Sink the Bismarck! HMS Ark Royal, 26 May 1941

[hendie]

I'm in the same boat (oops!) as @Fritag in understanding this nautical stuff.  So, abaft and aft are different then? And pom-poms aren't really pom-poms? And Pinnace wasn't just mispronounced?

 

I tried googling pom-pom platform but I don't think I ended up at the right website.

 

The spidery pom-pom thingy looks like an interesting soldering challenge

 

Wonderful stuff so far.  I'm especially enjoying not understanding anything and just gawking at the pictures.  

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

50 minutes ago, hendie said:

So, abaft and aft are different then?

Indeed.  Abaft is a relative term, like “in front of” or “behind”.  You can be aft, full stop.  You have to be abaft... something else.

[CedB]

2 hours ago, hendie said:

I tried googling pom-pom platform but I don't think I ended up at the right website.

Hah! All I got was wooly balls (fnaar!). I guess your search algorithms are different over the briny*

 

 

* Naval term - see, I can do them too, me hearty  

[Fritag]

7 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Indeed.  Abaft is a relative term, like “in front of” or “behind”.  You can be aft, full stop.  You have to be abaft... something else.

Ok so.  That mean you can’t be aft without being abaft........but you can be abaft without being aft.............I think 🤔 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

9 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Indeed.  Abaft is a relative term, like “in front of” or “behind”.  You can be aft, full stop.  You have to be abaft... something else.

 

Absolute and relative terms then?

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

4 hours ago, Fritag said:

Ok so.  That mean you can’t be aft without being abaft........but you can be abaft without being aft.............I think 🤔 

I await my Learned Friend’s elegant translation into layman’s language of altitude, height, flight level and separation distance, M’lud.  Followed by indicated, rectified, equivalent and true air speed.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

2 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

Absolute and relative terms then?

Theoretically, yes.  In practice (and I am really hesitating before opening this can, lest it contains worms) aft is not 100% absolute, since there is little or not definition of where the boundaries between for’d, midships & aft might be...

 

I've had about 3 hours’ kip from the election, so please don’t ask me anything complicated!

[hendie]

4 hours ago, Fritag said:

Ok so.  That mean you can’t be aft without being abaft........but you can be abaft without being aft.............I think 🤔 

 

[Tarkas]

On 12/13/2019 at 11:49 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I await my Learned Friend’s elegant translation into layman’s language of altitude, height, flight level and separation distance, M’lud.  Followed by indicated, rectified, equivalent and true air speed.

You asked for it...😄

 

Altitude = distance above Mean Sea Level (AMSL)

Height = distance above ground level (AGL)

Elevation = Altitude - Height (effectively, the altitude of ground level)

Flight Level = altitude measured in units of 100 feet -- so FL 60 = 6000 feet

Separation Distance = how far one aircraft is required by law (regulations) to stay away from another aircraft or something on the ground, both in the horizontal and the vertical.

 

The important thing to remember about the above is that while it is possible to fly at negative altitude at places like the Red Sea, you should never try to fly at negative height!

 

Indicated Airspeed (IAS) = what you read from an airspeed indicator

Calibrated Airspeed (CAS) = IAS corrected for things like instrument and position error; in theory, a more accurate version of Indicated airspeed. I presume that this is also "rectified" airspeed, which is a new one on me

Equivalent Airspeed (EAS) = either CAS corrected for compressibility (high speed) errors or True airspeed modified to remove the effects of altitude

True Airspeed (TAS) = the actual speed of an object relative to the air through which it is moving, or vice versa.

 

That simple enough (I won't claim elegance🙄) for you? 😁

[xffw45343tg]

Wot, no mention of hectopascals?

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

2 hours ago, Tarkas said:

That simple enough (I won't claim elegance🙄) for you? 😁

I did fly for a living for 15 years, so it was meant as a rhetorical question (though flight levels and compressibility error aren’t generally a big deal in helicopters!).  I was merely trying to point out to our resident single-seat-mud-mover-turned-legal-wrangler that the nautical environment isn’t the only one whose language can be confusing to the layman

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Back to the Ark’s island.  First up I’ve finished the supports for the pom-pom platform abaft / behind the funnel - glued, not soldered, because of the styrene sandwiched between the brass plates:

 

[Sorry for blurry zoomed photos; taken with an iPhone in not very good light].

