No.1 PTS Whitley

[Olmec Head]

I am looking to build a Whitley paratroop conversion, but ideally one operated by No.1 PTS at Ringway.  I have an Airfix Whitley V (actually the Coastal Cmd version, but who is counting).  I do not really want to splash out on the Tiger engine conversion, so I am looking at a Whitley V as per the kit.

Trawling the internet I found on Airliners.net:

 

https://www.airliners.net/photo/UK-Air-Force/Armstrong-Whitworth-AW-38-Whitley-Mk5/1947574/L

 

Sorry I couldn't get the photo to display!

 

Which looks interesting and I think came from a book originally about Manchester Airport.

The a/c code BD392 is a Whitley V, the other two are Tiger-engined IIs.  I hope that I haven't infringed any copyright inadvertently.

So I see BD392 as all black, with no a/c identification code letter unlike the other two which seem to be camouflaged and have ident code letters.

 

Does anyone have any more information on PTS Whitley's please?  Any possible nose markings that code apply to this aircraft? 

 

Another area is the ventral para 'door'.  Again does anyone have any images.  There was a Britmodeller thread from some time ago, but the attached images missed the door part!

 

Thanks for any advice and suggestions.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Olmec Head

[dogsbody]

Take a scroll through here.

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=Whitley%2C Armstrong-Whitworth&pageSize=&style=image

 

 

 

Chris

[stevehnz]

6 hours ago, Olmec Head said:

Sorry I couldn't get the photo to display!

Just as well, you're not allowed to with Airliners.net, they get all huffy about it apparently.  interesting photo & an interesting project, I'll be following along.  

Steve.

[dogsbody]

Here's some:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

 

[Olmec Head]

Thanks to Stevehnz for the heads up about airliners.net, I'll be aware next time.

 

And to Dogsbody for the Whitley Pics,  Its good to see the ramrod straight RAF PJIs in the last colour photos.

 

And finally, my original  picture should now load.... (not from airliners.net!)  

 

I

 

So all black with no a/c ident letter,  

Edited April 30, 2019 by Olmec Head

[dogsbody]

This is the caption for the first picture I posted above:

 

Armstrong Whitworth Whitley Mark V, BD496 'QA-E', of No. 297 Squadron RAF, base at Hurn, Hampshire, standing ready to emplane paratroops at Ringway, Cheshire, for a Combined Operations exercise..

 

 

This is the caption for the second picture:

 

Paratroops marching to emplane on Armstrong Whitworth Whitley Mark Vs No. 297 Squadron RAF, at Ringway, Cheshire, during a Combined Operations exercise.

 

 

 

Chris

[Graham Boak]

You can see the windshield in front of the exit hole in the photo post 5.

[dogsbody]

From Warpaint No. 21 Armstrong-Whitworth Whitley:

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[tonyot]

If this is of any use,...... I did my own Airborne Forces Whitley too. 297 Sqn was born out of the Parachute Exercise Sqn based at Netheravon on Salisbury Plain in January 1941,. 

 

 

1 PTS Heritage Site also has some decent pics;

https://ptsheritage.com/ringway-1940-1946/

 

Cheers

          Tony

Edited April 30, 2019 by tonyot

[Olmec Head]

Again thank you all for the excellent pictures particualry the further Whitley pictires from yourself Dogsbody.

 

Tonyrot -  I did look at your Whitley Airborne build  previously Tony, it made me think about doing a PTS Whitley (if nowhere near as well).  The No 1PTS link is very useful as well thanks. 

 

I did subsequently think about the PTS aircraft 'ownership'; i.e were they operated by the School as their aircraft or did the various Airborne roled transport squadrons like 297 Sqn etc fly in aircraft for live parachute training or alternatively were they long termed loaned to the school by sqns?  

 

 

[tonyot]

58 minutes ago, Olmec Head said:

Again thank you all for the excellent pictures particualry the further Whitley pictires from yourself Dogsbody.

 

Tonyrot -  I did look at your Whitley Airborne build  previously Tony, it made me think about doing a PTS Whitley (if nowhere near as well).  The No 1PTS link is very useful as well thanks. 

