The best Destroyer/Frigate helicopter in history

[John_W]

Grey with dangly bits? Proper Lynx are Green and Black

Looking forward to another master class.

[Massimo]

10 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

1.  “sprog” = junior and inexperienced member of a ship’s company or squadron;

2. ‘SPLOT” = Senior Pilot, usually the second-in-command of a Naval Air Squadron - especially if the CO is an Observer (the Fleet Air Arm has always been less obsessed with pilots being the Master Race than the Crabs: Observers regularly act as captain of the aircraft and command squadrons);

3. “Looker” = Observer, the one in the left-hand seat of a Lynx who navigates and fights the aircraft, as opposed to the trained monkey who merely waggles the sticks about from the right-hand seat.  The Air Force call Observers “Navigators” nowadays, though they used the O word in the past.

4. Crab = RAF.  Strictly, the full term is “Crab-fat”; this was the nickname of an ointment used between the wars to treat crab lice, an unpleasant genital affliction.  The ointment was air force blue.  Crabs themselves sometime try to claim that the nickname - used throughout the Navy and Army - is something to do with the shape of their cap badge.  This is crap.

5. Crap = rubbish.

This is a biiiiiiig step forward from my "port/starboard" lesson!!!!

cap-crap-crab...this could be leading to some confusion!!!

Thanks a lot for being so kind to ease our understanding!!!

I'd say...BORN TO TEACH!!!"

Edited January 30, 2019 by Massimo

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

45 minutes ago, pinky coffeeboat said:

In the RN FAA (and less so in the general service fish heads (ie those who work on ships)), the various aircraft engineering trades are referred to by nick names;-

 

Mechanical (engines, airframes, oily things) - "grubbers"

Electrical (power generation, AFCS, aircraft systems sensors etc..) - "greenies"

Radio (radar, comms, sonar, nav, - mission specific stuff) - "pinkies" and also the superior trade....

Weapon Electrical (ummm...weapons) - "bomb heads"

 

Bomb heads went years ago, merged into greenies.

 

I have been told that the coloured names came from the decor used in the training school from years ago (green and pink) but nobody has ever confirmed that.

As the aircraft have evolved, there has been a huge cross over between greeny and pinky system and so the trades have merged to become Av - avionics.

The RAF have something similar (sooties, faireys, and others) but they have a larger number of trades.

 

Hope this helps

 

 

Jeff

At least one of the colour names come from the coloured stripes that used to be between the gold ones on an officer’s uniform.  The merchant navy / RFA still have them, but the RN stopped after the war, I think - apart from Doctors, who still have a red stripe between the golden ones (or did in my day, anyway).  Mechanical Engineers (“Stokers”, or “Clankies”) were purple.  Pussers (supply officers, or “logisticians” as they are now called) were white (they occasionally still refer to “the white mafia”).

 

...and Electrical Engineers were green, which is where “Greenie” comes from; originally in the surface fleet, but then adopted by the FAA.

 

I have never known where “Pinky” comes from for radar and radio, but they’ve been called “Pinkies” since the 1940s at least.

 

Just to confuse things further, everyone who works on a flight deck wears a coloured surcoat to show what they do - in emergency on a noisy deck (and flight decks can be utterly deafening), this can make all the difference.  At least some of these colours (also originally from WW2) still survive.

 

So... yellow means a “Chock-head” [Aircraft Handler - notably the bloke waving his arms at you on deck]. 

Green means... a Greenie [Electrical Engineer].

Green with a Blue Stripe = Pinky [Radar, Avionics etc].

Brown = Grubber [Mechanical Engineer].

Red with a Black stripe = “Bombhead” [Armourer].

 

Those were still in use in my day, though as Jeff says Bombheads are no more.  Also long gone are “Flight Deck Badgers”; so-called because their surcoat was white with a black stripe, they were ship’s engineers (“Stokers”) who looked after things like catapults, arrestor wires etc.  Tractor drivers on deck wore Blue, too.

 

Still with us?

