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MikroMir 1/144 Blackburn Beverley C. Mk 1 RAF heavy-lift tactical transport


adey m

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1 hour ago, Ray S said:

I was reading the other day that the Flight Engineer could actually crawl inside the wings when the Bev was in flight if anything needed fixing.

 

Thank you Ray.

 

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Entrance to the ' kennel ' where the flight engineer would go to pump oil as required to the oil-consuming Centaurus engines in flight.

 

best wishes, adey

 

 

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A couple of former colleagues of mine, sadly passed on now, were on the Bevs. George Leonard was one and was a Flight Engineer. He told many stories about those oil pumping times while bouncing around in the lower level cloud. Mike Fenn, a pilot, tol me much the same. They both spoke highly of the aeroplane. 

 

Martin

 

 

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4 hours ago, Dave Swindell said:

Hardly surprising, they were both General Aircraft heavy lift designs, and only 8 years apart.

General Aircraft Ltd were designing a glider to replace the Horsa when the project was stopped in 1950, it could best be described as a two thirds scale enginless Beverley.

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On 1/20/2021 at 12:35 PM, adey m said:

Entrance to the ' kennel ' where the flight engineer would go to pump oil as required to the oil-consuming Centaurus engines in flight.

 

On a point of interest, Adey, it was actually a Sunderland bilge pump adapted to pump the oil.

 

When my Dad was flying Bevs, one of his most respected colleagues, M Eng Jack MacCallum was the most knowledgeable of the Flight Engineers and had served on Sunderlands during the War and recognised it.

 

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19 hours ago, KevinK said:

By the way, if you want to see why the oil pump was needed, take a look top left:

 

IMG_0038_summer_62.jpg?width=450&height=

 

It also shows the off-white and blue-grey interior colours.

 

47 Sqn Bev at El Adem, 1962.

 

Kevin

 

That is a great photo Kevin, is that your dad?  And what a mess the engine oil has made under the fuselage, must have been some leak.

 

Looks like a red trimmed silver and white Beverley.

 

thanks,  adey

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Yes, it is Dad!

 

The 47 Sqn aircraft, like most of the UK fleet at that time, had a dayglo nose, wingtips and the fuselage band for transiting the Berlin air corridors, as a recognition feature.

 

Here's another photo of the same aircraft:

IMG_0037a_summer_62.jpg

 

 

When on exercises in the desert, the aircraft were pushed hard, hence the non-pristine appearance. They used to go to up-country, semi-prepared strips and exercise with the Army for 1-2 weeks. On returning to Abingdon the aircraft were weighed before and after washing: they got as much as 2000 lb of sand and other dirt out of / off the aircraft.

Edited by KevinK
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31 minutes ago, KevinK said:

The 47 Sqn aircraft, like most of the UK fleet at that time, had a dayglo nose, wingtips and the fuselage band for transiting the Berlin air corridors, as a recognition feature.

 

I think your dates are a little out Kevin?  The Berlin Airlift finished 12 May 1949 and the RAF first delivery of the Beverley didnt take place till January 1955.

Incidently, the RAF also had the same problems as you with the aircraft tipping on its tail!   To counteract this they fitted a device called an "Elephant's Foot" which was fitted under the centre of the fuselage just forward of the clamshell doors when loading heavy items to prevent the aircraft from tipping back.

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4 minutes ago, rayprit said:

I think your dates are a little out Kevin?

 

No - the Berlin Air Corridors were operational as long as East Germany existed. All allied traffic to Berlin had to use one of the three corridors throughout the Cold War. The dayglo bands were an agreed recognition feature.

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10 minutes ago, KevinK said:

 

No - the Berlin Air Corridors were operational as long as East Germany existed. All allied traffic to Berlin had to use one of the three corridors throughout the Cold War. The dayglo bands were an agreed recognition feature.

Sorry Kevin, in that case, I stand corrected.....................

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41 minutes ago, rayprit said:

Sorry Kevin, in that case, I stand corrected....................

 

Not at all, Ray: now I think about it, it's a pretty esoteric piece of knowledge. The advantage of Britmodeller is that we all know something which may be useful to others, and it's a way of passing on these little nuggets which might be lost in time.

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On 21/01/2021 at 21:04, KevinK said:

On a point of interest, Adey, it was actually a Sunderland bilge pump adapted to pump the oil.

 

I wonder if a Scottish salesman from the Stranraer area had convinced Blackburns to buy a job lot from him ........... many Sunderlands were scrapped at Wig Bay after the war.

