Bangseat Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 Hello all, One for V bomber experts. I've got a Contrail kit and I'm mulling over a whiff build of an in service Valiant B2. Does anyone know, did the prototype B2 have Conways? I can't find a definitive reference. I had a vague idea Conway wasn't ready and it had Olympus? I'm pondering whether a production Valiant 2 with Conway would have had enlarged intakes, like the Victor B2, or whether the standard intakes did just fine... All best, Harry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
71chally Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 (edited) WJ954 was fitted with Avon RA28s, like the production B.1s. Proposed production B.2s were to be powered by the RR Conway, my guess is that the intakes would have to be enlarged as not only were they more powerful engines, they were also turbofans rather than turbojets. Edited December 18, 2019 by 71chally 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bangseat Posted December 18, 2019 Author Share Posted December 18, 2019 @71chally, thanks! Looks like I'll be inventing a new intake.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
71chally Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 (edited) The BAE collection at Brooklands holds archives on the Valiant B.2, it might be worth dropping them an email. Personally, as I have pondered on doing the same thing, I envisaged a pair of engines to have a single letterbox style intake similar to Vulcan/Victor type, which then leads on as to whether they would sit in a common box structure, more akin to the Victor. Edited December 18, 2019 by 71chally Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xvtonker Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 Oh thanks a bunch people, I'm now going to have to start working on some plans in CorelDraw just to whet my appetite!!! XVTonker 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Womby Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 1 hour ago, xvtonker said: Oh thanks a bunch people, I'm now going to have to start working on some plans in CorelDraw just to whet my appetite!!! XVTonker This is going to be good! David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 The Avon's had a similar flow rates as the Sapphires in the Victor Mk.I, so you will be looking at much the same changes. Not just bigger intakes but the engine centres need to be further apart and further from the fuselage. So a new wider centre-section will be needed and hence a bigger wing, which will not be helpful in the low-level role so perhaps some clipping with the ailerons moved inboard? Given the undercarriage pods were aft of the wing, the undercarriage will have to be moved outboard too. Quite a massive job, though the chance of changing to a better alloy could be taken. Are we sure that production would have been with the Conway rather than just the big jet pipe Avon? It would seem to be promising to be more cost effective. Plus a much easier conversion! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
71chally Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 Somewhere I have got a copy of a sheet from a Vickers archive which mentions the Conway for production aircraft. I don't think the wing would have to be any bigger, just the section housing the engines would be greater, the same as the Victor essentially. The Victor wingspan wasn't effected by the engine change or installation, though the wing inboard section was extended for other reasons. The Conway had a strange development as it was started relatively early on (late '40s) but sat on the back burner for a while before being reinstated for VC-10 and Victor B.2. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bangseat Posted December 19, 2019 Author Share Posted December 19, 2019 16 hours ago, 71chally said: The BAE collection at Brooklands holds archives on the Valiant B.2, it might be worth dropping them an email. Personally, as I have pondered on doing the same thing, I envisaged a pair of engines to have a single letterbox style intake similar to Vulcan/Victor type, which then leads on as to whether they would sit in a common box structure, more akin to the Victor. That's an excellent thought. There's a tantalising possibility the design already exists... @Graham Boak, ha ha! You have thrown in a curveball there. The Avons (as I now know) on the original were snuggly tucked between the fuselage and speedpods, so a wider engine would need them moved. Probably not a game changer on the 1:1, the whole idea was that the design allowed a continuous spar, so it may not have mattered exactly where the u/c was positioned. On the model, weeeel...its a vac, so I'm chopping and filling no matter where they go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Work In Progress Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 Perhaps suprisingly, despite being a bypass engine, the Conway, at about 42" in diameter, wasn't hugely fatter than the Avon (about 36") or Sapphire (about 37.5" ). That's about 1.5-2.0 mm extra diameter over the Sapphire or Avon in 1/72. For me that puts it in a grey area. Graham's argument is well made and while I have not measured the distance between the engine centrelines on a Valiant to see how much spare space there might have been, I can well imagine that a production Conway-powered B.2 would have had slightly wider spaced engine bays, and that the depth of the nacelles would probably have been a touch greater too. However, for what-if modelling purposes, if you enlarge the intakes and exhausts a bit you might get away without thickening and widening the engine bays. It would be a lot of work to do, and I'd be tempted to cheat it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EwenS Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 It didn’t need to be much fatter as it only had a bypass ratio of 0.3:1. Something like a current Trent 700 has a bypass ratio of 5.0:1. Even the Tornado’s RB199 from the 1970s managed 1.1:1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Work In Progress Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 Exactly, but what do you expect from a 1940s engine design? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AltcarBoB Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 How about using the intakes from the Nimrod MRA4 as an inspiration if you wanted to keep four inlets. MRA4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPuente54 Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 Wasn't a "B.2 version" of the Valiant offered as a resin set(I believe) using the Airfix kit? It was shown on a thread in the "Cold War" forum some months back. I don't remember who made it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
71chally Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 Yes, AIM have produced a set, it portrays the Avon powered flown prototype though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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