 

But I still have no idea why they were called “Pinkies”.  I don’t think anyone ever wore a pink surcoat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

44 minutes ago, John_W said:

Grey with dangly bits? Proper Lynx are Green and Black

Looking forward to another master class.

What, you mean like proper Phantoms are EDSG and white, and proper Buccaneers go nowhere near green (or pink...)?  And proper Seakings are definitely, categorically not yellow.

 

The Army & Naval Lynxes were developed side-by-side, so we’ll just have to agree to differ.  Unlike the types listed above, which were Naval aircraft nicked by our Light Blue cousins.  

 

[Truce?]

 

Besides, one of my three Lynxes won’t be grey at all; Falklands-era Lynxes were still Oxford Blue.

 

 

Edited January 30, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[pinky coffeeboat]

To add to the list above, the lads wear grey surcoats. And I can emphatically declare my surcoat has never been pink!!

 

It's a pity the coloured bands between the gold is disappearing, I think it looks quite good. The RFA still use them though.

[perdu]

Wonder if pinkies derived from pingies after kit that made odd noises, over and above basic green 'lectrician types?

 

This is the real 'knowledge' coming in when the thread gets all explanatorial

 

We love it when this happens

[Terry1954]

21 minutes ago, perdu said:

Wonder if pinkies derived from pingies after kit that made odd noises, over and above basic green 'lectrician types?

 

This is the real 'knowledge' coming in when the thread gets all explanatorial

 

We love it when this happens

Ooo argh me 'arty, we does indeed!

 

[John_W]

58 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

 

[Truce?]

 

Of course.

My Great Uncle was RN in WW2, I have a little salt in my blood. 

[andyf117]

Content withdrawn - I will NOT be threatened by a moderator, simply because I queried the actions of another...

Edited June 27, 2020 by andyf117

[NAVY870]

13 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

At least one of the colour names come from the coloured stripes that used to be between the gold ones on an officer’s uniform.  The merchant navy / RFA still have them, but the RN stopped after the war, I think - apart from Doctors, who still have a red stripe between the golden ones (or did in my day, anyway).  Mechanical Engineers (“Stokers”, or “Clankies”) were purple.  Pussers (supply officers, or “logisticians” as they are now called) were white (they occasionally still refer to “the white mafia”).

 

...and Electrical Engineers were green, which is where “Greenie” comes from; originally in the surface fleet, but then adopted by the FAA.

 

I have never known where “Pinky” comes from for radar and radio, but they’ve been called “Pinkies” since the 1940s at least.

 

Just to confuse things further, everyone who works on a flight deck wears a coloured surcoat to show what they do - in emergency on a noisy deck (and flight decks can be utterly deafening), this can make all the difference.  At least some of these colours (also originally from WW2) still survive.

 

So... yellow means a “Chock-head” [Aircraft Handler - notably the bloke waving his arms at you on deck]. 

Green means... a Greenie [Electrical Engineer].

Green with a Blue Stripe = Pinky [Radar, Avionics etc].

Brown = Grubber [Mechanical Engineer].

Red with a Black stripe = “Bombhead” [Armourer].

 

Those were still in use in my day, though as Jeff says Bombheads are no more.  Also long gone are “Flight Deck Badgers”; so-called because their surcoat was white with a black stripe, they were ship’s engineers (“Stokers”) who looked after things like catapults, arrestor wires etc.  Tractor drivers on deck wore Blue, too.

 

Still with us?

 

But I still have no idea why they were called “Pinkies”.  I don’t think anyone ever wore a pink surcoat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can I play?

The RAN version

ATA's (Mechanical) To us we were the pure people, to lesser trades we were plumbers or spanner w*nkers

ATWL (Electrical) Leckies or FSL's (dont ask)

ATC's (Radio/Radar) Radio mech's or crystal crackers. Didnt really matter what you called them, they never heard as they were always asleep in the crew room.

ATWO (Amourers) Bomb heads or anything using single syllables

AVN (Handlers) Bears or "push plane"

[heloman1]

Hi Crisp, like the double build idea, though why the Revell 32nd kit when you could have done a second 48th? You're going to need lots of rivets on the Revell kit. Our good freind who dissapeared into the woodwork Tony Cook (anyone seen him?), took pity on me and sent me a load so I could do my build justice. Thanks for the thumbs up with hte ROTORcraft conversion set.

