Sea Vixen FAW.1x2

[71chally]

That shows it beautifully @TheBaron

 

I've just gone through the WG240 logbook (just touching paper written on by John Derry and John Cunningham is something else) and there is this DH drawing to show the camber and fence mod works.

It really shows the dimensions of the fence but if you look carefully, just above the black ink 30" line of the wing underside you can see a pencil line of the camber just rising up as a curve above that straight line, also the very nose of the leading edge is somewhat below the centre of wing thickness.

DH110 wing fence by James Thomas, on Flickr

Edited February 10, 2020 by 71chally

[Space Ranger]

4 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Fascinating Michael.

 I knew Mylar had a lot of esoteric uses but not for this kind of work. Thank you.

Were you ever tempted to, you know, invent a city and slip it into the pile just to mess with people's heads Philip K. Dick style?

I had problems enough without inventing new ones! Besides, those 12 counties were (and still are) sparsely populated, with some counties having more cattle than people. A new city would have been too obvious. 😀

[Space Ranger]

For what it's worth, I discovered this image in my files comparing the Cyberhobby kit (red lines) to reality. I don't know its source, and I don't have topside or profile views.

 

[Space Ranger]

3 hours ago, 71chally said:

Great reminiscences, and agree with the Flight archive feelings, I have heard it's been sold to an outside party and won't be surprised to see it re-emerge as a pay product.

 

I tried to access the Flight archive earlier today and got this message:

 

"As part of the flightglobal.com relaunch, the Flight magazine archive is undergoing maintenance to transition to our new web platform. It will be back online as soon as possible."

 

No word about whether it will be a pay service after that, although if you subscribe now, you'll have access to everything from 2011.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

12 hours ago, TheBaron said:

This image had also been staring out at me from the monitor these past weeks and in blissful ignorance I was unaware what it was telling me...

Image credit: Damien Burke

It’s very clear in this shot, too (port wing especially):

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

14 hours ago, 71chally said:

 

DH110 wing fence by James Thomas, on Flickr

Nothing like a few primary sources; really ‘touching the hem’!  Do you have a copy of that photo zoomed out a bit?  I might be putting 2 & 2 together to make 6, but some sort of “edge removed inboard of fence”.  Drooped leading edge removed inboard?  i.e. did they try it with a drooped leading edge along the whole wing, but end up only leaving it in place outboard?  
 

It’s well worth reminding ourselves occasionally how much these guys were pushing the boundaries, using pencils, paper, trial & error and the odd slide rule.  A lot of brave men were killed in finding out what happens at high speeds.  Nowadays we do almost all of it in computers and wind tunnels,.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[71chally]

It's all very ink and paper based and the book is littered with great drawings of various modifications.

You have surmised correctly though Crisp, WG240 was trialled with drooped leading edges inboard and outboard of the fence.  

It goes beyond that, different fence shapes (some made of plywood), with, without them, and various degrees of camber.

 

These guys really were pushing aerodynamic boundaries using conventional equipment, de Havilland were involved with a heavy human cost for this position in the early 1950s, as John Cunnigham said, "that was the price of progress".

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

If you haven’t already, I thoroughly recommend reading “A Very British Sound Barrier” by Brian Rivas - it’s the story of the DH108 Swallow project, and really underlines the danger to which these guys (knowingly) exposed themselves in making trans-sonic & supersonic flight (eventually) safe.  Winkle Brown’s comments on the Swallow (“a killer”) are interesting, too - and he’d flown most of the German jets as well.  

Edited February 11, 2020 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[TheBaron]

15 hours ago, 71chally said:

 

I've just gone through the WG240 logbook (just touching paper written on by John Derry and John Cunningham is something else) and there is this DH drawing to show the camber and fence mod works.

It really shows the dimensions of the fence but if you look carefully, just above the black ink 30" line of the wing underside you can see a pencil line of the camber just rising up as a curve above that straight line, also the very nose of the leading edge is somewhat below the centre of wing thickness.

Superb James!!

And that no doubt explains the curious (or as it turns out now, not-so curious) shadow caused by that rising camber in the underside of the wing in  oblique light.

14 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

I tried to access the Flight archive earlier today and got this message:

It's been like that for some time now unfortunately.

