Jennings Heilig Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 Anyone have a clue when the extended elevator balance horn was introduced? And was it retrofitted to earlier a/c? An ML serial range a/c - early or late style horns? Tks!J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgar Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 Somewhere between March (according to the RAF) and September 1943 (according to Supermarine's ledger.) Leaflets were generally issued to all units, so the modification could have been (and probably was)retrospective. The leaflet consists of 11 pages, so I'm not going to incur Mike's wrath by putting it on here. As far as I can tell, ML--- series were built in 1944, so should have had them. Edgar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennings Heilig Posted March 9, 2013 Author Share Posted March 9, 2013 Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennings Heilig Posted March 9, 2013 Author Share Posted March 9, 2013 Thanks again Edgar. Earlier you said the bulged upper cowling came in around August '44. Do you know if that was a refit item on earlier a/c as well, or did it show up on the assembly line at that point? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgar Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 It was only needed on the IX, from that date, because of the introduction of the Packard Merlin, i.e the XVI. When it was decided to fit a filler access in the top of the cowling, to allow the 266's header tank (fitted onto the intercooler housing) to be filled without removing the cowling, it was found that the hinge mechanism protruded inside, and fouled the IX's intercooler pipework, which ran to the header tank, which was fitted on the firewall; to stop this happening the cowling was simply bulged upwards, slightly, to give a little extra space. Although it doesn't say so, it appears that, rather than have two cowlings on the same production line, Castle Bromwich used a "one size fits all" rule, and fitted the same cowling to both the IX & the XVI. As long as the cowling remained undamaged, there would have been no need for a bulged type to be fitted to early airframes, hence no retrospective action. On the other hand, of course, there's always the possibility that an early filler-less cowling was fitted to a late IX airframe, but that would take some finding. All this, of course, did not affect the Mk.VIII, which remained with the non-bulged cowling throughout its production run. Edgar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennings Heilig Posted March 10, 2013 Author Share Posted March 10, 2013 As I suspected. Many thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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