 

Then I moved back to the for’d end of the island, gradually edging closer to having rebuilt the wind deflectors around the compass platform (starboard bridge wing work today), but also starting to construct the next level up.  This is “D deck” in WW2 RN-speak / 04 deck in modern terms (the 4th deck above flight deck level), and will eventually have No.1 pom-pom director in that semi-circular thing at the front, with the flag / signal deck further aft under the mast tripod.  The (open) compass platform [“bridge”] is the space with the wind deflectors round it (B / 02 Deck), and above that the Admiral’s bridge (with the windows) with the “Remote Control Office” & DF office between that and the funnel - she never had radar, but I assume the things being controlled remotely were her air group. 
 

Tomorrow I will add the separate curved brass wall around the pom-pom director, and there is also another (much simpler) wind deflector arrangement to add to the top of that wall around the pom-pom director / signal deck. Each level is dry fitted at present.

This is the highest level of Tetra brass deck; Merit styrene parts make a return to fit on those vertical plates you can see sticking up in the centre.  The Tetra set is superb; it fits perfectly and takes the base kit to a far higher level of detail (not to mention adding back several details which Merit simplified or left out altogether).

More tomorrow

 

Crisp

Edited December 16, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[xffw45343tg]

Not sure which is the most impressive: the patience or the skill? Damn fine modelling Crisp.

[giemme]

3 minutes ago, Kirk said:

Not sure which is the most impressive: the patience or the skill? Damn fine modelling Crisp.

Couldn't have said it better... so I totally concur

 

Ciao

[CedB]

Thirded!  

 

Tiny stuff as well eh, judging by the cocktail sticks… but 'Basic Quality'? Oh the shame…  

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

20 minutes ago, CedB said:

Tiny stuff as well eh, judging by the cocktail sticks… but 'Basic Quality'? Oh the shame…  

I think the branding needs work, too - unless I have been misinformed about what the Australian word “dunny” means...

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

This evening’s instalment.  Firstly, the wee fleet of boats is now complete with the arrival of my missing final Shapeways order:

 

Then more island, with the fitting of the semi-circular ‘wall’ round the for’d section of 04 deck (as shown yesterday); the dry fitted addition of the Merit platforms for further pom-pom directors, signal projectors and the like; ditto the funnel, to test Tetra’s fit (excellent, again); the addition of the wind deflector on top of the ‘wall’ [not in all photos]; and the partial building of the exquisite but incredibly delicate North Star Models resin/PE HACS Mk4 director for the starboard side of the island.

Seen from port.

From above:

 

From starboard:

And finally from starboard bow:

 

At last some real visible progress, so things are getting there.

 

More soon

 

Crisp

Edited December 17, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Courageous]

Good, steady progress on the island Crisp.

Those wee boats look rather cool too.

 

Stuart

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

The boats look great. You've got me wondering if I should spend my way out of apathy on Exeter and just buy some better ones...

[giemme]

That island is looking mighty impressive, and it keeps getting better!  

 

Ciao

[Fritag]

More very neat work Crisp.  Admirable patience - not to mention steady-handedness. 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

20 minutes ago, Fritag said:

Admirable patience - not to mention steady-handedness. 

Thanks, everyone.  I’ll accept the patience bit [though this comes from a man who takes the trouble to model the different IPs of a Valley Hawk (wasn’t that a Frank Zappa song?) and a Chivenor Hawk].  
 

Steady handedness... less so; you don’t get to see the numerous failed efforts, hear the creative swearing or share the eternal search for a better way of fixing tiny bits of metal to slightly less tiny bits of fragile non-metal. I stopped counting after eventually giving up on getting part of the HACS sight installed last night (oh yes, there are even tinier bits of brass to go inside a piece of resin that’s about the size of my finger-nail).  I’ll give it another try this evening!

 

But we enjoy it all the same, eh?