 

Like the trades banter.

 

Colin

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Thanks, Andy - and Dentists wear orange instead of red.  [Ridiculous the useless nonsense we remember].  

 

Indeed, thanks everyone; anyone who has read my previous builds will already know that thread drift kind of comes with the territory!  

 

Colin, the honest answer to why 1/32 is because I had the kit!  It also makes sense (to me, anyway) to do the detail stuff in a larger scale.  But I’m still doing an HAS2 and an HAS3 in 1/48, both using your conversion - even if I’m not really going to need the resin nose for one of them!

 

Time for some of that modelling stuff.

 

I decided to start with ZD260 (the 1/32 Revell kit) - specifically to do a dry build to get a feel for how this kit is engineered / how well it fits, and to do some measuring, as part of working out how to do this.

 

I think the HAS3 boxing must have followed on from the Sea Lynx Mk.88 version (not surprising; they’re a German company after all, so cater for their domestic market first), because there are white runners / parts which are common between the two marks, and grey runners with the parts specific to the RN version.  It therefore looks a bit odd, but nothing that some primer won’t sort out in due course (I generally prime everything in Alclad black).

 

On the other hand, on the evidence of 15 minutes of dry fitting and tape, it seems to fit very nicely:

 

Note the shape of the Revell gearbox in the first shot.  This is going to need some pretty major re-work, especially underneath (which is just a big hole); this is a real one:

 

...and from directly above, showing the front end (generators & hydraulic packs, amongst other stuff) - Revell’s is a flat plate, which could easily be OK once I have some generators and stuff to add.

 

I am not criticising Revell in any way - their gearbox is more than fit for purpose; it’s only loonies like me who want to open things up who need to do more.  In fact it’s far from terrible even for my purposes; it’s very simplified, in that the real thing is mostly curves when theirs is straight lines.  But that’s OK.

 

The Lynx gearbox is a key part of the design, and was pretty radical for its day, in that it uses conformal gears rather than the more conventional epicyclic type - this means it has a really low profile, which was important because key parts of the specification concerned the ability of the aircraft to fit in the hangar of a frigate (Navy) and/or the back of a transport aircraft (Army)... so every inch of gearbox height was an inch subtracted from the cabin height.

 

Here is one removed from the airframe: you can see that it’s not huge, especially in height. (Again, seen from the front - note the über-sophisticated cooling arrangement for the generators... the white pipes)

 

Happily for me, Revell’s engineers have followed essentially the same form for the airframe as Westlands’; the roof is curved to the front of the gearbox (though you can see from the first photo that I need to scratch build the section under the sliding fairing), then a step down to a flat base for the gearbox itself, and then a downward slope for the engine bays, starting at the rear gearbox foot. Revell’s does the same, which should help a lot.

 

The other thing I wanted to measure is the engine bay.  There is nothing to represent the firewall between the two engines (but that’s easy, being simply a flat wall), but I wanted to be certain of exactly how much room I have to play with when building my engine.

 

Since Revell have incorporated the front and rear firewalls (the front one is a bit wobbly in this photo), the engine bay is clearly defined.  With careful work I might even be able to build the entire bay outside the airframe as a separate module.

 

All in all, I am pretty happy; the fit is excellent, and the design is such that I think it is possible to do what I want without having to be too radical in hacking the airframe about.  Taking lots of careful measurements and photos before I start peeling any tape off!

 

More soon

 

Crisp

 

P.S. That final shot illustrates the total lack of rivets on the Revell beast. But adding rivets is not exactly new for me [in the unlikely event that you missed it, see my 1/48 ZE419 Seaking HAS5 build for details!]

 

Edit: comparison shots:

 

1. Airfix 1/48

 

2. Revell 1/32 of same area of fuselage:

 

 

Edited January 31, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[pinky coffeeboat]

53 minutes ago, NAVY870 said:

Can I play?

