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Avro Vulcan B.1/B.1A drawings


Admiral Puff

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Lockdown, combined with the release of the new Airfix Vulcan kit, has prompted me to drag out my part-finished Vulcan B.1A based on the old Airfix kit and the Flightpath conversion set. It will be finished as XA903, as used at Woomera for Blue Steel testing.

 

Can anyone point me at some reliable drawings for the B.1/B1A, please? I'm particularly interested in the panel line layout top and bottom and the early undercarriage. I've just spent an afternoon searching, but I've come up short of anything useful for my purposes. I found lots about B.2s, but that's not much use for my project, other than to emphasise just how different the two versions were! I have the Flightpath instructions and Warpaint 30 (complete with the old Aviation News drawings, which may or may not be reliable and contain very little about the early version anyway).

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Not sure if the Aeromodeller/MAP/SMI drawings also covered the 1/1a - that is, the later set, as I think there was one from ca. 1960 and one that appeared in (?) 1981 (?), which looks very well drawn and detailed. It may have been first published in the "Vulcan issue" (1981?), in which the Rareplanes and Formaplane kits were reviewed.

 

What I am very sure about is that SAM had a conversion article for the 1a (or 1, not sure) - found it at Aeroflight, Vol. 7 #2 for November 84.  This had 1/72 drawings of (substantial parts of) the wings and other relevant stuff, IIRC. Accuracy? No idea.

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The Scale Models drawings published by Argus in Aircraft Archive Post War Jets Vol 3 has 6 pages on the B1/B1a.

Drawings are by JF Henderson , they're to a smaller scale (1/144?) than those in the Warpaint, but look much better.

The main Vulcan wing construction between the spars doesn't look much different from the B2, just the leading edge profile, the rear falsework and control surfaces and tip fairings differed.

The undercarriage parts in the Flightpath set look quite good to me.

One obvious omission is the intercooler inlet/outlet fairing on the lower fuselage below the port engine intakes.

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20 minutes ago, Dave Swindell said:

The Scale Models drawings published by Argus in Aircraft Archive Post War Jets Vol 3 has 6 pages on the B1/B1a.

Drawings are by JF Henderson , they're to a smaller scale (1/144?) than those in the Warpaint, but look much better.

I have those in PDF format. Send me your email address in a PM.

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Thanks all! I should have said: scale's not an issue. As long as the detail is clear, I've got enough digits to  do the maths to work out what the dimensions on the model should be, as long as I take off my boots ...

 

@Space Ranger, pm inbound.

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On 9/2/2021 at 5:05 PM, Dave Swindell said:

The Scale Models drawings published by Argus in Aircraft Archive Post War Jets Vol 3 has 6 pages on the B1/B1a.

Drawings are by JF Henderson , they're to a smaller scale (1/144?) 

J F Henderson, those are the ones I meant. 
As 144 is half 72, converting the drawings to the right scale is a breeze.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 02/09/2021 at 07:44, Admiral Puff said:

Vulcan B.1A based on the old Airfix kit and the Flightpath conversion set. It will be finished as XA903

XA903 was a B1, not B1a. B1a was an ecm upgrade not the kinked wing.

 

On 02/09/2021 at 07:44, Admiral Puff said:

and the early undercarriage.

The Jet Age Museum has a set of Vulcan B1 landing gear (and a Vulcan B2 cockpit), useful if you want to have a look and get some reference images

 

 

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12 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

XA903 was a B1, not B1a. B1a was an ecm upgrade not the kinked wing.

Thanks - the photo that inspired me said "B.1A", and I went by that. Vulcans are a bit thin on the ground out here, so it's not so easy to check.

 

The Jet Age Museum has a set of Vulcan B1 landing gear (and a Vulcan B2 cockpit), useful if you want to have a look and get some reference images

Thanks again - I'll follow that up.

 

 

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