1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

It’s well worth reminding ourselves occasionally how much these guys were pushing the boundaries, using pencils, paper, trial & error and the odd slide rule.  A lot of brave men were killed in finding out what happens at high speeds.  Nowadays we do almost all of it in computers and wind tunnels,.

 

1 hour ago, 71chally said:

These guys really were pushing aerodynamic boundaries using conventional equipment, de Havilland were involved with a heavy human cost for this position in the early 1950s, as John Cunnigham said, "that was the price of progress".

James Hamilton-Patterson's 'Empire of the Clouds' is equally bleak/sanguine about the pressures to push the latest aircraft to the edge for the crowds at Farnborough each year.

 

 

[71chally]

4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

And that no doubt explains the curious (or as it turns out now, not-so curious) shadow caused by that rising camber in the underside of the wing in  oblique light.

perfect illustration, you can see the highlights/shadows on the leading edge undersides is very different outboard of the fence.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

1 hour ago, 71chally said:

perfect illustration, you can see the highlights/shadows on the leading edge undersides is very different outboard of the fence.

Glorious photo, though.  As someone said a couple of pages ago, once you’ve seen this it sticks out in almost every photo

Edited February 11, 2020 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[corsaircorp]

Well, Well, Dear Baron !!

Seeing all these documents, my 2 Vixenes will stay a bit more time n the attic...

I had the project to turn my Dynavector FAW 2 in a FAW 1....

Not for today... Not for tomorrow either...

Great job and fascinating thread however !!

Sincerely.

CC

[TheBaron]

On 2/11/2020 at 5:14 PM, 71chally said:

perfect illustration, you can see the highlights/shadows on the leading edge undersides is very different outboard of the fence.

Just as well I haven't got on to the wing extension area yet or there would have been a lot of profiles to undo.... 😁

On 2/11/2020 at 7:11 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

As someone said a couple of pages ago, once you’ve seen this it sticks out in almost every photo

Once seen &etc. - how often is there some fugitive feature of an aircraft that we can never unsee again?

Thinking of renaming this thread the Borough of Camberwell...

On 2/11/2020 at 9:04 PM, corsaircorp said:

Seeing all these documents, my 2 Vixenes will stay a bit more time n the attic...

I had the project to turn my Dynavector FAW 2 in a FAW 1....

Not for today... Not for tomorrow either...

Great job and fascinating thread however !!

A Belgian chocolate Sea Vixen with fuel tanks full of Chimay - the perfect Christmas gift CC!

 

Time for what has become of late the weekly update. This more ore measured pace since Christmas due to having the hand forced by work has turned into a good discipline for focussing on understanding the aircraft in greater depth, though not sure if this could be graced with the name of a 'build' at present but rather a piece of ongoing research in shape and form.

 

Out for a walk yesterday with Mrs. B in what promptly got dubbed Man o' War woods, for obvious reasons:

Sun writing pictograms on moss with shadow:

The extraterrestrials have been here for millions of years in truth and still they watch us from their tiny spaceships in the woods:

Rivers swollen and much flooding in places around us - when in doubt always send the missus on ahead to check for alligators...

 

Some more preparatory work was undertaken in respect of arriving at a stronger mental map of contours in the current section of the aircraft:

Nothing like observations of this kind to make you realize that an aircraft with as many blended contours as the Sea Vixen is never going to render down to simple linear outlines due to the changing morphology!

 

Another issue requiring attention due to interface of wing with airframe is the wing chord itself:

^{Image credits: I've amassed so many images without remembered attributions at this stage that  if one of these above and below is yours and you wish it removed, am happy to do so.}

One of the things slowing me down in this phase has been reconciling wing chord and incidence with the aircraft itself. Allowing for differences in viewing angle in the photographs above (both vertically and horizontally), my understanding thus far is that the wing chord should match the centreline extending from tip of the nose to mid-section of engine exhausts show here:

If I'm clear about this then there's something awry with Special Hobby's interpretation of this alignment - the trailing edge of their wing root arrives at the exhausts much higher than this:

 

Subject to correction then, this would be my current interpretation of chord line with centreline:

In previous attempts I'd place the rib profiles higher and at a more acute nose-downward angle.

