Catching Pictures in the Air

[The Spadgent]

Beautiful. Poetry, nature, plastic, metal, roast potatos and Chickens. Top marks all round El Baron. 

 

jont.

[hendie]

8 hours ago, TheBaron said:

 

 

Don't forget to take the masking off those interior windows before you button her all up. Otherwise you'll have to reach into all sorts of crevices with your tools to remove said stuff.

 

 

[perdu]

good point

[TheBaron]

19 hours ago, keefr22 said:

PS did the boy's team win?

 

16 hours ago, perdu said:

Good question.

 

15 hours ago, rob85 said:

 

hope the lad obliterated the opposition! that is, from what I have seen of hurling in my youth, the point of the game??

Thanks for your comments lads. They did win! And rather convincingly against a local team who are quite strong, so bragging rights restored to the area. It is indeed quite a 'physical' game Rob - even at their level (he's 12) no-one's allowed on the pitch without  helmet and gumshield. Their coach gave an irrepressible performance of coachy swearing and  cajolery that you just had to smile at - his job after all is really just training a bunch of young and unpredictable foals who are turning  into horses in terms of learning what their bodies can do on the pitch. Very enjoyable.

15 hours ago, Tomoshenko said:

Yep more stunning internals, lovely pictures of the green stuff (although the model 'aint bad either ), and a wonderful poem.

Thanks Tomo. Hope your lathe comes soon!

 

[TheBaron]

15 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Beautiful. Poetry, nature, plastic, metal, roast potatos and Chickens. 

If only all days were such....<sigh>

11 hours ago, hendie said:

 

Don't forget to take the masking off those interior windows before you button her all up. Otherwise you'll have to reach into all sorts of crevices with your tools to remove said stuff.

 

11 hours ago, perdu said:

good point

A very very good point indeed! That shot reminds me also that there's a couple of thin rails to go along those interior walls as well, not least because some of the folding seating for the pole handlers hangs off them I think...

 

Not so much construction to report today as much as preparation in the form of some detailed Hawksmoor-church style geometry.

Here I'm just trying to get three sets of angles  simultaneously corrected for the deployed retrieval poles - that of the actuator rod underneath, plus the correct orientation of the pole brackets in two dimensions.What I'm angling () for is about a 40-45° downslope on that, making sure that it is symmetrical on both sides:

A key element in these adjustments is the width of the poles at the bottom where the parachute is swept into the recovery wires and hooks. Knowing that this measurment was slightly wider than diameter of the parachute (24/5ft) gives a baseline to work out scale measurements:

 

25ft = 7.62m

Adding on a bit for clearance, make this say 8m.

@ 1/72 scale = 11.1cm

 

I drew this measurement out as a line on paper and cannibalized the Baron Boxcar Building Block Bodging Unit in order to form an add hoc jig for this purpose:

The difference between bottom and top should then - in theory - provide the key angle for the brackets to be fixed outwards at:

Seen from the rear:

Egad. I must confess that when I looked again at this 'praying mantis' shot, even allowing for the exaggarated perspective resulting from the wide angle lens that the photo was taken with, I was somewhat alarmed that these booms looked far too big and wide in relation to the cable deck and thought I must have messed up badly on the math/geometry side, when compared to the actual aircraft itself boring in to collect the package:

So alarmed in fact that I quickly went back and bunged a fuselage half into shot to get a better idea:

I'm glad I did that. You can see in the photo of the actual aircraft grabbing the chute that the poles reach out as far as the tail booms and no further, which seems to match what we have here.

 

It's really coming home to me at this stage that with all the relative angles involved in building up the recovery apparatus for this aircraft, constant reference to a range of photos is so important to avoid falling into error. Spatially there are just so many points to go astray on this by only working from a single photographic angle in source references - the actuators being a prime example with their three sets of angles needing simultaneous attention in space.

 

I'm going to leave it at that for today as that session was somewhat taxing on the brainbox and  I want to have a think about the fixing sequence next, i.e., what parts to glue together at this stage and what to leave until after painting.  I need to drill out and attach some plastic blocks at a matching angle to mount the actuator rods into beneath the cable deck as well so want to return fresh to that task.

 

I just heard on the radio there's to be an election in the UK. Cue repetitive TV summaries, cue OTT graphics, cue meaningless vox pop....have fun! 

Tony

 

 

[perdu]

A jig, a veritable verifiable jig forsooth

 

Now you're talking

 

I loves a jig, me

 

You possibly noticed

 

I will say that the results of your research do not surprise me, its all in the perspectives...