The RAN version

ATA's (Mechanical) To us we were the pure people, to lesser trades we were plumbers or spanner w*nkers

ATWL (Electrical) Leckies or FSL's (dont ask)

ATC's (Radio/Radar) Radio mech's or crystal crackers. Didnt really matter what you called them, they never heard as they were always asleep in the crew room.

ATWO (Amourers) Bomb heads or anything using single syllables

AVN (Handlers) Bears or "push plane"

It's good to know that whatever the navy, the pinkies (crystal crackers) uphold their tradition - crew room security. Mind you, to understand our trade required enormous intelligence (white mans magic) so anything on a lower intellectual level was just a bore....

 

Jeff

[Brandy]

Just a wild guess but could "pinkies" be a corruption of "pingies" since it involved radar/sonar?

 

Ian

[SA80A2AR]

could b

 

know where u r coming from

Edited February 1, 2019 by SA80A2AR

[AdrianMF]

Nice to see some plastic! Looks like detailing the engine and gearbox is going to keep you out of trouble for quite a while...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[TheBaron]

That's what we like to see Crisp: a set of photos that will keep you occupied (and us beguiled) by ensuing results for several weeks.

 

Great technical backstory too. Ta.

[wellsprop]

Oooh, I'm excited about this build!

 

A bit of Wildcat trivia, sadly, it's limited to only 60° bank angle. There's also a study into a 5 bladed rotor system.

[stevehnz]

What was the bank angle for a Lynx, or could they be rolled?

Steve.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

10 hours ago, stevehnz said:

What was the bank angle for a Lynx, or could they be rolled?

Steve.

They could be rolled in theory - and occasionally that theory was tested...  

 

The thing that stops most helicopters from rolling etc. is the rotor head, but the Lynx [& Wildcat] have a semi-rigid head; both flap and drag are taken care of by the head, which is a solid lump of titanium - only in the feathering plane is there a mechanical hinge.  So in aerodynamic terms the Lynx could certainly barrel roll. 

 

The constraint was that the gear box oil is fed by gravity.  So everything is fine provided your barrel rolls are beautifully flown, 1G maneouvres.  If not, you could end up with the gearbox running dry; even if only for a second, this isn’t a good idea.  You will see photos of AAC Lynx doing a so-called “backflip”, which uses similar principles.  

 

These maneouvres were very firmly for worked-up display pilots only [though conceivably the occasional front line pilot might have explored the flight envelope away from prying eyes - I couldn’t possibly comment].  All joking aside, there is no operational need for a helicopter to barrel roll.  The manoeuverability made it the deck landing helicoper par excellence, which was the reason for the head; immediately responsive, agile, robust - and you can put the blades into negative pitch on deck, pushing you downwards while the guys get lashings on.  I only ever had to use this about three times, but when deck conditions were really marginal [and you had nowhere else to go] it was a Godsend.

 

I hadn’t heard about the Wildcat AoB limitation - but in truth that would have little or no operational impact.  If they’re seriously thinking of a 5th blade, it suggests that the aircraft’s weight is proving a problem for what is still basically the Lynx head.  To redesign that would be a major job; I suspect they realise that the weight is only going to grow [it always does through an aircraft’s life as more things are bolted on], so sooner or later the rotor system is going to need help.

 

 

Edited February 2, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[stevehnz]

2 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

[though conceivably the occasional front line pilot might have explored the flight envelope away from prying eyes - I couldn’t possibly comment].

  

Thanks for that info, maybe it was the back flip I was thinking of though I think I did know that the Lynx rotor head was a bit special.

Steve.

[wellsprop]

5 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

They could be rolled in theory - and occasionally that theory was tested...  

 

The thing that stops most helicopters from rolling etc. is the rotor head, but the Lynx [& Wildcat] have a semi-rigid head; both flap and drag are taken care of by the head, which is a solid lump of titanium - only in the feathering plane is there a mechanical hinge.  So in aerodynamic terms the Lynx could certainly barrel roll. 

