed. Having had many happy hours and well bounced landings in Austers, and the occasional greaser by luck or mistake, they still weave a spell. Quite an understandable addiction Anthony. (Though as someone who also flies Piper Super Cubs, from the same Taylorcraft roots, I wonder how did the Auster end up with such different handling?) That looks like an interesting scheme to resurrect. John B

Thanks Kevin. Interesting, and sobering, thoughts. Turning that sort of picture around will be hard work.

Ouch. I wasn't aware there were still so many problems. Embarrassing for a company as experienced as Boeing !

Thanks Ossington, Simper explanation than I thought - I presumed the cellulose dope coats were underneath with a final topcoat of gloss red finish. Why is the metal paint enamel - I thought cellulose based paints can work well on metal too, with correct primer and undercoat?

Strewth. Those all look a fair bit better than the kit I recall building - made by Frog, way back when. Until I built it, I'd never even heard of the Morane Saulnier 406 ! Famous name, MS.

Precisely. From my own experience, in a different sphere to this, it costs much more - assuming it can even be done. Sometimes once the background capability to make complex item things is lost it cannot be regained, We many learn new ways to achieve much the same ends but expertise lost may be totally gone. That is a major worry. Additionally, while 'legacy' processes and procedures may be acceptable, re-inventing them once lost may not be straightforward under more modern legal and HSE systems. As a simple, silly, example, imagine trying to persuade legislators and safety people to accept cars and trucks, buses as we happily run them today in our cities. "Sorry - you want us to let you run large metal boxes weighing several tonnes at speed right alongside - within a foot or so - of people walking, with no protections? And these large metal boxes are manually controlled by people with a very limited training and check system, and may contain large quantities of highly flammable fluids. Yeyyyes." Sounds mad, , put like that, doesn't it? John B (PS - I am a keen car driver, motorcyclist and pilot. I just like to be clear about what we really do ! )

I suppose one4 snag with all this is that both dayglo orange and red faded fairly fast, at least as paint on finish. The printed panels seemed more resistant to fade. I still have some small self adhesive orange dayglo sections from a roll an RAF detachment left,. I also have dayglo red patches form much later, Both last quite well in sunlight, unlike my dayglo paint. I do recall seeing UAS Chipmunks with dayglo red stripes as well as some with dayglo orange stripes. Can't recall, and haven't found any photos in my files showing Chipmunks with large dayglo red painted areas, only orange. Am fairly sure some RN Vampire trainers were painted with dayglo red areas. Frustratingly many of my early photos were b&w. which makes it impossible to tell which shade of dayglo was used. I have a vague memory of seeing a Lightning two seater with dayglo training bands. Does anyone else recall that, or is that just a What-If of my mind?

Rabbit Leader - Yes I agree, the Gnat was interesting, as an aeroplane and for its colours. I had thought Gnats mostly went straight from the aluminium/orange dayglo scheme to red/white grey, but I have seen comment about there having being a grey/dayglo orange scheme briefly. Presumably that would have used dayglo adhesive patches rather than spray paint. Other than artist's impressions, including the Airfix kit scheme, I have not yet seen an RAF service grey/dayglo Gnat photo. Rod Blievers - Well spotted. A slight shade difference seems fairly normal between metal and fabric surfaces. It is almost impossible to avoid, in some lights anyway. (I am married to an artist & pilot who designed the colour scheme for a classic biplane we have a share in - even with the greatest care & cunning in scheme design, subtle shade differences can be seen between metal & fabric surfaces in some lights , from some angles. Choosing the optimum shades helps - it seems red is one of the awkward colours for that, as well as being apt to fade differentially on different surfaces.) The differences in those designations is probably about adhesion and coverage. Slight chemical differences to aid adhesion is my guess, Possibly to do with the surface tension contact angle effects for laydown and adhesion, which I think differ between fabric & metal. I found some limited information on X.29, but nothing on X.26. Both are obsolete British Standards now. That is a superb photo, quite agree ! John B

That picture of the Royal Navy Chipmunk reminds me - I think the FAA used Fluorescent Red quite early on, in place of the Orange used by the RAF. Although I also have a memory of an RN Tiger Moth based at RNAS Fulmar in the Sixties being in overall aluminium with yellow T-bands, while at the same time - & station - Vampire trainers were in aluminium and Fluorescent Red. Can anyone confirm my rocky memory? I think the Tiger may have been use as a glider tug.