 

I did subsequently think about the PTS aircraft 'ownership'; i.e were they operated by the School as their aircraft or did the various Airborne roled transport squadrons like 297 Sqn etc fly in aircraft for live parachute training or alternatively were they long termed loaned to the school by sqns?  

 

 

No worries mate,........ I think that the Whitley`s of 1 PTS were on permanent charge,...... most look to have been sent straight from bomber units via the Maintenance Units and motified at Ringway. Later,..... sort of 1943 onwards the remaining Whitleys appear to be much more uniform and had probably been refurbished and repainted,...... they all had a large white code letter. I do like the Tiger engined a/c wearing C1 Type roundels and low demarcation camouflage,....... just a pity that the log books that I have seen only use the code letter and not the serial!!! Maybe the National Archives could have a serial/code tie in via the ORB Book,..... those from Squadron`s are largely available on line for a charge,.... but not sure about second line units?

 

Cheers

          Tony  

[dogsbody]

Now if only someone would do some after-market to make a Tiger-engine Whitley from the Airfix kit. Or maybe Airfix could make one!

 

 

 

Chris

[Graham Boak]

I've got one.  By Flightpath, but it isn't in their current range.    New engines turret fins & rudders propellers plus odd bits, and does it need a change in the wing dihedral?

[dogsbody]

1 minute ago, Graham Boak said:

I've got one.  By Flightpath, but it isn't in their current range.    New engines turret fins & rudders propellers plus odd bits, and does it need a change in the wing dihedral?

 

Wasn't that originally made for the old FROG/NOVO kit?

 

 

Chris

[Graham Boak]

Yes.

[JWM]

Fly makes Tigers driven Whitleys. They are maybe not so nice as new Airfix. Anyway I have one in my stash and I am intending to do a secondary unit like parachute trainer from it. Photos show that they still have rear turrets rather then open jump place  shown in IWM photo at post #4 by Chris ( @dogsbody ). Was this opening just an experiment not introduced then?

Regards

J-W

 

[dogsbody]

I'd have to read up more on that, but I believe the modified rear turret was just an early modification.

 

 

Chris

[Dave Swindell]

Mk I/II

2 hours ago, dogsbody said:

Now if only someone would do some after-market to make a Tiger-engine Whitley from the Airfix kit

Blackbird Models do one.

Fly do a Mk I/II and a Mk III

Then there's the DB conversion for the Frog kit re-released by Flightpath twice

And there's the Gerald J Elliott Vacform

So plenty of choice there Chris.

[Olmec Head]

Here is a rather ropey Whitley V  (from the Arnhem Jim site:

And this is probably the same a/c from the port side emplanning:

 

As Tonyrot says this one looks a bit tired.

 

 

Edited May 1, 2019 by Olmec Head

[JWM]

45 minutes ago, Olmec Head said:

Here is a rather ropey Whitley V  (from the Arnhem Jim site:

 

And this is probably the same a/c from the port side emplanning:

 

As Tonyrot says this one looks a bit tired.

 

 

At least one of two Tiger driven Whitleys on above photo has opening instead of turret 

Cheers

J-W

 

[Aeronut]

The turret was removed for the early parachute tests when they were developing the ‘Satichute’ (Static line parachute) as this was a progression of the live pull off jump technique used at RAF Henlow, where the jumpers stood on the wing tips of Vimy and Virginias and parachuted by pulling their rip cords and letting the opening parachute pull them off the wing. Early jumps from the Whitley were pull offs from the platform in the rear turret position and progressed to jumping with statichutes. The problem was that you couldn’t get paratroops through the fuselage fast enough for a proper stick of troops so the jump exit was changed to hole left in the fuselage floor by the removal of the ventral turret. As a result obsolete or war worn bombers could be released for paratroop operations, first the Whitley then the Wellington and Halifax, even the Manchester and Lancaster had these turret positions built in and they were tested for paratroop ops.

An exit through a side door was always the preferred paratroop exit but in 1940 the only British aircraft you could do this from was the Bombay and the Hotspur, Hengist and Horsa gliders were designed (and tested) for para dropping from the doors. The arrival of the Dakota saw the door exit increase in use but the numbers of aircraft needed meant that the hole in the floor exit continued (it was possible from the Beverley) even after the war.

