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Canberra Red Dean trials


WV908

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Hi all,

  Does anyone know how the Red Dean missiles and pylons / carriers were fitted to the Canberra trials aircraft?

 

I'm specifically looking for info on WD935, the nose of which survives locally to me at Doncaster 

 

Cheers,

  WV908

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I have the Freightdog set for the P.12 which bases the missile installation on the proposal documentation with the missiles on the wingtips. Whether that means they could't find anything else I don't know.

 

The Crowood book on the Canberra says:-

 

The Canberra was selected as the missile's launch platform and the seventh production B.2, WD935, was delivered to Vickers' test section on the airfield at Wisley, three or four miles from the works at Weybridge, on 8 August 1951. The company also had production facilities at Hurn and WD935 went there for the necessary engineering. As a missile was to be carried under each wing, local strengthening of the mainplanes was included in the schedule of work on the aircraft. The conversion was completed in October 1953 and a first flight, with an aerodynamic test missile, was made in january 1954. Wisley airfield was on a plateau and on 21 September 1955 WD935 suffered brake failure while rolling after touchdown and finished up in a field far too close for comfort to the main Portsmouth road. Its use on the Red Dean programme was rather curtailed after the accident; another B.2, WD942, which was in Australia at the time, and had been delivered to Wisley on 28 September 1951 to undertake specific tasks, took over the damaged Canberra's part of the programme.

 

@canberra kid will know more if anyone does.

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Thanks @rossm 

 

This is the problem - any documentation that is around lists the theoretical P.12 attachment point as the wingtips, mounted on strengthened PR.9 style wings. It sounds like this strengthening was to be built in during production and as WD935's strengthening was retrofitted one would imagine it was external, which begs the question of if the trial pylons / missiles were mounted further inboard. 

 

I'd also quite like to know how she was painted.

 

Thanks,

  WV908

 

EDIT: The Canberra Tribute site lists the pylons as 'underwing carriers' which was much of the basis of my query.

Edited by WV908
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It does say "As a missile was to be carried under each wing", so I imagine WD 935 was proving the feasibility of launching the missile from a Canberra, not the exact final design - unless that had moved on or the statement is not quite accurate.

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There are two photos in Dan Sharp's Secret Jets of Cold War Britain of WD956 with under wing pylons for Red Dean trials including one of the missile firing. There is an illustration from the P.12 brochure which shows Blue Jays on underwing stations, wingtip tanks and the ventral gun pack

 

49862582011_4ef39ca06b_b.jpg

 

49862895067_07543fab4b_b.jpg

 

49862047338_2880bb2f94_b.jpg

 

Edited by LostCosmonauts
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17 minutes ago, LostCosmonauts said:

There are two photos in Dan Sharp's Secret Jets of Cold War Britain of WD956 with under wing pylons for Red Dean trials including one of the missile firing. There is an illustration from the P.12 brochure which shows Blue Jays on underwing stations, wingtip tanks and the ventral gun pack

 

49862582011_4ef39ca06b_b.jpg

 

 

Seems like the normal Canberra wing pylon location? Interesting lumps under the wingtips and is that a radar in the nose or a standard glazed bomber nose?

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There’s a sharper pic and some description of the trials at

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Hoc7AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT130&lpg=PT130&dq=canberra+wd956&source=bl&ots=4ISTUhOUVG&sig=ACfU3U1qgQsHPIDzLuCeeJC2OT6L3fuZzQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjkqfTZkp_pAhUOTRUIHac6DL4Q6AEwAnoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=canberra wd956&f=false

 

Describes them as sideways and forward looking camera pods and if you scroll back a page there is a neat diagram of the fittings

Edited by LostCosmonauts
fixing typo
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On 5/3/2020 at 10:35 PM, WV908 said:

Hi all,

  Does anyone know how the Red Dean missiles and pylons / carriers were fitted to the Canberra trials aircraft?

 

I'm specifically looking for info on WD935, the nose of which survives locally to me at Doncaster 

 

Cheers,

  WV908

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, is this the sort of thing?

 

spacer.png

 

John

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8 hours ago, LostCosmonauts said:

There are two photos in Dan Sharp's Secret Jets of Cold War Britain of WD956 with under wing pylons for Red Dean trials including one of the missile firing. There is an illustration from the P.12 brochure which shows Blue Jays on underwing stations, wingtip tanks and the ventral gun pack

 

49862582011_4ef39ca06b_b.jpg

 

49862895067_07543fab4b_b.jpg

 

49862047338_2880bb2f94_b.jpg

 

 

43 minutes ago, canberra kid said:

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, is this the sort of thing?