T21s post about Dayglo orange paint trials is most interesting. Slightly off the Chipmunk topic thrust (most intriguing since I am, like the OP, trying to sort out in my mind early Chipmunk UAS schemes) - At RAF Valley in 1964 I saw Gnats with orange dayglo panels painted generally - nose, rear fuselage and fin, outer wings. These were not painted using adhesive trim, they were clearly spray painted. The orange did indeed fade rapidly, although I saw little evidence of major erosion, so that at least had been fixed ! As far as I recall. all the Gnats, except those being used by the newly formed YellowJacks, were painted in this way then. Somewhere I have the slides I took...

Has anybody heard word of a Lycoming conversion kit yet? Quite a few civil Chipmunks here in the UK , especially for glider towing, and of course the current Portuguese Air Force Chipmunks use Lycomings. I am tempted to do a scratch built conversion unless I can find an old 1/48 Piper or Cessna to cannibalise for a cowling which could be modified for a 180 HP Chipmunk.

I see from the video links that apparently that style of seat does not move far back. Similar to, say, the Pawnee, a small range of adjustment nota likely cause. So scratch that thought. One video mentions the gust lock system - that seems a very clear and hard to overlook arrangement. Hard to ignore since it gets in the way of your feet on the pedals. A standard drill for us all is to check for 'full and free' control movement as a last check before rolling. Even if the brake lock wasn't functioning, that check would be so sec Even if flying from the rear seat, the lack of rudder pedal movement would be obvious when taxying. The last thing normally done before take-off is a 'full and free' control movement check, second nature to a man of his experience - unless of course that last minute request from ATC for a frequency change interrupted his thought process and checks. I doubt the elevator trim system could cause that type of accident, even if mis set or running the wrong way. Those small tabs will have a lot of leverage but in extremis a pilot can push very hard indeed. No sign of that at all. Most mysterious all round. John B

Hard to comprehend indeed. Haven't seen that video yet - thanks. Surely a technical - or possibly medical - failure of some sort. My wife and I wondered if perhaps this was a seat lock failure - several Cessna were lost over the years when seats came unlocked during the take-of roll. Inevitable result is the control column gets pulled back and an uncontrolled climb occurs - just as this was said to be. Practically impossible to deal with in the time available, I believe most Cessnas had bolts installed in the seat rails to limit the seat movement, range for this reason. Very sad loss of an impressively skilled pilot. John B

I still do the occasional vacform, some being well hoarded Aeroclub kits - thanks John ! Those tend to be well detailed and worthwhile. Sometimes the only way to get a model of what you want I also have one or two Echelon kits still in stock, Lightnings and Hunters, sadly only one Hunter being a two seater. I built one Hunter as a Mk 1, easier to do with the vacform kit than by modifying the Revell beast. Frank Brown (I think) did a superb job on those kits. I did seem to have a habit for a while of building vacform versions just before an injection mould kit came out. I still have my vacform Vulcan, only now possibly superseded by the new Airfix issue. I gave up wrestling with a vacform Valiant when the Airfix one was issued and I still have the remnants of an appalling Nimrod somewhere...

Overall this seems a fine kit, though my copy is also missing one wheel attachment on the extended scissors u/c option. In addition my front and rear transparencies do show quite a lot of distortion. As John 224 said, that is not unusual in the real thing, in some transparencies, especially older ones. Annoying here though and I agree with those who have said this is disappointingly poor QC by Airfix. Not a deal breaker, no doubt I will buy one more but still - come on folks, we know you can do better! John B

Given modern computer design & the constraints presumed by those specifying, it is hardly surprising it shows strong similarities to other machines of similar (hoped for) capability. I suspect that this concept design will act mostly as a bid to get us into an appropriate syndicate. I'd hope that will be European, first because the problems of the USA may increase, making it a major challenging partner, as well as always a rather dominating one. Besides, many of us looking at Gripen, Rafale or even Typhoon and contrasting with the style of, say, the F-35 and its competitors would suggest the former are more attractive and interesting to look at - and model ! I tend to be in the 'if it looks right...' school of engineering. I accept that the computers say 'F-35 good' ; that depends on who and how programmed them ! Of course those flying them will also say 'F-35 good' ; we pilots are loyal to the machines we have, typically. This concept looks OK, not spectacular, but then it is an early proof of concept. Look back at other concept designs., They mostly look very different to what goes into service. (Not always; the impressive F-15 stayed very true to original intent. The Lightning mentioned earlier most certainly did not! ) It would be nice if some company comes out with a model of this concept/prototype. Airfix used to do that - NA39, P1127, MRCA. There could be a fair market there; just think of all the WIF folk and small (and not so small) kids who would build their own variants in current greys or 'classic' colours. Drat, I think I've talked myself into a couple. Come on Airfix ! John B

Way to go - that's what I'd call a bargain !

