From Failure to Failure

[06/24]

Having taken the Beaufighter as far as wings and tail on, I returned to Blenheim and started assembling number two, the Mk I bomber. 

 

This one is the original release with the light grey plastic, and rather more flash. The parts were also more banana shaped than the newer kit, necessitating a considerable amount of clamping, so maybe the return to UK production is improving things after all.

 

Blenheim I by jongwinnett, on Flickr

[06/24]

Blenheim I by jongwinnett, on Flickr

 

That's all for tonight, another glass of wine and then it's time for bed. Tomorrow I shall need to explore whether I can shoehorn a crew into one or other machine.

[06/24]

Having left the second airframe to harden overnight, this morning the wings and fuselage were joined and this afternoon I made a start on the cockpit fittings.

 

Meanwhile the IV has had seatbelts, bombsight and that curious bench seat fitted. However with no pilot, the lack of rudder pedals was obvious. So I made some up from a spare set, which I had conveniently forgotten to fit in the crewed Beaufighter, where they would have been invisible anyway!

 

Untitled by jongwinnett, on Flickr

 

Untitled by jongwinnett, on Flickr

 

 

 

[06/24]

Reading @Stew Dapple's build thread, I learnt that the Yahu IP fouls the canopy. A quick test proved the sad veracity of this fact, and efforts to trim the panel in situ merely ruined it, so I had to lever it off. 

 

Before:

 

Blenheim IV by jongwinnett, on Flickr

 

After:

 

Blenheim IV by jongwinnett, on Flickr

 

Fortunately the cockpit to fuselage join was relatively pain free, a little gap to fill but nothing insurmountable:

 

Blenheim IV by jongwinnett, on Flickr

 

The tail has also been fitted, sorry, forgot to take a photo.

 

 

[Procopius]

Your cockpit looks exquisite Jonners (I bet you hear that from all the girls...). Sad news about the Yahu panel, but I too was pleasantly surprised to find that the crew pod (here at Hedgehog Manor, we call many things that are not strictly pods pods regardless, e.g. Grant's special reclining chair is a "babypod", and Winston's sleep sack is a "thermal pod", or "terma pod" as he calls it) also fit on nicely for me, with only a little circumspection required to ensure it.

[Graeme H]

Keeping on with the good work both of you, really enjoying this thread

[06/24]

I like the idea of a terma pod, could do with one myself!

 

Completely unrelated, but Chez 06/24, Red Pandas, cute little critters, are known as pod-pods, on account of some long forgotten attempt to alliteratively describe their gait.

 

i am currently watching Tales of the Gold Monkey on DVD, with a wee dram by my side, washing down the lovely haggis and then homemade (and homegrown) apple crumble we had for tea. Slainte!

[06/24]

Thanks Graeme.

 

Must remember to apply the IP decal.

Must remember to apply the IP decal.

Must remember to apply the IP decal.

Must remember to apply the IP decal.

[06/24]

Who wants to bet I forget and close up without it 

[Procopius]

Just now, 06/24 said:

Thanks Graeme.

 

Must remember to apply the IP decal.

Must remember to apply the IP decal.

Must remember to apply the IP decal.

Must remember to apply the IP decal.

If I told you how many kits I've forgotten to do this on, I'd have to kill you.

 

 

[06/24]

My bete noire is gunsights...

[CedB]

Nice insides Jon, good work matey!

I hope you get your airbrush sorted out - well worth the effort IMHO, the results are so smooth and, using Jamie's technique, you don't even have to mask! I'll be trying that soon...

[Procopius]

3 hours ago, 06/24 said:

My bete noire is gunsights...

Yes, I've perhaps cheated on including those a fair few times as well. But that probably wouldn't interest anyone.

[Stew Dapple]

4 hours ago, CedB said:

...using Jamie's technique, he doesn't even have to mask!

Fixed that for you Ced. We mortals are resposible for providing our own prophylactic protection  

 

Jon, apologies, I forgot about the Yahu panel problem or I would have mentioned it before you had to find out for yourself...

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Graeme H]

6 hours ago, 06/24 said:

My bete noire is gunsights...

