Blackburn Blackburn + Dart, Avro Bison,-Plans/ Drawings

[davidl]

Hi Guys,

Would anyone have plans, drawings or interior details ( cockpit , instrument panel, gunner's compartment, general layout, cutaways) for the above FAA types ??

I think Aviation News/ Warpaint  did plans for the Blackburn Blackburn at some stage, but I can't find them anywhere.

I do have the Aviation News Warpaint plans and drawings by Ian Stair for the Blackburn Dart and Avro Bison  I have also managed to cobble together (what I'll call)  "a few of the usual scraps" scrounged from around the internet, but that collection is pretty miserable and really amounts to no more than a few "in flight" and "on the ground" snaps. 

I have looked at "Flight", but the little that's there is, sadly,  not much use.

I'm sure Harry Woodman would have had a wonderful collection of drawings/ plans and details for all three types ... John A are you able to help ?

The Aviation News plans are printed on A3 paper and I know many of us cannot scan or make photocopies in that size but I'm happy to pay for A3 copies if that makes a difference or we could do a trade ?

Any assistance gratefully received

If you can help please email me direct at [email protected]

David

 

Edited April 7, 2020 by davidl

[Admiral Puff]

I can help with the Dart and the Bison; I'll get them to you via Dropbox shortly.

 

AFAIK Av. News didn't do a drawing of the Blackburn Blackburn - I have most of their stuff, and it's not among that lot.

[David M]

Blimey! Three Aussie Davids in a row!

I have A J Jackson's 'Blackburn Aircraft since 1909' which covers the Dart and Blackburn in the usual Putnam style with small but usable drawings and informative text.

I also have Putnam's 'British Aviation the adventuring Years' which has passing references and a few images...including one of a civilian float equipped Dart that would float Moa's boat.

David M

[vildebeest]

I seem to remember there was an article on the Bison in Air Enthusiast. I will have a look.

 

Paul

[Roger Holden]

While you will find plans for all 3 types, unfortunately information on the cockpit and other details is extremely limited. In fact, you will struggle to find ANY good photos or diagrams.  It's a recurring problem with many British  interwar military aircraft. Get away from the popular types like Gladiator/Bulldog/Hawker Biplanes and you will struggle to find the necessary info to produce fully-detailed models.  I once made the mistake of buying one of the AP manuals for the Blackburn Ripon on eBay and that is pretty hopeless, with just crude schematics of the aircraft systems and basic verbal descriptions of the crew areas.  Things began to improve in the 30s, with better manuals being produced.  For these earlier aircraft, the information probably does exist somewhere, but it's not accessible to the public. 

[Martian]

The Blackburn is a no go from the interior point of view, The AP just has the vague schematics that Roger spoke of. It took me over four years to finish my Contrail kit and most of that was taken up with unsuccessful searching to find out what the interior looked like. In the end, I had to go with something that at least looked plausible but I would not care to vouch as to how accurate it is.

 

Martian 👽

 

 

[vildebeest]

There was indeed in article on the Bison in Air Enthusiast 22, but no details of interior.

 

Paul

[Patrik]

I agree with Martian. The Blackburn belongs to the airplanes with poorest coverage by printed (or any other) references. While there are quite some photos and colour profiles available in various books and magazines, technical drawings are non-existent and I have not found a single hint on the interior setup. And I tried really hard, believe me.

 

It is slightly better with the Bison. We have the Air Enthusiast article and the AN scale plans, but once again no interior photos or drawings. Here at least the Joystick vacform includes interior parts. However, it is hard to say, how accurate they are. None of the references mentioned in the kit contains info on the interior, so the parts in the kit can easily be just some kind of educated guess. But the interior looks quite plausible and you can eventually extrapolate it into the Blackburn, the fuselages seem to share similar basic ideas.

 

The Dart has the best references by far. There is an excellent article in Air Enthusiast #63, including Harry Woodman's scale drawings and cutaways, And there were some very useful photos of the interior published in a Flight article from 7th May 1925. I used most of it in my build below, so you may get some inspiration there.

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Patrik

[John Aero]

I have only just looked in on this thread having been much distracted by "Tilly the Time Bandit" (see Chat). As others have sagely said, information from this era is very difficult to come by. When much of the aircraft industry merged or died in the 60's many company archives were destroyed by the new commerce minded Bean counters. Archiving now usually meant finding a convenient place to dump stuff so, much was not properly filed. Most of the Fairey records went to the furnace room. A friend noted with dismay the shattered plate glass negatives on the floor though he and another enthusiast did rescue some material when the furnace man went to lunch. Much of the Avro drawing office went up in flames in a works fire.

Sadly the same was to happen in other companies.

 

The last I heard of Harry's (Woodman) collection was that it was being disputed by relatives. 

 

Photographs of the cockpits of this era are usually only found in pictures taken of uncovered airframes in the production shops, because most cameras were not suited to being stuck down into a cockpit for a quick click. It was only when cockpits became more complex was there a call for more detailled information in the manuals. As a rule of thumb many of the types for which info is requested in this thread used the Napier Lion engine so the engine dials will be common as will the flying instuments. If you can find information on one example then the others will require the same instuments. Many of these instruments will not have changed much from the First world war. There will be Airspeed indicator, Altimeter, Rev counter, Oil pressure, Oil temperature, Water temperature and a curved Cross spirit level. additionally there will be Magneto/ Ignition (brass bell topped and white ceramic switches) There will probably be a gun cocking ring handle if the gun is remote to the pilot or the gun breech if it protrudes into the cockpit.   There will be a large petrol cock and a standard compass. There will be throttle and mixture levers plus radiator shutter controls as well as a Pyrene T handled squirty fire extinguisher.

If you can source a copy of a contemporary Flight or Aeroplane there are often illustrated adverts of instrument panels or individual instuments shown in good detail. If you're lucky they will cross refer to "the new aeroplane".  Thes pictures are also useful if all you can find is an instrument board layout.  Some of these aircraft mentioned have been drawn in recent times by Len Whalley for various magazines, but I'm not sure if these are still available.

 

John