 

P.S. Incidentally, since the signal deck is now starting to take shape you will shortly see a blatant piece of plagiarism / (*cough*) “homage” to a master, as I shamelessly copy @foeth’s superb flag locker idea from his Hood build.  [He even researched the correct place for each flag].  There were at least 4 flag lockers up there under the tripod; needless to say Merit leave the area completely empty (& to be fair to Merit, even Tetra provide nothing for this bit).  There were also at least 8 sights of various types distributed around this deck - Ark being the very last major RN ship of the pre-radar era, so still completely reliant on alert lookouts and high quality optics.  In due course I also plan to copy Evert Jan’s beautiful little depth sounder... but that was on the edge of the flight deck, so not yet.

 

Imitation / stealing is the sincerest form of flattery!

Edited December 18, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

1 hour ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

The boats look great. You've got me wondering if I should spend my way out of apathy on Exeter and just buy some better ones...

They’re not perfect - you have to deal with the perennial issue of ridges from the printing process (though nothing that some Mr Surfacer and patience can’t fix).  But they are absolutely miles ahead of any boat from any kit I’ve yet to encounter; in my experience they appear to be seen by kit designers as an irrelevance (“life boats”, as though every warship were in fact a Titanic clone), so get almost no attention, ending up as generic vaguely boat-shaped “that’ll do” blobs.  The old RN saying that “a ship is known by her boats” (i.e. you’d better make sure that they’re immaculate, Officer of the Watch) is clearly not widely quoted in designer-land, despite the fact that they are extremely visible in pretty much every ship of the pre-stealth era.  
 

It’s the equivalent of designing a gorgeous aircraft model but only providing an amorphous disk shape for the wheels.  Come to think of it, they do that, too!

 

Peter Hall and other AM guys plug the gap as best they can, but with such a vast range of types (9 different boats in this build alone, so probably hundreds between 1900 & 1950 RN, USN, IJN & Kriegsmarine) they’re up against it - and the economics will be against them.  That’s why Shapeways is a game-changer for this sort of thing; designing on a computer but only committing to a physical model when ordered must totally change the economic balance.  If you look hard enough on Shapeways you will find some satcom radomes that I designed for my Ark 5 build.  You’ll only need this type if you are back-dating the Airfix Lusty to one of the 3 CVSs in their 1980s guise, so the guy might sell... what?... 1 set a year?  But he still happily produced them for me.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

This evening things have got even smaller; 2 hours of work (albeit interspersed with watching Carey Mulligan finding out about her Grandpa on board HMS Indefatigable under kamikaze attack) on the HACS tub.

 

[P.S. Edit: after doing some more reading, the true Naval fire control experts are probably grinding their teeth at my sloppy terminology.  HACS (High Angle Control System) was, as the title suggests, a complete system, of which this ‘tub’ was only part.  Strictly, this thing is a High Angle Director (HAD) - sometimes “HA Director Tower”.  Usually simply called a “Director”... so that is what it will henceforth be called by me].

 

[P.P.S. Edit: with a system like that it’s a miracle they ever hit anything!  Talk about adapting a system honed to perfection in coping with target speeds of up to 30 knots... for targets operating at 6-10 times that speed.]

 

Yesterday’s wasn’t quite right, so it’s now destined for elsewhere on the ship, covered (but I’ve forgotten to take a photo so you’ll have to take my word for it for now).

 

...and started again on another.  Last night I removed it from the pouring stub early on - and I think that was an error, because holding it really still to add the (very thin and delicate) brass was almost impossible.  So tonight I left it attached, which gave me much more to hold onto... with very pleasing results:

This thing is not large - that’s the tip of a No 11 Swann-Morton scalpel blade visible at top right - so these photos are zoomed in a long way; you can therefore see what an amazing job North Star have done with them - the detail is remarkable.

 

One more piece of brass to add, but only after the pouring stub is removed (it goes onto the square section in the foreground of the upper picture) - and I think I might even get this painted before I do that, at least on the inside.

 

Happy, even if my eyes are going in circles somewhat!

 

More tomorrow

 

Crisp

 

Edit: take my word no longer; here are both HACS, one with cover and the new one without.

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

That's fantastic work Crispin.

 

You are very clearly much better than I at this stuff!