ChocolateCrisps

The only place I've ever seen that pod is on this site, which unfortunately is something of a mess due to having been archived years ago. Here's a picture of the section I mean, to save you having to muddle around with it: For later Bucc equipment fits you might also find this thread useful. If it's purely for War Thunder though, I wouldn't bother. I've long since given up on that game after realising that what was meant by "Historically Accurate" was "we'll make whatever we feel like and then skin the results to look like real planes" - if you're someone who actually wants accurate renditions of your favourite aircraft, all you'll get from those developers is frustration. Anyway, rant over.

I doubt it. I'm not particularly clued up on this stuff but I gather that the big limitation with combat aircraft in non-combat flight sims is always weapons - getting a model designed purely to handle aircraft flight mechanics to deal with bullet trajectories, combat damage etc. is a serious challenge!

I'm sure the buyer was quoted just after the auction as saying something along the lines of "nothing that's taken out of the aircraft will be thrown away", and "some of the removed fittings will be displayed seperately". Now I understand that doesn't strictly rule out selling the engines, but it does sort of imply that for a brief few minutes there was at least the intention of keeping all the parts in one place...

I could be wrong, but short of the actual design drawings from Avro themselves, I doubt that what you're looking for exists. You might be able to find a high resolution plan with such detail, but an accurate one is very unlikely. If you'd settle for slightly less rigorous standards, however, I'm sure someone on here knows of some half decent plans that will give a good approximation of what you're after!

Not even slightly familiar with torpedo marks but I do like information hunting. This seems to suggest that the torpedo would have been a Mark 43, if I'm reading it right?

Does anyone have Sitting Ducks & Peeping Toms, by Michael Draper? I haven't got round to buying a copy yet, but surely if any book is going to have photos of the drone kit, that will be the one!

No pictures unfortunately but this article describes the installation in some detail. It mentions that the Universal Drone Pack was designed to fit the ejector seat rails in the Observer's position, which I assume would therefore mean that it was strictly a single crew aircraft!

Which jury struts - the ones that are fitted in the fold when the wings are folded?

While the Scimitar wasn't cleared for We 177, it was for Red Beard - as far as I know, it was with the Scimitar + Red Beard combination that the RN first became a nuclear power. I can only find two images of the set up, and both show the bomb on the port inner pylon, so I'd assume that was the standard.

Oh, that's interesting, thanks! Somehow managed to miss that at the time. The problem then becomes both response time and range though - so surely there are still some situations where having the gunpod available for the F-35 would make life much simpler, even if it's not a regular occurence.

But the problem then becomes launching the Apache off a carrier!

If you're talking about the report that's usually pulled up when Red Top comes up, we have slightly different interpretations of the information in there! (The report contains a number of sections by different departments, who generally seem to be working at cross purposes to one another, which admittedly does make it quite confusing, but carefully going through it can pull out the truth.) The one I've seen did contain an observation that the Red Top when unslaved to radar was roughly comparable in perfomance to AIM-9D - but Red Top was, as far as I know, always slaved to the radar of the launch aircraft, so it's somewhat besides the point! A later section notes that when slaved to radar, as was the intention, Red Top was slightly superior to Sparrow III - not bad for an IR missile!

Britain's Lost Bomber has a smallish image of one of the tanks undergoing testing, but I'm not sure how useful it would be (nor whether I could scan it well enough!). It also mentions, however, that no work on the tanks had been done beyond 1964 (as the various Ministries were already starting to get very nervous about the project by that point), so there's probably some scope for creative license if you're trying to represent a 'production' tank!

The limitation with all such sites is that the models are only as good as the references used! They could certainly be handy for getting your head around the shapes involved, e.g. for scratch building, but beyond that I'd be cautious.

I suspect it may be a case of too much information (and none of it terribly helpful at that!), but a complete parts list and assembly diagrams for the photo pod can be found on pages 155-172 of this document here. (You may need to sign up for a free account to view it).

I've had that reply from them before too. It's a pity - imagine the amount of information that must be squirreled away in their archives!

Sounds like it fits pretty well! We can't be sure without more information, but it all appears to tie up quite nicely!

Just had another thought - the dimensions of the Blackburn B.103 are given in British Secret Projects 2, and the length is given there as 61ft 6in. Obviously this is only the provisional length given in the brochure, but it may have carried over to the early prototypes.

Looks like Kew has no shortage of documents on the NA.39, but whether any of them mention the fuselage extension is another question (and it'll be months before anyone can check!)

Scouring Google images did turn up this site, which has an image of almost the same scheme (although the camo pattern appears slightly different), but as a museum example, I don't know how accurate it is.

Yikes - serviceability that poor is almost impressive in it's own right! I ran the article through Google translate - looks like it doesn't say anything more about why logistics are so poor. That is rather scary though - if they're unable to adequately support operations with their existing fleet, why are they ordering more Typhoons plus two new types (Super Hornet and Growler)?!! Surely that's just going to make the problem worse?

Not sure how accurate to the kit they usually are, but the instructions with the line drawings at the back are available on Scalemates.

I'm not particularly up-to-date on modern equipment (Cold War stuff is more my style), what's the Typhoon still missing? I don't think we hear anything about it being lacking over here in the UK, although admittedly that could just be because the media aren't interested...

The 2" pods used by the RN and RAF during that period certainly came in both rounded and pointy varieties, but I've never seen any photos of the latter with a frangible nose cone. Image is a "Launcher No 7", found through the RAFM Collections site

But surely aircraft characteristics would have a bearing on how useful that surprise would be? If you catch your enemy off-guard and you're already at 43000ft, you're far more likely to get clear before they can intercept you than you are if you're at a lower altitude! So while on paper the Mig-15 may have a slightly higher maximum altitude than the Spitfire, it's limited by the fact that it has to get there before it can pull off an interception, while the Spit is already there.