TimK

Albert Ball VC learned on a G.III - as seen in the iconic portrait photo of him in uniform, hatless, with his coat over his left arm. Among many others my great uncle Harold Jackson trained on a G.III with the Ruffy Baumann school at Hendon, getting his licence in May 1915 before going on to die in June 1917 in an FE8 with 41 Sqn. There's a good Wikipedia entry on the type, which was operated by no less than 28 countries. I hope the kit sells well. T.

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Hi Elias, there are good 1/72 Overstrand drawings by George Cox in Aeromodeller June 1957. They are well annotated and include cross sections and forward fuselage internals. There's also a build feature for his wood Overstrand model. PM me your email address and I'll send you scans. Great project. Good luck. Tim

There's a superb photo on eB at the moment, with heavy bidding. Worth a look. Good luck with your quest, it's a fascinating machine. Tim

The picture of the S5 with the shed and crane in the background, apparently with long port struts, is definitely flipped horizontally. I have a Flight photo taken on what must be same occasion with the S5 and the Gloster IV together. The crane is on the left of the shed and the visible serial N222 on the Gloster shows that it's the right way round. Another piece of evidence: look too at the civilian on the "left" with his breast pocket handkerchief on the wrong side.

From Puss Moth entry on Wikipedia: "Most famous of the record breaking Puss Moths was Jim Mollison's G-ABXY, "The Heart's Content" which completed the first solo east-west Atlantic crossing in August 1932 from Portmarnock Strand near Dublin to New Brunswick, Canada and the first east-west crossing of the South Atlantic from Lympne Aerodrome to Natal, Brazil in February 1933. His wife, Amy Johnson, made record flights between England and Cape Town using G-ACAB, "Desert Cloud" in 1932." Tim

A great find and a great engineer, hardly known today. Fascinating. Thanks for posting. Tim

Follow this link for superb detail photos of the Gladiator, including the oil cooler on the starboard side:

the Short-Bristow Crusader was designed by WG (George) Carter. He later became chief designer for Gloster, worked closely with Frank Whittle and designed Britain's first jet, the E.28/39, and Britain's first jet fighter, the Meteor. He had been Sopwith's chief draughtsman immediately after WW1 and was chief designer at Hawker before Sydney Camm (Horsley, Hornbill). The de Havilland DH77 monoplane interceptor was his and he contributed to the design of the Avro Manchester.

Dave, thanks for your information about Moreton Valence. It's clear now that my photo of EE455 from the rear was a Gloster company photo taken there, as were most of the other posed images. My suggestion that it was at Manston is wrong. Several Oxfords in the background in this one.So knowing now that this set of images was taken at Moreton Valence, with the outer wings in natural metal, it reopens the possibility (likelihood even) that the wings were painted yellow before EE455 went to Herne Bay to attempt the record. Tim

More food for thought. Two factory photos stamped Gloster Aircraft Co Ltd with handwritten captions. Upper photo: "View of special High Speed Flight Meteor IVs being prepared for flight. July-Aug 46." Lower photo: "View of clipped wing to be fitted to Meteor IVs. View from underside." Meteor in foreground is EE549 (the number 549 is painted on the forward bulkhead in another image). This suggests that the wing wasn't clipped before summer 1946. Note how close the roundel is to the wing tip - does this mean that it's a mod of an existing wing (the panels look a bit bashed)? Tim

I’ve been looking at high-res scans of the original glass negs of High Speed Meteor EE455 Yellow Peril. Three sources state that it was yellow overall (Shacklady, Derek James and Butler & Buttler). As others in this thread point out, though, the outer wings and tailplane certainly look like natural metal. I’m not convinced, though, that the bullet fairing on the fin was unpainted. This view shows that there's a tonal change between bullet and tailplane, much like that between the centre section and starboard outer wing. James says, plausibly, that the yellow finish was “to make it easily discernible by the recording cameras.” The cameras would only see the side elevation of EE455, so while it would make sense to paint fuselage, nacelles, fin and rudder yellow there would be no need to paint the outer wings or the tailplane. I’m familiar enough with photos of Gloster’s factory-airfields, Hucclecote/Brockworth and Moreton Valence, to be certain that the photos weren’t factory shots.There are Oxfords and what look like Harvards in the background of other photos. None of the sources say where the two Meteors were based. I believe the photos were taken at RAF Manston, 10-11 miles from Herne Bay where the record flights were made. Were outer wings and tailplane painted yellow after the photos were taken but before the record attempt? That would have been a factory job, not something that would have been done at Manston. Fascinating thread. Tim

Do you mean details of the type, or details of its time with Cobham? Flight magazine published a feature on the AW XVI in 1931, complete with 3-view, downloadable as a pdf file: https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1931/1931%20-%201129.html The aircraft was developed into the AW35 Scimitar (different engine, lower nose decking, fin and rudder enlarged, smaller wheel spats but otherwise much the same). Modelbud do two 1/72 scale kits of the Scimitar: http://www.modelbud.pl/en_US/searchquery/scimitar/1/phot/5?url=scimitar I guess you've already googled it, looked at google images and seen the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Whitworth_A.W.16

There's an excellent DH2 rigging guide at www.aeroretro.com/dh2-scale-model-rigging-guide.html Hope this helps. Tim

This is from AP1523'The Gladiator Aeroplane', Vol I, 2nd edition, July 1938. Fig. 75 'Rigging Diagram' gives the following: Gap on main planes 5ft 3.75in. Incidence 2deg 30min plus/minus 15min. Dihedral 3deg plus/minus 15min. Stagger 27in plus/minus 1/8in. Hope this helps. Good luck with the scratchbuild. Tim