Do models need gunsights then, can't see a need really 

Instrument panels are definitely  needed, when you fly them around the room, making brmmm noises, one needs to know the RPM's and Airspeed to avoid a stall, most relevant

So don't forget it 

[Procopius]

2 minutes ago, Graeme H said:

Do models need gunsights then, can't see a need really 

Instrument panels are definitely  needed, when you fly them around the room, making brmmm noises, one needs to know the RPM's and Airspeed to avoid a stall, most relevant

So don't forget it 

Have you (any of you, really) ever read Conrad's War? It's meant for children (and I read it as a child), and while it's intended as one of those Guardian Books Where Young Readers Learn War Is Frightful (it in fact was a Guardian Book of the Year in, oh, 1979 or 1981, before I was born, anyway), like almost all anti-war fiction, it's a far more effective advertisement for war than peace (one of my favourite bits of desiderata about the first Gulf War is that US Marines watched Full Metal Jacket to get pumped up for combat, probably not what ol' Kubrick was intending). Anyway, the reason I mention it, and the reason all modellers should read it, is that there's a scene where Conrad, through the power of magical realism, finds himself the pilot of a Lancaster. But this is no ordinary Lancaster, oh no. It's the Airfix model Conrad built, and several of the props are glued fast, and the bomb doors don't seem to want to open...

[Graeme H]

OK, i'm a bit older than that, so have not actually heard of that book, will see if I can find a copy at the library, so Conrad's Lancaster must have had an IP for him to be able to determine all that, and a bomb sight would have been totally superfluous.

 

come on 06/24 

 

Don't forget the Instrument Panel

[06/24]

3 hours ago, Procopius said:

Have you (any of you, really) ever read Conrad's War? It's meant for children (and I read it as a child), and while it's intended as one of those Guardian Books Where Young Readers Learn War Is Frightful (it in fact was a Guardian Book of the Year in, oh, 1979 or 1981, before I was born, anyway), like almost all anti-war fiction, it's a far more effective advertisement for war than peace (one of my favourite bits of desiderata about the first Gulf War is that US Marines watched Full Metal Jacket to get pumped up for combat, probably not what ol' Kubrick was intending). Anyway, the reason I mention it, and the reason all modellers should read it, is that there's a scene where Conrad, through the power of magical realism, finds himself the pilot of a Lancaster. But this is no ordinary Lancaster, oh no. It's the Airfix model Conrad built, and several of the props are glued fast, and the bomb doors don't seem to want to open...

I read it as a child (being 10 at the end of 1979, I was probably its intended audience, although my recollection is that it failed to dent my enthusiasm). There was a rich vein of war themed children's' fiction,  which continues to this day (Michael Morpurgo etc) including the rather brilliant The Machine Gunners, in which some kids recover an MG15 or whatever from a crashed German bomber and attempt to defend themselves with it, etc.

 

However, by far and away the best book of that era, for me, is the late Jan Marks' "Thunder and Lightnings" which, quite apart from the lovely cold war planes of the title, is a truly moving tale of childhood loss and friendship. It remains, to my mind, the single best description of what childhood in early 1970s England was like. Both it and The Machine Gunners deservedly won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction.

[06/24]

PS I haven't forgotten it (yet) but there's this nasty business called work interfering before I can get a chance to add it...

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

On 1/6/2018 at 8:19 AM, CedB said:

I took the book with me and read it on the train to London in the mornings. "Loss of power in one engine results in loss of lateral stability" it said, or words to that effect. Hmmm, I thought, loss of anything isn't good but that sounds ominous. I mentioned it to the CFI when I went for my first lesson. "We'll cover that today" he said.

Off we went, into the wood and leather cockpit with LOTS more knobs and levers than I was used to but the same instrument layout, at least the basic set. I noticed an extra (white) mark on the airspeed indicator and CFI said "We'll cover that soon".

Power checks. Crikey, POWER! Haven't had that before.

Off we went, me learning about variable pitch props and uppy-downy undercarriages and soon (very soon) we were at an 'appropriate height' for standard 'effect of controls' exercises. Nice.

Stall avoidance was unusual for me. The Twin Com doesn't warn you like a 150 does. Sure, the stall warner goes off and there's a bit of wobble, but little else. You just drop like a leaf. A very heavy leaf. Still level with the horizon but 'descending'. A lot.