 

 

 

 

(As an afterthought, I'm not a dancer, me. Two Meccano knees preclude such pleasures for more than a few minutes at a time)

[Fritag]

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

Knowing that this measurment was slightly wider than diameter of the parachute (24/5ft) gives a baseline to work out scale measurements:

 

Do you know that measurement from research sources Tony?  Cos it's not obvious from first principles that it would have needed to be wider than the parachute at the bottom - given that the chute is likely to be impacted some way up the poles where the gap is narrower -  as per the piccie you post. 

 

 

[AdrianMF]

Looking good! Constant checking against photos stops the build drifting away from the real thing.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Spookytooth]

All that stuff that they taught you at school in Maths come to the head with the angle of the dangle etc.

Nice work Tony, she looks sweet.

And yes, another bout of B/S coming for the next 6 weeks or so.

 

Simon.

[TheBaron]

2 hours ago, perdu said:

I loves a jig, me

 

You possibly noticed

 

I will say that the results of your research do not surprise me, its all in the perspectives...

I wouldn't be without Lego now. Damn right about perspective too, that fickle mistress...

1 hour ago, Fritag said:

 

Do you know that measurement from research sources Tony?  Cos it's not obvious from first principles that it would have needed to be wider than the parachute at the bottom - given that the chute is likely to be impacted some way up the poles where the gap is narrower -  as per the piccie you post. 

 

 

A good question Steve. I had to dig around in the oral histories I have for some time to make sure of this. P.118 of the Star Catcher volume I've referenced on here several times includes this testimony from Capt. Donald R. Curtin, a C-119J co-pilot flying these recovery missions from '58-'66:

'The C-119 recovery poles were just a little more apart than the width of the canopy, which was approximately 25 feet wide. So, when you hooked into the parachute with a pole hook or a line hook, you’d catch one of the straps'

There's a bit more technical background on parachute development and recovery procedures in : 

INTELLIGENCE REVOLUTION 1960:  Retrieving the Corona Imagery That Helped Win the Cold War

which is available from the NRO archives as well.

28 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Looking good! Constant checking against photos stops the build drifting away from the real thing.

You've got that right Adrian. I'm going cross-eyed I think!

9 minutes ago, Spookytooth said:

All that stuff that they taught you at school in Maths come to the head with the angle of the dangle etc.

Nice work Tony, she looks sweet.

And yes, another bout of B/S coming for the next 6 weeks or so.

Cheers Simon. If only I'd listened when they said I'd need geometry one day...

 

I must say I find the forum software a pain to use on a tablet, it seems to copy chunks of stuff into replies at the slightest tap of a finger and seems quite jumpy on touchscreen input...

[TheBaron]

Having had me a good thunk about fixings I epoxied the hydraulic rod part of the actuator to the mounting channel on each side:

That will - I think - give me the strongest option for joining metal to plastic like that, given the need for that to act as a brace against the downward weight of the poles and wires and stuff:

That can sit overnight before working on an attachment strategy for mounting the actuator to the cable deck. 

 

I think I've finally puzzled out also how the single cable from the drum attaches to those complex loops with hooks on (as well as the poles themselves) that you see bellying out from the aircraft in photos of it all in flight. I'll do up a drawing near the time to explain how all that goes together, based on a combination of photos and oral transcripts.

Vote Baron!

 

[TonyTiger66]

I've not said much for a while, just been lurking, reading and trying to fully understand it all.

 

That sums up my whole life actually, but it was written with specific reference to your wonderful thread .

 

I still find it mind boggling that, for many years, they successfully caught very valuable descending parachutes with, essentially, big long rods !!

 

Absolutely fascinating stuff Tony. I'm interested to see how you're going to tackle main construction and painting sequence. With the rods glued firmly, I guess they should stay out right until the end of all the 'metal finish ministrations'?

 

Don't want to bend them.

 

In fact, while you're building normal stuff like wings etc., put them away somewhere really safe  .

 

They strike me as the sort of thing that, if it was me, would at some point snag on a cardigan and impale me; thin skin area of the elbow, that kind of thing.  

 

With me, this would probably then involve a sudden movement, resulting in an unwanted and random  sweep of the modelling area by the metal booms !

 

Its normally, with me, at that point, that a car backfires outside, I pass wind, I involuntarily rip my chair arm off and fall backwards, still in my second-hand, very springy, unsafe office chair, into my stash of highly treasured part made kits.