 

The same arrangement viewed from the front reveals that I may need to revisit the height of rib 2 in relation to the extent of  lower dihedral being formed with rib 4 outboard of it:

Horizontal placement (in relation to chord length) I'm confident about with those ribs but vertically I want to be certain about height and angle of the chord line before begin to draw profiles out from the fuselage to join rib 2.

 

Any criticisms/suggested revisions therefore welcome.

 

Goodness but I do admire this aircraft!

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hendie]

absolutely no criticisms from here in hendland Tony.  

 

My only suggestion is that you keep at it - this is utterly fascinating and captivating.

 

For what it's worth,  I believe your interpretation of the wing chord in relation to the fuselage seems appropriate given the information so far.

 

I wish I could offer more

[71chally]

You're lucky with this one Tony, there is no wing incidence with the Vixen, so should be parallel to the fuselage, the centre of which is of course rib 0.

My understanding is that the incidence line is centre of the jet nacelle and rear fuselage area, but due to the fuselage design it meets at a higher position at the front, so like your pictures.

 

I'm misunderstanding your chord line though, the chord is the length of the wing structure at any given point, ie the imaginary rib length, seen in either planform of through wing sections.

 

Don't forget the 2 deg in dihedral is through the wing centre of thickness line, not top or bottom surface.

 

Amazing work, I think you have a market for this here though!

Edited February 15, 2020 by 71chally

[TheBaron]

4 hours ago, hendie said:

I wish I could offer more

You've offered more than enough in advice and insight by this stage of my modelling forays that I'm just grateful not to be paying consultant's rates Alan!

2 hours ago, 71chally said:

My understanding is that the incidence line is centre of the jet nacelle and rear fuselage area, but due to the fuselage design it meets at a higher position at the front, so like your pictures.

Thanks James. Amended now:

2 hours ago, 71chally said:

I'm misunderstanding your chord line though, the chord is the length of the wing structure at any given point, ie the imaginary rib length, seen in either planform of through wing sections.

Clumsily-worded on my part - I should have been clear in saying ' extending the chord line of wing out along the longitudinal axis of the aircraft to show angle of incidence' (in this case 0)....

2 hours ago, 71chally said:

Don't forget the 2 deg in dihedral is through the wing centre of thickness line, not top or bottom surface.

Understood - dihedral of 2.2 degrees starting from centreline of rib 2:

2 hours ago, 71chally said:

I think you have a market for this here though!

No possible way I could sell any finished result here James as it embodies the work and insight of so many others - not least of all yourself!

 

Whilst tidying-up this evening it occurred to me that I actually need to double check my figures with the regard to the ribs I've been adding. I started this version of the design with the main length and wingspan of the aircraft mapped onto the plan in order to provide overall contraints but need to keep a close eye on the components as they're added. Luckily the maintenance documentation gives explicit dimensions for rib 4 at the wingfold as 1'6" in height. Converted into mm at 1/72 and mine's pretty much bang-on. Phew!

More heavy weather tomorrow so let's see if the power stays on...

Tony

 

[TheBaron]

Power stayed on last night despite storm, though we lost internet connection halfway-through Ep.2 of Picard due to cats on the line (one of them successfully knocked the wires loose where they come into the house to the router and we didn't notice).

Woken this morning by a colossal flash of lightning and house absolutely shaken to the founds by thunder from the next set of storms sweeping in from the Atlantic.

I blame Herbert:

 

Satisfied that rib 2 was lodged into a correct alignment and orientation now - acting as the outboard extent of the next section of this design it needs to be right - I had a closer look at some of the structural implications between it and rib 0 forming the central axis:

Because of the intake ducting, inboard of rib 2 there are no further ribs that run the entire extent of the chord but rather, between it and rib 0 are two partial ribs, rib 1 immediately inboard of rib 2 that only runs about 3/4 of the way forwards from the trailing edge to meet the main wing spar, and inboard of that, rib 0a, which angles in towards the centre of the engine bay and from the lip of the intake fairing along the side of the fuselage. I took a shot of this lip back in the summer blithely ignorant that I'd come to study it in such detail a few moths later:

(Now that I've worked out the correct lens correction setting in Photoshop I've been able to correct optical distortion from my lenses in shots like this - as a US product Photoshop annoyingly only refers to US specs whereas some camera manufacturers have different names for identical European products that aren't listed.)