This is a most interesting forum discussion. I realise that we (human beings, engineers) have done quite a lot of things that seemed sensible, or necessary, at one time, only to realise later that there were other consequences, not appreciated originally. I recall one of the first aircraft had I had a share in a sailplane, had a number of ex-military instruments, When flying near dusk, the way the panel used to slowly illuminate was interesting and actually rather reassuring in the gloom and turbulence of a stormy evening sky! Ignorance is bliss... Also, I spent some spare time, many years ago, assisting a radiation monitoring and fallout prediction group in the UK Monitoring & Warning Service. We were supposed toe estimate likely fallout levels during and after a nuclear attack - something we all expected to have happen - and work out damage & causality levels, recommend where rescue or evacuation could be attempted, for how long and by which routes. Fascinating but in retrospect gruesome calculations and estimates, which 'informed' my thoughts on both military and civil risks in nuclear operations. We mostly used rads then as a measure - I recall 75 rads being what was described as the 'War Emergency Dose', i.e. the acceptable dose which rescue personnel and military personnel could be required to be exposed to in the course of necessary duties. It was felt then that on average people would survive that dosage without lethal damage and without excess risk to future offspring. Given that I think around 450 rads was considered a likely lethal dose, this seemed very optimistic to me as a young man. Crude measures, crude days - and of course radiation dose effects on tissue depends on many other factors. We didn't have the detail data to allow for that. JWM knows so much more about this than I do ; it was all a long time ago and I'm just glad we never had to find out more about it for real. In may ways it was the calculations of nuclear explosion damage to infrastructure and access routes, roads, bridges etc which would have been of most use to rescue forces ! John B

Though some people say this explains a lot about we Aberdonians...

And of course I managed to miss the July issue by one day - so that will be aback order. Should have bought it when first seen. However, at least I got the August one - and that's a really nice Bolo build Jon. Strange aeroplane that one, probably because we all see the DC-2 &-3 resemblance Cheers, John B

In general I have found these interesting and useful. Of course it depends what you want them for. Personally I find the many colour side views fun when debating possible kit colours schemes. I am not too bothered about drawing accuracy - always a problem for aeroplanes represented on a flat plane anyway. Certabily frequemtly propgated mistakes are annoying, though very hard to eliminate - as John Aero has commented and explained many times, Errors creep back in despite best intentions - and return! . The Hunter dogtooth mentioned earlier amused me; it led me to examine very carefully both kits and drawings as well as photographs of the real thing to establish the correct position of the dogtooth and of the outer stores, often mis-represented. That taught me more about the Hunter, so I view it as a positive. Admittedly my background means I try not to accept written documentation or drawings without checking against reality. Engineering a change using the wrong start information does make life difficult, and you might be surprised how often the da\wings and information held on really large, major equipment is wrong! (Either because the wrong, usually conceptual detail drawings were kept or because the as-built drawings were not updated as changes were made.) For detail information on an aircraft I'd go to a specialist book, not the light summary of a Warpaint. Like another poster here, I still have all my SAM magazines from the start till around 1993. I also still have, and use the old red cover Profile pamphlets, any bought for two shillings each. Now that dates me !

The cynic in me suggests that would have helped aircrew to climb into the right machine. Red = Valiant, Blue = Victor, Yellow = Vulcan. Simple enough, even for the V Force ! Ducking now as the flak comes in ... (I'll get my coat) More probably, those colours reflect each manufacturer's preferences. Or, what they had available.

That seems the most logical expectation. Has anyone heard from Andy Evans about this? As far as I understand from the record, SAM Publications was transferred from the ownership of Mr Elliott, who presumably is the person mentioned as retiring, in 2011. In 2016 SAM Publications appointed a liquidator, the liquidation effectively completing in 2018 (formal end 2019). Effectively, no monies were paid to creditors by the liquidator. The main creditors were trade and HMRC. A company called Hobbyzone Ltd, two of whose directors are the same folk as latterly owned SAM Publications, appears to have proposed purchasing the goodwill of SAM Publications for a fairly nominal sum. That did not occur and Hobbyzone has also gone - in its case into compulsory liquidation. MA Publications began in 2018 with the same two directors as previously were listed for SAM Publications. Now MA Publications has some statutory reports outstanding. A proposed strike off action by the Registrar of Companies has been temporarily suspended - this suggests that some action is planned to submit the relevant reports. (My understanding is that if reports are overdue for too long, this strike-off mechanism is used to encourage response.) In effect this suggests all is officially 'pending' for now.

Interesting bomb bay build work. Why Indian Air Force? Just for fun as a What-If, or did they think about Vulcans?

I agree Mike - it was an excellent way to learn about aeroplanes.