 

Laying there, dazed, unable to move, resting on cardboard and shards of plastic and etch, suspecting a broken rib or three; observing a Swann-Morton No.11 stuck into the back of my left calf. Contemplating how I will use my out -of-reach airbrush hose as a tourniquet. That's the moment I hear the front door bell ring and I notice my iPhone has falllen from my grip, into a jam jar full of cellulose laquer. This is now broken, on its side on the carpet, the laquer and tiny fragments of broken glass, from both jamjar and iPhone screen, slowly and inevitably oozing closer to my ear hole.

 

I then also realise that I've left a deep fat chip pan on high heat in the kitchen, my new calor gas cylinder is on the kitchen side, only feet away, and is just by the box of phosphorus flares I bought yesterday, in preparation for any emergencies on a forthcoming family driving trip  .

 

I'm not suggesting that you are as accident prone, goggle eyed and clumsy as me; just, you know, erring on the side of caution .

 

All the best

TonyT

[TheBaron]

2 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

I still find it mind boggling that, for many years, they successfully caught very valuable descending parachutes with, essentially, big long rods

Not to mention that the recovered film bucket was itself gold-plated! TBH, there are times this whole undertaking reads like the result of a drunken bet between an Air Force colonel and an NRO intern:

NROI: 'Yeah? Well we can send it up on a rocket but I bet you guys couldn't catch it on the way back down!'

AFC: 'The hell we can't!'

NROI: 'What'll you catch it with then huh flyboy?'

AFC: 'A Boxcar, with poles stickin' out the back!'

NROI: 'Dude. Seriously?'

AFC: '-ckin A Bubba.'

The next morning..

AFC: 'Oh Christ..what did I just agree to last night....Sergeant! I need some scaffold poles and a credulous crew ASAP!'

 

2 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

just, you know, erring on the side of caution

Err on dear friend.  Amidst all that plastic and array of tools there is many a trip to Casualty lurking in wait  for the unwary pilgrim.

 

I'm certain that there is a specific history to be written about the crossover between the optics and imaging systems developed for orbital reconnaissance and the systems used in astronomy. In the case of Corona I'm thinking of the lightweight film system systems developed for the Lunar Orbiter Program (though the frames there were developed onboard and scanned for transmission to Earth electronically), and similarities between the Hubble and later KH series birds in terms of focal length and resolution. Add to that the adoption by terrestrial astronomers of adaptive optics (AO) systems developed previously by USAF for imaging satellites from ground-based telescopes, and you can see a whole series of technological cross-linkages at work between 'pure' science and military technology. Nothing new of course given the cliches about WW2 stimulating radar etc. It just makes you realize that the world is far morally greyer place than having things split into different contexts of operation would have you believe.

 

 

 

 

[TonyTiger66]

I've run out of likes Tony, I will return with one. Picking up on that, a little (but not too far) off-topic, you made me think of Teflon and also Tefal brand pans. It's a similarly bizarre mix of the utterly destructive (atomic weapons), space technology, fishing tackle and chip pans :

 

A little excerpt from the Wikipedia history page:

 

"An early use was in the Manhattan Project as a material to coat valves and seals in the pipes holding highly reactive uranium hexafluoride at the vast K-25uranium enrichment plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.^[8]

 

In 1954, the wife of French engineer Marc Grégoire urged him to try the material he had been using on fishing tackle on her cooking pans. He subsequently created the first Teflon-coated, non-stick pans under the brandname Tefal (combining "Tef" from "Teflon" and "al" from aluminum).^[9] In the United States, Marion A. Trozzolo, who had been using the substance on scientific utensils, marketed the first US-made Teflon-coated pan, "The Happy Pan", in 1961.^[10]

 

This stuff reads like the wildest flight of imagination one could possibly imagine. Just like your supposed dare regarding rockets, gold plated top secret canisters, poles and C-119's. That reads very convincingly indeed!

 

Quite a few of these science/War/oddball/great success cases seem to involve innovation and pure chance, then a strange mix of the mundane and obvious, with the far out and thoroughly bizarre.

 

Cant wait to see the parachute and canister. They did do it, didn't they, they're not pulling our leg now, are they?  

