Build Review Vulcan - Three Out of Five Seats

[sloegin57]

Impressive set of PE you have there Mike, now tempted to invest in some myself, although as an ex Victor man I should not. The only Vulcan I started is currently languishing as a part converted B1a somewhere around the house.

Don't forget the sixth seat for the Crew Chief. We did not just sit on the floor handing out sandwiches, coffee and soup to the drivers upfront and the Talking Freight in the rear !.

The rear crew chutes and dinghy packs remained with the seats. Just a tip, but when you make the dinghy packs, make them out of brick, 'cause thats what they felt like after yer bum was parked on them for 6 or seven hours.

I'll drag a seat out later, if the weather holds, and take some photos so that you can super detail the rear ones if you wish. I note in your heading photo that there are a few bits missing, handles, ejection knob etc.

Good job so far.

Regards,

Dennis

Edited May 19, 2014 by sloegin57

[Mike]

Hi Dennis, yes please, that'd be really handy. While the WEM PE does give an awful lot in the way of structural detail, the smaller stuff that doesn't really lend itself to PE has been ignored. I've got the X-47B off the spray booth now, so might have a dabble with the metal primer in a sec once I've cleaned my airbrush

[Planebuilder62]

What are you planning for the jet exhauts? Will you be making a small size 200 type or the 301 Olympus type?

Regards

The cat

[Flying Badger]

AngstROM the two kits are 1/72 ones from Aircraft in Miniature's Historic Wings collection. I've got a Wright Flyer and a Bleriot XI.

(see www.aim72.co.uk/page75.html)

The Wright is half built and the Bleriot I have one wing assembled, both using CA glue but I'm not happy with the results so far so I'm stripping them back to metal and will try with solder.

[Mike]

What are you planning for the jet exhauts? Will you be making a small size 200 type or the 301 Olympus type?

Regards

The cat

The Wolfpack set includes a set of the later ones - 301s from memory?

[Julien]

One day I,ll call in and eat your jammie dodgers while you teach me how to do PE

Dave, he promised me custard creams once but I never saw them!

Looking good there Mike. Admire your patience as I dont do PE much these days; and certainly not to that level.

Julien

[Flying Badger]

Mike add me to the list of ppl to give a heads up to when the book comes out. looking great there so far.

[robvulcan]

Great start Mike. Thats a Golden looking interior there....

Great work on the PE I wonder how much of that you will see when its done.

Don't forget some of the corrections the kits don't correct like reducing the intake spliter plates, removing the twin lights on the top of the Fuselage should only be one (I missed that on my last build... DOH), you might want to add the steering column to the front wheel leg, Move the porthole windows to the right place and correct the awkward radome line which is totally wrong on the kit. also the root attachment of the IFR probe is way too big.

Hope this helps not that you need it.

Looking forward to seeing which airframe you choose. Be nice to see something a bit different. which it already is by the looks of it.

Cheers Rob good luck with the arduous sanding filling and swearing that awaits you.

[sloegin57]

Mike - attached the photos of a rear seat. My comments are only applicable to the Victor, there may have been different procedures for the Vulcan:-

The rear seats, two of which were shown in your header photo, were common to all three V's after August 1963. On the Victor, they were fitted as part of the "Retrofit" programme (free-fall to Blue Steel). They fitted into the same rails as the original seats and were an attempt to ease the egress of rear crew members in the event of an emergency. The seat was held in position in the rails by pawls which engaged in holes in the rails and operated by a handle on the left side of the seat. Operating the handle enabled the occupant to slide the seat fore and aft in the rails. The seats rotated on a turntable either left or right and were fitted into the appropriate crew position with the Nav Rad and Nav Plotter seat rotating to the right and the AEO rotating to the left. In the Vulcan, this was obviously different as the centre seat, with which I am not familiar, was different.

To bale out f the aircraft the procedure, a I recall from forty years ago, was as follows:-

On the command to bale out or when the "Abandon Aircraft" gauge, at each crew members panel illuminated, the AEO would operate the emergency door opening knob mounted under a gated cover at his station. This would blow open and lock, the entrance door using compressed Nitrogen. In sequence, each rear crew member would operate the handle mounted on the left side of his seat and slide the seat aft. Operating the same handle, he would rotate his seat to face the door and pushing the handle forward, simultaneously inflating the booster cushion mounted under the dinghy pack by the emergency handle on the right side of the seat, be assisted from his seat towards the door by the spring loaded seat back pushing him forward. The operation of the inflation cushion under the dinghy pack would also have the effect of releasing the seat straps. Hooking up his chute lanyard to a rail mounted above the door, he would crouch and roll forward out of the aircraft. Provided the port main undercarriage was still retracted, bale out would be fairly successful. Once the chute had deployed and if over the sea, the two koch fasteners which attached the dinghy pack to the chute would be operated and the pack fall away o the end of a lanyard. In theory, once the pack hit the sea, it would inflate into a man sized dinghy. The hard part was getting into it.

Seat rear and Front. On the left shot you can see the strengthening ribs, cable and handle to operate the back of the seat and the gas bottle to operate the "booster cushion".

On the right photo are visible, just below the sea "shoulder", the two clips to hold the chute in position when the seat was unoccupied. Either side of the head rest are the hooks for attaching the seat straps (blue) again when the seat was unoccupied. In the seat pan is the deflated "booster cushion' and restraining pad. On the right side next to the thigh pads is the "booster cushion" operating knob and just visible on the left side the operating handle. Both of these were painted yellow/black - but worn off on mine !

Seat Left and Right side in the "cocked" (upright) position

You may find this of use, it just indicates as to which side the seat back operating lever

is to be fitted depending on the position in the aircraft

Seat Right and left side in the "uncocked" position with the seat back forward.

Seat operating handle left side with "booster cushion" operating knob right side

Turntable on which the seat operated showing locking pawls in four corners which, when retracted, by the handle above allowed the seat to slide fore and aft.

I am not sure how much of this you will wish to incorporate into 1/72 seats for the Vulcan. May i point out also that unlike other preserved seats, my three are completely original even down to the paint work and material colours as personally, I believe in keeping things as they came out of service.

This weekend, with the help of my eldest son, I'll get a few of the common instruments unwrapped and photographed, including and especially the H2S scanner and recording camera.

HTH

Dennis

Edited May 20, 2014 by sloegin57

[Mike]

Brilliant pics, thanks for posting

[cathasatail]

Hi

(I know this is like, a year and a bit later) What happened to the build?

I'm thinking of getting the WEM sets, how did they end up for you mike?

Thanks,

Sam

[Ace From Outer Space]

Here's a quick shot of the cockpits. The side consoles in the pilots' area were a bit of a nightmare, as the instrument panels were etched straight, but the elevated front section required them to be kicked left or right, so that they would sit straight when folded. They're also sitting too wide at the nose end if you place them on the etched line that's proivided on the cockpit floor. The document slots also foul the seat bases, which were already too wide, so they were replaced by styrene blocks, as already mentioned. You can see some reinforcement blocks within unseen areas of the consoles and at the rear section of the cockpit, as there are plain butt-joints everywhere, which are too delicate for me to solder (YMMV), and would be too weak to hold using CA on those tiny contact patches. The centre console and instrument panel are just placed in for the photos, as the IP still needs its acetate instrument dials adding. The rear panel is also incomplete, as there are a substantial number of relief parts that also have acetate dials to be added, so they are currently taped to a tongue-depresser awaiting painting.

Its Goldfingers Vulcan!

Seriously though Mike, top work with the PE. I'm still at the clumsy handed stabe when it comes to PE....