 

Rib 0a added to the matrix - overhead view:

I altered the angle of that rib slightly subsequent to taking this screenshot but you get the idea. Note how it curves in to encroach upon the front fuselage - both it and the rib have cutouts to allow the ducting to enter between them. Same rib viewed from the stbd side:

I then added the 3/4 length rib 1 between 0a and 2, ensuring that the apex of it matched both incidence line of the wing and additionally was perpendicular with the centre of the exhaust profile where it flares out to meet the trailing edge of the wing:

Here's some reference imagery to give a sense of GA at this stage of proceeding:

(remembering that this photo has longitudinal distortion  due to perspective so ignore the mismatch along the trailing edge - I'm working from numbered dimensions to produce the rib profiles, not photographs alone.)

 

More misleading perspective in the photograph below but again, posted just to give the a sense of how the abstract matches up against the actual now that this  region's becoming busier:

 

50 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I don’t know whether these will help, but worth a try.  
[2 characteristically superb photos by Lee Howard of the Navy Wings Vixen under repair post belly-landing (Hence lack of engines)]

Those came in just as I was finishing writing this Crisp - inspiring shots and added to the visual encyclopedia.

Digging around again on the IWM archive revealed this image of Vixen carrier trials recently - it feels like more of a snapshot than an official photograph as there's something compellingly immediate about the sense of foam and sunlight that makes it seem a real 'moment' in time:

Hope that's not a Vixen yon Greek lad's damaging though:

 

 

This is the state of play this afternoon then with the extra ribs added:

Not sure exactly how much of those additional will be needed but I'm being cautious at this stage in assembling a low-level 'map' of the airframe in order to keep the various sections 'honest' against each other. Any problematic areas can always be revised later as necessary. Main thing is to not get to a point where it becomes too complicated to assimilate.

 

Rib 4 won't figure in proceedings for a while as the next job is to decide where to place rails and in what manner to split the above region into a series of inter-dependent lofts - certainly the intake area will require separate handling from the engine bay and wing section, however, if the junctions between them are based upon common profiles this should eliminate any mismatches when joining sections together later as solids.

Plans, first casualties @etc.

 

Thanks for joining me again in Flatland:

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I don’t know whether these will help, but worth a try.  
[2 characteristically superb photos by Lee Howard of the Navy Wings Vixen under repair post belly-landing (Hence lack of engines)]

 

 

Edited February 16, 2020 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[71chally]

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

Because of the intake ducting, inboard of rib 2 there are no further ribs that run the entire extent of the chord but rather, between it and rib 0 are two partial ribs, rib 1 immediately inboard of rib 2 that only runs about 3/4 of the way forwards from the trailing edge to meet the main wing spar, and inboard of that, rib 0a, which angles in towards the centre of the engine bay and ffrom the lip of the intake fairing along the side of the fuselage.

I think rib 4 is actually the only full length rib.

Rib 1 is a long rib and makes up the outer sides of the engines bay, it misses its nose section forward of the front spar as that is essentially taken up by the boundary layer nose part of the intake assembly.

Ribs 2 & 3 run from nose to rear spar, and feature cutouts for the main undercarriage bay.

 

Rib 0 has fairings attached to it to form the outside shape of the centre section, so ribs 1, 2 and 4 are vital for getting the wing position and shape right, I would say.

 

Of course it is the theoretical rib shapes that are important for a model.

 

Sea Vixen centre section by James Thomas, on Flickr

 

Sea Vixen centre section by James Thomas, on Flickr

 

Sea Vixen centre section by James Thomas, on Flickr

 

 

Cracking shots posted by Crisp, alot of information there.

 

I'm a sucker for Herbert Lom references, glad you survived the terrible storms tony!

 

 

Edited February 16, 2020 by 71chally

[TheBaron]

12 minutes ago, 71chally said:

 

Of course it is the theoretical rib shapes that are important for a model.

Gah! You're right James. 😁 I've got to stop saying 'ribs' when what I'm actually drawing are wing profiles. Similar, but as you rightly say, not the same thing structurally.