 

TonyT

 

[Brandy]

2 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

Laying there, dazed, unable to move, resting on cardboard and shards of plastic and etch, suspecting a broken rib or three; observing a Swann-Morton No.11 stuck into the back of my left calf. Contemplating how I will use my out -of-reach airbrush hose as a tourniquet. That's the moment I hear the front door bell ring and I notice my iPhone has falllen from my grip, into a jam jar full of cellulose laquer. This is now broken, on its side on the carpet, the laquer and tiny fragments of broken glass, from both jamjar and iPhone screen, slowly and inevitably oozing closer to my ear hole.

 

I then also realise that I've left a deep fat chip pan on high heat in the kitchen, my new calor gas cylinder is on the kitchen side, only feet away, and is just by the box of phosphorus flares I bought yesterday, in preparation for any emergencies on a forthcoming family driving trip  .

ahh, so THAT'S where Wonderwoman comes in.....

 

Ian

[TonyTiger66]

3 hours ago, limeypilot said:

ahh, so THAT'S where Wonderwoman comes in.....

 

 

[TheBaron]

I quail to recount anything after TT's health and safety bulletin now! You didn't use to work on those Public Information films they always showed on the BBC during school holidays did you?

 

Here's the current concern. Fixing the metal and plastic actuators securely in the correct orientation:

That's about the correct angle, however it makes sense to 'dog-leg' the end of the steel rod upwards to form a brace under cable deck:

This first attempt turned out to be over-long, but it gives the general idea. What I'm trying to avoid is trying to be too clever by half , in building something possibly elegant but which multiplies the points at which joints could weaken over time. What I eventually decided upon then was to simply box-in the area under the holes in the cable deck where the actuators slide down into, and fill this with epoxy:

I knew keeping the original (oversize, if you remember) cable tray intact was a good idea. A couple of sections cut from this and we have the job done in short order:

From above:

A shot of the side, so that you can see the orientation of pieces in relation to each other:

Prior to gluing these bits into place, I remembered that there was some additional detailing to add on the rear 'bumper' - a couple of prominent bolts, and those angled parts which are actually part of the actuator:

Fitting those at this stage gives a perfect 'rest' to support the actuator at the correct downslope:

Once everything was lined up to my satisfaction and I'd bunged a temporary dam of blu-tak at the sides to stop the adhesive pouring out, I poured in the epoxy around the steel rods in the cable decking. Shrinkage as it dries out should drop the level of  it below that of the cable deck, rendering it largely invisible in the final assembly:

I meant  to add also that I took apart the bracket and rod assemblies this morning when cutting those dog-legs in the metal, in order to avoid heat from grinding melting any plastic. I'll re-glue those joints tomorrow after this has had overnight for the epoxy layer to go off thoroughly.

 

You'll notice also in the above shot that I've decreased the outward 'splay' of the retrieval poles by a significant fraction in relation to the scale baseline drawn on the paper. Going through the small number of external shots of the 'J's in flight with poles out, I'd been mulling over @Fritags previous question about pole separation vs. parachute width. Whilst the measurements I used corresponded to the historical record as such, the original 'splay' simply looked too much at variance with the appearance of those parts in reference photography. I had a simple choice to make at this juncture, go with the oral history, or what my eyes seem to show me from photographs. You mightn't agree with it, but I went for the latter course of action to make this look closer to the visual, rather than oral record.

 

One final shot. Driving home from work a few weeks ago and Das Boot appeared out of the heavens whilst we were stuck in a traffic jam:

Cheerio chums.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CedB]

Lovely, steady, precise work Tony and looking good.

Is the gap between the poles in some photos effected by the fact that the 'chute has been caught I wonder?

 

Nice film too - just updated my 'how not to be an idiot' notes (although I'm not promising it'll work). Whatever happened to the 'Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents' I wonder? Nothing nasty I hope.

[Martian]

It looks impressive Tony. Is it possible to do a dry fit of everything for those of us who are getting a tad confused as to what goes where?

 

Martian not the sharpest tool in the space tool kit

[hendie]

On 4/12/2017 at 7:57 AM, TheBaron said:

 

 

Of course, now that you have poured epoxy is the time that I notice this.... maybe you have covered this in previous posts and I just didn't catch it, but when I look at this picture, I see a flat hinged mechanism supporting the tubular roller guides.

The bolt you have just added looks like it is a pivot point and allows that hinged mechanism to rotate slightly (left <-> right <-> left, as we look at this picture) to change the angle of the dangle as it were.  Does the hinge connecting to tubular roller guide allow the guides to pivot front to back ? or perhaps extend towards the rear ? (similar to a bell crank lever)

 

This is probably my poor attempt at asking why you chose to model the "hinge" portion with a tube as opposed to a flat structure ?  Apologies for not asking this earlier.