 

spacer.png

 

John

 

What can I say chaps but Thankyou. What you've both provided is absolutely perfect and I have no reason to believe that WD935 would have been fitted out or painted any different. The chequer markings will be interesting to do, but I look forward to scratching the parts for my Canberra build.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

Edited by WV908
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18 minutes ago, WV908 said:

 

 

What can I say chaps but Thankyou. What you've both provided is absolutely perfect and I have no reason to believe that WD935 would have been fitted out or painted any different. The chequer markings will be interesting to do, but I look forward to scratching the parts for my Canberra build.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

I do have a photo of WD935 with the Red Dean test vehicle and the pylon is the same as on WD956 but the weapon is silver not black, the underside of the wing is black so I assume she is in standard Medium Sea Grey and Black scheme.

 

John

  

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10 minutes ago, canberra kid said:

I do have a photo of WD935 with the Red Dean test vehicle and the pylon is the same as on WD956 but the weapon is silver not black, the underside of the wing is black so I assume she is in standard Medium Sea Grey and Black scheme.

 

John

  

Thanks John,

  With the missile being silver I would assume the markings on it are black, or did it looks like the extant example at Cosford?

 

Cheers,

  WV908

Edited by WV908
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  • 4 months later...
3 hours ago, rossm said:

I can't scale my screen exactly but it looks like Freightdog aren't too far out

 

 

Thanks @rossm, I think I need to re-scale my drawings because either mine is too long or the model is too short!

 

As an aside, is that model 1/48 or 1/72? I would much appreciate a link to the item on Freightdog's site as I can't find it.

 

Cheers,

 

Neil

Edited by neilfergylee
Typo
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I'm  not sure you can draw any conclusions on scale from my photo, all I did was lay the part on my computer screen!

 

The missile is part of the 1/72 conversion set for the P.12 Canberra all-weather fighter project https://www.scalemates.com/kits/freightdog-models-scc7210-ee-p12-all-weather-fighter-canberra--204883#

 

It seems to be out of production but if you are interested I could be persuaded to sell mine as it's well down my list of projects - PM me if so.

 

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11 minutes ago, Seahawk said:

I expect you clever people already know this but BTW there is a real RED DEAN on display at the Brooklands Museum.

Arrr, I didn't know that but 'tis a long way from home m'booty 😁

 

Seriously, going back up the thread the trials missile seems to have a rounded nose (radar?) but the model has a pointy nose (IR?) so Blue Jay? and was that just the designation of the IR homing system and the carrier missile was still a Red Dean? I'm a bit confused, as you can probably tell.

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  • 2 months later...
On 28/09/2020 at 16:55, rossm said:

Seriously, going back up the thread the trials missile seems to have a rounded nose (radar?) but the model has a pointy nose (IR?) so Blue Jay? and was that just the designation of the IR homing system and the carrier missile was still a Red Dean? I'm a bit confused, as you can probably tell.

 

Right, strap in for some serious Red Dean action.

 

It doesn't help that Red Dean and Firestreak (neé Blue Jay) look so similar from a distance.  However, Red Dean is a Behemoth, 16 feet long against the Firestreak's 10 feet with everything else scaled-up.  Just today I created my first model of a Red Dean in 1/48 and here it is alongside a 1/48 Firestreak.

 

spacer.png

 

Ignore the green bands, it's just filler.

 

As for the shape, the development rounds had a hemispherical nose as in the images above, but as you can see below, the production Red Dean was scheduled to have a more streamlined nose:

 

spacer.png

 

@WV908, I too plan to build a Red Dean trials Canberra having been influenced by Dave Forster's excellent book 'Black Box Canberras' (http://www.crecy.co.uk/black-box-canberras).  Specifically, plan to model B.2 WH660, which had a long radar nose, plus the Light Slate Grey / Medium Sea Grey / PRU Blue colour scheme.  What's not to like? 😀  WH660 never carried Red Deans but was slated to do so until the project was cancelled.  It promises to be an interesting Christmas project!

 

Cheers,

 

Neil

Edited by neilfergylee
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10 hours ago, neilfergylee said:

 

Right, strap in for some serious Red Dean action.

 

It doesn't help that Red Dean and Firestreak (neé Blue Jay) look so similar from a distance.  However, Red Dean is a Behemoth, 16 feet long against the Firestreak's 10 feet with everything else scaled-up.  Just today I created my first model of a Red Dean in 1/48 and here it is alongside a 1/48 Firestreak.

 

spacer.png

 

Ignore the green bands, it's just filler.

 

As for the shape, the development rounds had a hemispherical nose as in the images above, but as you can see below, the production Red Dean was scheduled to have a more streamlined nose:

 

spacer.png

 

@WV908, I too plan to build a Red Dean trials Canberra having been influenced by Dave Forster's excellent book 'Black Box Canberras' (http://www.crecy.co.uk/black-box-canberras).  Specifically, plan to model B.2 WH660, which had a long radar nose, plus the Light Slate Grey / Medium Sea Grey / PRU Blue colour scheme.  What's not to like? 😀  WH660 never carried Red Deans but was slated to do so until the project was cancelled.  It promises to be an interesting Christmas project!

 

Cheers,

 

Neil

Is that a mock up of an underwing mount on something with lots of sweepback (Lightning)?

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