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This was an earlier stage in the build where everytime I added something to the interior I would check that the fuselage halves would still join up. Note the accurately shaped control columns in the cockpit as they come in the kit. The pilots' controls panel is also very well represented. Navigators window is the square one.

 

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Another taped together session before committing myself to the final closing up.

 

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NOTE ............ the four vents on the roof of the tailboom should be facing rearwards, not forwards as shown on the instructions. It would appear that they were vents, not intakes.

 

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You can see one of the rear facing roof vents in this photo. Looks like it was quite a precarious climb up into the tail boom.

 

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Cockpit and nose glazing now installed. I do not know if it was my fault but it needed quite a bit of filler behind the cockpit and under the fuselage.

NOTE ...... there is a spline, chine or whatever it was called running along the top of the tail boom which I have added from thin plastic strip.

Edited by adey m
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Now that the fuselage is together it is time to try out the different cargo door configurations.

 

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Here we can see the little drilled holes to take the different doors and the slip stream deflectors.

 

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Cargo doors closed. They fit well, MikroMir really are clever people.

 

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Cargo doors opened. Open wide ............

 

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The two opened up hatches to the tail boom compartment can be seen in the roof of the cargo hold.

 

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Heavy air drop configuration. I scratchbuilt these slip stream deflectors even though some good ones are included in the kit, I just needed to make them thicker to take the brass fixing pins  .........  and my clumsy handling.

 

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Here is a real one in the heavy air drop configuration.

 

Next stage to tackle ....... the engines and propellers

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Just before I approach the engines problem here is my scratchbuilt slipstream deflector compared with the kit's one. I needed the extra thickness to drill holes for the brass pins for fixing to the fuselage sides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by adey m
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Time to tackle the engines, if the rest of the kit so far is anything to go by they should be well designed   ............  ha ha

 

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MikroMir provide a representation of the engine cooling fans which were installed right in front of the massive, heat producing Bristol Centaurus double rowed cylinder engines.

Unfortunately they locate in the engine cowling halves too far back as shown in the photo above. Therefore I had to come up with some way of representing the fans where they should be, just inside the cowling opening.

I did this by using small discs of plasticard which are fixed in front of the kit's ones.

 

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I made the discs from thin plastic card and a hole punch. Here we have two which I have painted to represent the cooling fans. I had to file them down in size a bit so they would fit through the openings in the cowlings.

 

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Here I have painted the fans with the plastic discs held by Blu Tack.

 

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The engine cooling fans can be seen in this photo of the proud Yorkshire plane makers at Blackburns.

 

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So here we have my cooling fan discs installed and one awaiting installation where you can see how too far back the kit's one is.

 

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I like my propellers to be freely rotating so I have fixed a short length of alloy tube into the middle of each engine which will accomodate the brass rods supporting the spinners.

 

Now to the propellers, they should be easy enough surely  ................. ha ha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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My friend Ray S mentioned that he had problems with assembling the prop spinners over the prop blades on his Beverley, well I found out exactly what he meant ..................

 

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The problem with the propellers assembly, apart from being very small, is that the triangular tabs on the spinner backplate push the prop blades too far forward for the spinner to then meet up with the backplate.

 

My solution to this was to remove those tabs from the backplate and make the prop cut-outs in the spinners larger.

 

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Very small and fiddly parts X4.............   time to remove those tabs and open up the prop holes in the spinners  ...............  I could hear the carpet monster getting excited

 

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I eventually managed to get to this, the fit is not perfect so I will have to just go with the black spinners to hide the poor fit, and not go coloured as I might have done  ................ and the carpet monster went hungry that time

 

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I had to add a packing piece of sprue to the back of each spinner because the cooling fans were still not as far forward as I would have liked. Then I attached a brass pin into a drilled hole in the back of each spinner.

 

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Props installed to their engines, well just slid on. I had to open up the front openings of the cowlings slightly as the spinners literally filled the openings and you could not see the cooling fans.

 

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As you see there should be a certain gap in front of the cowling around the spinner. sorry about the hair but it was the 1980s ...............

 

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And just a quick engine test ..................

 

 

 

Edited by adey m
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Nice work around on the engine/fan/spinner front, in this scale you don't want too many dramas having to cut material away to make things fit.

I went to Fort Paull and took lots of pics which I have now seemed to have lost, anyway, I never once notice the cooling fans. I could do with finding them as I too have this kit to build....one day!

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