"Now let's see what this 'lateral stability' is all about" says the CFI. "On reduced power I'll cut one engine and you'll need to apply rudder to correct the other engine from pulling us to one side. Now pull up the nose and watch the airspeed indicator. If she's set up correctly, when the needle hits that white line, the rudder pedal should hit the stop and we'll drift off in that direction". Sure enough we did, gently turning as the engine under power pulled us around. "Is that 'loss of lateral' stability then?" I asked. "Yes" he replied, "but it's a lot worse under power".

Some time later we covered Engine Failure After Takeoff (EFATO). We'd practised engine failure in flight, 'Dead Leg, Dead Engine' and gone through prop feathering and shutdown / restart. "With EFATO the first thing to do is identify and shut down the failed engine". I know, you're all screaming 'Get the nose down!' but hey, my first time and all that.

Suffice it to say, when under takeoff power 'loss of lateral stability' is very scary. Things happen very quickly. When you hit the whilte line with one engine under power, you don't gently drift off, you go 'green side up' - not good. Luckily we developed extra sets of hands and together got everything going again in time to miss the tree tops. Just.

 

I've not flown much multi-engine other than the Twin Com but, suffice it to say, I know when you lose an engine under power things get very nasty, very quickly. I can only imagine what happens in something as powerful and slippery as a Blenheim. I just don't want to imagine it for very long...

Great description!  I have never had the pleasure of twin engine fixed-wing flight, but the speed of things going wrong is very reminiscent of learning about tail rotor malfunctions in the Sea King.  I came to the Beast straight from the Gazelle, which is a delightful Gentleman's Conveyance of an aircraft; easy to fly, but hard to fly well, and thus a perfect trainer.  

 

[The IP on a Gaz is about the same size as on that beautiful Blenheim; lots of things might confuse you, but the complexity of the panel is not one of them.  Then you climb into a Sea King.  Oh. Em Gee.  Dials, switches, instruments & levers everywhere, all surrounded by a veritable ocean of circuit breakers, which I am convinced were placed where they are just so that the Beefer (FAA-speak for instructor) has a Smörgåsbord of hellish failures to unleash on his poor stude, all within easy reach of a casual arm.]

 

I digress.  The Sea King has a device called the Negative Force Gradient Spring (NFGS); it sits in the tail pylon, and is designed to give the pilot some degree of control in the event of a tail rotor control failure - i.e. the TR is still turning, but the pilot has lost the ability to alter its pitch (for which there could be several causes, all unlikely but not impossible).  Tail rotor failure itself is very scary indeed, but surviving it comes down to quick reactions; the faster you can dump the lever and shut the engines down to remove the torque, the more chance you have of getting into a survivable engine off landing.  If your TR fails in the hover and/or at high power, you generally arrive on the ground in a horrible spinning mess (check YouTube for the odd video); if it occurs at height and lower power, then it's frightening but manageable.

 

Tail rotor control failure is different, and much more subtle - and is therefore a favourite Beefer malfunction if he thinks you're doing too well in your annual QHI check.  It is challenging however experienced you are, but the first time you do it is horrendous.  The sweetheart nice instructor fellow will wait until you are nicely trimmed out at 90 kts, straight and level, and then jam his feet hard on the pedals so you cannot move them (simulating the failure by removing your control) and taking out the yaw axis of the stab.  The next time you alter power (in either direction) the nose yaws - but slowly and un-scarily at this stage, because the NFGS is doing its job and keeping some pitch on the TR, and anyway you are 1000s of feet up so have no close visual references.  Gradually the befuddled student works out what is going on, and then flies some dummy approaches at height, working out what combo of speed, attitude and power will provide a steady rate of descent that will give safe a running landing.  It usually works out at about 40% power (its dependent on aircraft weight) and approx 40-50 knots airspeed.

 

So far, so good; you have flown a dummy approach and it all seems easy enough.  Then you try lower down.  Set the aircraft up on long finals, in the speed / attitude / power combo that you've worked out, and descend slowly towards the runway.  You are invariably flying in an awkward-feeling aircraft attitude with one wing low, but it's OK... right to the final 20 feet.  By then the ground is getting a tad close, and it looks to be rushing by rather quickly (you don't do running landings in Gazelles cos they don't have wheels, so all this is a bit new).  You also feel (especially the first time you do it) that your rate of descent is WAY too high, so you instinctively pull a little power to slow the descent... and the nose GOES BONKERS, SWINGING MADLY OFF COURSE at a rate you can barely credit.  You stagger away from that missed approach at about 45 degrees to the runway, dodging control towers, hangars and local trees and flying at preposterous and uncomfortable attitudes, sweating and with heart rate rather raised.