 

Love that last drawing by the way - isn't in any of my manuals and great for detail.

 

Some superb engine bay interior references in this film of the Avon being removed by the Navy Wings posse as well:

I've downloaded it with a view to producing some reference mosaics from individual frames.

[Terry1954]

The brilliance continues on this masterpiece. How I will ever get the courage to dare build either Vixens in my stash, I just do not know!........ I'm sure I will though....😁

 

Excellent shots there Crisp.

 

Terry

[Aardvark]

On 2/11/2020 at 12:36 AM, Space Ranger said:

For what it's worth, I discovered this image in my files comparing the Cyberhobby kit (red lines) to reality. I don't know its source, and I don't have topside or profile views.

 

Do you visit Russian sites in secret from the community? 😉😁 Because photo from this article:

http://scalemodels.ru/articles/4603-obzor-Dragon-1-72-Sea-Vixen-FAW-1---opt-dvojjka-net-edinica.html

 

B.w. this article  with personal dedication:

"I know that there will again be complaints that I signed without measure.  I know.  So for those who do not feel able to cope with my verbiage in advance, I’ll give a brief summary: “The Dragon model is very expensive and inaccurate, but it’s better to detail in 1/72 (but may appear).”  Everyone who is not enough will have to force their way through paragraphs that are not too diluted with pictures;  and immediately declare it publicly: my colleague Aardvark, the provocateur who made me write this opus*, is to blame."

😛😉😁😎

 

B.R.

Serge

 

______________

* - Everything was so!  There are eyewitness accounts of art:

"Aardvark with the unknown, make the author write a comparison article about Dragon Sea Vixen."

 

 

Edited February 16, 2020 by Aardvark

[TheBaron]

3 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

How I will ever get the courage to dare build either Vixens in my stash, I just do not know!........ I'm sure I will though....

I believe that it's actually an infringement of several Dorset bye-laws not to Terry. I wouldn't want to see a good man go to the assizes.....

2 hours ago, Aardvark said:

* - Everything was so!  There are eyewitness accounts of art:

"Aardvark with the unknown, make the author write a comparison article about Dragon Sea Vixen."

I'm still not en-tirely convinced that you're really an art historian Serge.

2 hours ago, Aardvark said:

"I know that there will again be complaints that I signed without measure.  I know.  So for those who do not feel able to cope with my verbiage in advance, I’ll give a brief summary:

If only Tolkein had written that as a first chapter we'd have been spared Beardie Jackson's endless blasted Hobbit-porn....

 

 

Update:

That video above is a real gold mine for engine and bay detailing:

^{Image credit: Navy Wings}

Never underestimate the usefulness of a good video for modelling references - not just in terms of watching the actual thing moving (in order to form a mental picture of how it occupies space) but also that panning and tracking shots can be a useful source of mosaics and panoramas if you extract individual frames at intervals.

 

It's complicated of course by the likes of smartphones usually having wide-angle lenses so that the distortion can be horrible ( as well as image quality from Youtube being nastily compressed) but as long as you're aware of this and don't mind the crudity of the overlaps, it again is a good source of mental orientation to the subject in hand.

 

Sequential images are a great source of fixing connected areas of detail for modelling in contrast with the way that moving images replace each other - a bit like the difference between the way that film and comics constructive narratives differently.  If you can spare the time Scott McCloud talks brilliantly about comics in a similar vein:

 

 

 

 

 

[Space Ranger]

2 hours ago, Aardvark said:

Do you visit Russian sites in secret from the community? 😉😁 Because photo from this article:

http://scalemodels.ru/articles/4603-obzor-Dragon-1-72-Sea-Vixen-FAW-1---opt-dvojjka-net-edinica.html

 

Rats! Now my cover has been blown. Yes, I am (or was!) a secret agent for M.B. (Ministry of Britmodeller) 6. Code name Bondo; James Bondo.

 

[TheBaron]

Just now, Space Ranger said:

Rats! Now my cover has been blown. Yes, I am (or was!) a secret agent for M.B. (Ministry of Britmodeller) 6. Code name Bondo; James Bondo.

 

'Live and Let Dry'?