 

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Just spent a happy 20 minutes catching up.  Any thread that features Bob Hoskins as Harold Shand in one of my all-time favourite films has to be OK - not to mention the stunning modelling that's going on.

 

Sorry to mention it, but I think @hendie is onto something with his hinge & bracket stuff.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[TheBaron]

4 hours ago, CedB said:

Lovely, steady, precise work Tony and looking good.

Is the gap between the poles in some photos effected by the fact that the 'chute has been caught I wonder?

Cheers Ced. Given the flexible nature of the poles there must have been a bit of a 'boing' quotient briefly before the line started to play out, so that does sound reasonable.  Overall the loudest sound at capture was a machine-gun-like report as a load of tiny hooks along the cable tray ripped off in sequence to absorb the impact of the capsule on the line, otherwise it would have snapped.

4 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

It looks impressive Tony. Is it possible to do a dry fit of everything for those of us who are getting a tad confused as to what goes where?

Cheers Martian.  Probably time for a recap anyway, so here goes:

1. Rear rollers.

2. Hydraulic actuators for retrieval poles.

3. Cable tray.

4. Non-slip decking.

5. Loadmaster's seat.

6. Winch deck and drum.

7. Framework surrounding x2 500 gal. fuel tanks.

8. Toilet.

Not shown are the port and starboard cradles up at the forward end for storing the retrieval poles when not in use. Still to add are a roller at the rear of the cable tray and one immediately above the winch. There's still some electrical boxes and seating to add along the walls as well. I haven't touched any roof details yet beyond what you've seen done previously with foil texturing.

 

In terms of general operation the main nylon line ran from that winch drum and into the cable tray, where an elaborate zigzag of cable attached to hooks (this'll be an absolute bugger to make) ran down to the rear of the the aircraft and overover the rear rollers. It was this zigzagging arrangement that created the sounds I referred to in the reply to Ced above. That single line was then joined in a Y-formation to the loops of cable with brass hooks on that you see attached to the retrieval poles in the recovery films, and which snared the parachute.

 

1 hour ago, hendie said:

This is probably my poor attempt at asking why you chose to model the "hinge" portion with a tube as opposed to a flat structure ?  Apologies for not asking this earlier.

 

33 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Sorry to mention it, but I think @hendie is onto something with his hinge & bracket stuff.

My fault chaps for not posting more thorough reference shots that show the actuators from the other side, largely as the only shots I have are those taken from NRO publications, but I'll take a chance and post this reproduction here:

The bulk of that supporting structure as you can see is the hydraulic cylinder that tips the actuator over and down once the poles are extended.

This is my rendition of same here, seen from a slightly different angle:

I'll probably add a couple of bits of scrap PE (Lord knows I've enough discarded Airwaves stuff laying around...) strips down either side of  those cylinders to match that detailing visible in the reference photo. In my version however, I elected to go with the steel rod as the main mounting support purely on the grounds of strength at this scale -  I felt, for better or worse, that having the thinner strips attached nearer the front as the main pivot (as it is on the actual structure) just wouldn't be reliably strong enough at this scale. 

 

With the poles, wires, and paracheroot all hanging off of the back in the final result, I'm paranoid about it getting (as inevitably it will) knocked and broken at the mounting point, so this is a compromise between the optics of the build and its inherent structural strength.

 

You saw earlier I'd added in those angled plates sticking up under the actuators at the rear (btw, I think you're right hendie that these must have been a way of fine-tuning the yaw of the actuators), once I add those etch side strips, anything else just isn't really visible underneath with the actuators at full tilt at this scale:

I'm most grateful that such august heads are watching over this whole process....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[keefr22]

6 hours ago, TheBaron said:

One final shot. Driving home from work a few weeks ago and Das Boot appeared out of the heavens whilst we were stuck in a traffic jam:

 

 

Brilliant...!!! 

[TheBaron]

2 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

 Any thread that features Bob Hoskins as Harold Shand in one of my all-time favourite films has to be OK

I should have had the courtesy to acknowledge this earlier Crisp. The Long Good Friday is on a par with Shakespeare as far as I'm concerned. That and the BBC Edge of Darkness series remain indelible visions of the 80s for me.

[Martian]

Thanks Tony, that makes more sense now. You may proceed!

 

Martian