 

The constraint was that the gear box oil is fed by gravity.  So everything is fine provided your barrel rolls are beautifully flown, 1G maneouvres.  If not, you could end up with the gearbox running dry; even if only for a second, this isn’t a good idea.  You will see photos of AAC Lynx doing a so-called “backflip”, which uses similar principles.  

 

These maneouvres were very firmly for worked-up display pilots only [though conceivably the occasional front line pilot might have explored the flight envelope away from prying eyes - I couldn’t possibly comment].  All joking aside, there is no operational need for a helicopter to barrel roll.  The manoeuverability made it the deck landing helicoper par excellence, which was the reason for the head; immediately responsive, agile, robust - and you can put the blades into negative pitch on deck, pushing you downwards while the guys get lashings on.  I only ever had to use this about three times, but when deck conditions were really marginal [and you had nowhere else to go] it was a Godsend.

 

I hadn’t heard about the Wildcat AoB limitation - but in truth that would have little or no operational impact.  If they’re seriously thinking of a 5th blade, it suggests that the aircraft’s weight is proving a problem for what is still basically the Lynx head.  To redesign that would be a major job; I suspect they realise that the weight is only going to grow [it always does through an aircraft’s life as more things are bolted on], so sooner or later the rotor system is going to need help.

 

 

7

I often used to watch the Lynxs training over the Somerset levels (grew up in a little village at the bottom of the Mendips), I distinctly remember cycling into town one day and I watched a Lynx fly overhead at about 1000ft, with the side door fully open and a crew member looking out.

 

To my surprise, the Lynx pitched up before doing a half Cuban 8 - still can't quite believe it actually did that whilst just out training.

 

The AW159 MRH is identical to the Lynx - a lot of the currently flying 159 MRH's, blades and transmissions were taken straight off the demobbed Lynxs. The study into the 5 bladed head comes from the WG30-300, which was very similar to the Lynx MRH (in the fact that its almost identical, it just has a 5th arm). As for the Sea Skua replacement, the AW159 will be flying with a weapons wing for the FASGW soon - and you're right, with FASGW, the loads on the MRH are increasing, hence the interest in a 5th blade (not because it's approaching the design limit of the MRH, but it does significantly decrease fatigue life). Hot and High performance should be increased with another blade too!

 

I never knew about the story of XZ729, what a lucky escape and interesting subject to model

[Roof Rat]

Pinky / Pinkies

 

FAA: a tradesman/artificer specializing in radio and radar equipment. Its origin lies in the format of the old RN Aircraft Servicing Form which used pink coloured pages for the radio and radar gear. The MOD Form 700 had/has no such distinction, but the slang for this profession lived/lives on.

 

Gentleman I cant take credit for this, the info comes from "Jackspeak a guide to Royal Navy slanguage" by Rick Jolly and Tugg, (page 215). 

 

Hope it helped.

 

Chris. Roof Rat

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Time for a little work on XZ722 (1/48 Broadsword cab, 1989 rather than the nose-job one).  The Rotorcraft HAS2/3 conversion is very nicely done, but like all such things there is a certain amount of clean-up; vital, but not very photogenic.

 

Nonetheless, I do have some visible progress for you.  The set includes a very neat pair of jigs to help you backdate the blades.  First up, an Airfix BERP blade in the cutting jig:

 

Cut carefully along the straight angled edge, and you detach the tip, thus:

 

Then, having detached the resin blade tip from its pour stub, you add it to the othe jig to check alignment:

 

When you’ve got the join as good as possible, you glue, and voila one pre-BERP blade:

 

A little bit of fettling to match the halves more closely (especially in airfoil section), but neat enough for a start.

 

There is also an extra wedge at the root, but I forgot to photograph that for today. [Edit: if you look carefully you can see it added to the root in the top picture - it still needs fettling to fair it in properly]

 

More soon

 

Crisp

 

Edited February 11, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[giemme]

Oooh, nice surgery there, Crisp!  The cutting jig are ingenious, it looks this conversion set was well thought of

 

Now, please forgive my total ignorance about helicopters (among other things), but what is the purpose of the oddly shaped tip? (the one you had to remove, I mean)

TIA

 

Ciao