 

Oops, forgot; don't change the power!  Try again.  Set the cab up speed / attitude / power and re-run the approach.  You are inexperienced, and you have just frightened yourself silly, so you focus obsessively on the power and rate of descent, reminding yourself that the u/c is stressed to withstand deck landings (though those are still way in the future), so you'll be fine provided you run it on straight.  Down you go, and this time as you pass through about 10 feet your bottom starts saying that you're WAY TOO FAST ... so you keep the power static but instinctively twitch the nose up a little to slow yourself down... and OFF YOU GO AGAIN in the opposite direction as the speed bleeds off.  

 

Even when you get it right it is scary; you accept the rate of descent, run the aircraft on much faster than you think is sensible... and as soon as the main wheels touch the ground you chop both engines.  Both the Sea King and the student subside in a dishevelled heap.  The Beefer smiles sadistically under his dark visor.

 

A friend of mine had one of these for real when embarked on a tanker.  He got it back on deck, calm as you like; 20 kt wind and the ship wound up to max speed, giving him about 5 kts groundspeed over the deck edge.  He was shaking like a leaf (and got a much deserved Green Endorsement).

 

[Sorry, Blenheim-builders.  Major thread drift about the speed with which things happen.  Now back to our normal programming.]

[06/24]

Thread drift in a wholly interesting, dare I even say entertaining (for those of us to whom it wasn’t happening) direction...

 

Pilots is brave and clever creatures, not like us mere mortals!

[Deve]

8 hours ago, Procopius said:

 But this is no ordinary Lancaster, oh no. It's the Airfix model Conrad built, and several of the props are glued fast, and the bomb doors don't seem to want to open...

I remember reading this from my primary school library, and being rather pleased at 10 years old or so to have finished an Airfix Lanc with fully moving props, turrets & guns and having attached the bomb doors with strategic bits of tape to allow the payload to be released when desired. 

 

Couldn't do much about the undercarriage which I had firmly fixed down, so the drag penalty on Ops would have been a bit high...

[06/24]

I didn't forget!

 

IP by jongwinnett, on Flickr

 

_{Probly upside down or summat but at least it's there...}  

 

I then mopped up the bottle of clear I spilt over the bench while applying said IP, and got down to the nerve-wracking task of applying the glazing. Unfortunately it was, like the Mk I fuselage, banana shaped and I had to resort to superglue to get it to match up to the sidewalls. Superglue and clear plastic do not make good partners but I think I have got away with it (just!) I am now cooking 06/24 minor's tea (spaghetti and meatballs) and having a break before I try masking and then filling.

 

Glass by jongwinnett, on Flickr

 

 

 

 

[Learstang]

19 hours ago, 06/24 said:

My bete noire is gunsights...

 

Mine is seatbelts. I have several models that are stalled (such as my Beaufighter X, otherwise almost finished) as I have a serious mental block about seatbelts, either painting them on, or Horror of Horrors, using photo-etched seatbelts, of which I now have a rather large collection of, because I can't bring myself to actually use the b****y things! For some reason, doing the seatbelts just scares the living Bejeebers out of me! Anyhoo, nice work on your Blenheims, gentlemen, keep it up, and I may still buy one or two. By the by, PC, in my house I prefer to use 'bucket' instead of 'pod' for a catch-all, for example, the teapot is the tea 'bucket'.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[06/24]

2 minutes ago, Learstang said:

 

By the by, PC, in my house I prefer to use 'bucket' instead of 'pod' for a catch-all, for example, the teapot is the tea 'bucket'.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

One of the things I found confusing when I moved to Edinburgh is that up here a bin/waste paper basket is called a bucket. 

 

As far as seatbelts go, as you know I use the Eduard "fabric" ( sticky paper?) versions but they have a tendency to curl up on themselves, so have shelled out for some of the newer steel versions to try.