Returning to the turretless Whitley’s at Ringway after the turret position had been relegated from parachuting duties it was use as a trials location for the Hafner Rotachute rotor and as a convenient location for a photographer covering the other experimental work carried out at Ringway.

[DJPFlightpath]

16 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

I've got one.  By Flightpath, but it isn't in their current range.    New engines turret fins & rudders propellers plus odd bits, and does it need a change in the wing dihedral?

https://www.djparkins.com/product.php?productid=18021&cat=286&page=1

 

Still in production

[AWFK10]

23 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

I've got one.  By Flightpath, but it isn't in their current range.    New engines turret fins & rudders propellers plus odd bits, and does it need a change in the wing dihedral?

According to the Putnam "Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft", 4 degrees of dihedral was introduced "during the building of the first production batch", which comprised 34 Mk I and 46 Mk II, and added retrospectively to the aircraft delivered without it. It also says, though only in a photo caption, not in the text, that the Mk III had "increased dihedral". There's no mention of any further change on the Merlin-engined marks, so certainly if you were to build a Mk III there should be no need to alter it.

[tonyot]

On 5/1/2019 at 7:09 PM, JWM said:

Fly makes Tigers driven Whitleys. They are maybe not so nice as new Airfix. Anyway I have one in my stash and I am intending to do a secondary unit like parachute trainer from it. Photos show that they still have rear turrets rather then open jump place  shown in IWM photo at post #4 by Chris ( @dogsbody ). Was this opening just an experiment not introduced then?

Regards

J-W

 

Hiya J-W,..... the rear jump platform fitted where the rear turrethad been was the original jump method employed by the embryonic British Airborne Forces, based on the pull off method employed by the RAF between the wars on its biplane parachute trainers where trainee`s held onto the rear struts, on a platform, then pulled the ripcord and the parachute dragged them away.

 

For Army use it was found to be useless because a stick of troops took ages to drop, scattering them for miles,......... plus there were quite a few accidents and fatalities,.......so the faired over belly gun position was opened up and this exit was chosen instead. I believe on 2-3 Whitley`s were converted, all Tiger engined variants.

 

Cheers

         Tony

[tonyot]

13 hours ago, Aeronut said:

The turret was removed for the early parachute tests when they were developing the ‘Satichute’ (Static line parachute) as this was a progression of the live pull off jump technique used at RAF Henlow, where the jumpers stood on the wing tips of Vimy and Virginias and parachuted by pulling their rip cords and letting the opening parachute pull them off the wing. Early jumps from the Whitley were pull offs from the platform in the rear turret position and progressed to jumping with statichutes. The problem was that you couldn’t get paratroops through the fuselage fast enough for a proper stick of troops so the jump exit was changed to hole left in the fuselage floor by the removal of the ventral turret. As a result obsolete or war worn bombers could be released for paratroop operations, first the Whitley then the Wellington and Halifax, even the Manchester and Lancaster had these turret positions built in and they were tested for paratroop ops.

An exit through a side door was always the preferred paratroop exit but in 1940 the only British aircraft you could do this from was the Bombay and the Hotspur, Hengist and Horsa gliders were designed (and tested) for para dropping from the doors. The arrival of the Dakota saw the door exit increase in use but the numbers of aircraft needed meant that the hole in the floor exit continued (it was possible from the Beverley) even after the war.

Returning to the turretless Whitley’s at Ringway after the turret position had been relegated from parachuting duties it was use as a trials location for the Hafner Rotachute rotor and as a convenient location for a photographer covering the other experimental work carried out at Ringway.

AH,.... that`ll teach me not to read on!!! I`ve just tried explaining the same thing,....but nowhere near as well as yourself!!!

The Beverley boom was commonly used for parachuting and I`ve met blokes who preferred jumping through the large hatch in the floor opposed to the doors in the sides on the bottom floor! I suppose tailgating from a Chinook  is very similar? One of the post war USAF transports, could be the Stratofreighter,...also had a a floor hatch for paratroopers, plus the C-119 for some reason also had a floor hatch in oder to rop multiple sticks!!

Cheers

          Tony 

Cheers

            Tony