Vickers Valiant B.2 dive brakes???

[Dave Swindell]

This weeks musing - was the Vickers Valiant B.2 prototype WJ954, the Black Bomber, fitted with dive brakes?

The colour scheme isn't good for spotting them on photo's, and none of the photo's I've been able to find really have the contrast and resolution to show either way whether they were fitted, and if so where.

From what I've read the specification for the Pathfinder Bomber had a shallow dive bombing profile requirement which called for an increase in dive brake area over that of the standard V bomber, however the change in design of the B.2 main undercarriage puts the new undercarriage fairings over where 2 of the B.1's underwing dive brakes were fitted, which would lead to a decrease in dive brake area if no other changes were made.

Valiant B.1 prototype WB210 was built with dive brakes both above and below the wings, were the outer brakes on the upper wing re-instated on the B.2?

Were they moved further outboard to retain the full brake area? (though there doesn't appear to be enough space outboard of the original position between the rear spar and the flap to move them far enough to retain the full area)

There's  4 view sketch plans of the B.2 in the Aerofax book on P30 which appears to show full size air brakes above and below the wing outboard of the undercarriage fairings which may or may not be indicative of those fitted.

Were they located elsewhere, or were 

Has anyone any more definite info beyond my idle musings above? 

Arrival of an Airfix re-issue Valiant prompted me to pull out an original issue boxing containing aftermarket goodies, including an AIM B.2 conversion which is currently tempting me - a definitive answer on this would significantly increase the chances of plastic being butchered for this conversion.

[wavodavo]

PM sent.

[dogsbody]

Weren't those speed brakes, not dive brakes?

 

 

 

Chris

[Dave Swindell]

1 hour ago, wavodavo said:

PM sent.

PM received - thanks very much Dave 🙂

From what Dave has sent, in case anyone else is wondering too, there were dive brakes above and below the wing, moved outboard from the B1 position and of reduced height further outboard. 

I also suspect that although they look similar when deployed, they're of a completely different design.

The B.! brakes are perforated "barn doors", hinged on the leading edge and they open to some 50-60 degrees when deployed

The B.2 brakes appear to be a row of vertical fingers with a capping plate over the top or bottom which deploy vertically up or down. This would help explain why they're so difficult to spot when retracted as the capping plate would sit flush with the skin, with none of the slots showing which are visible on the B.1.

[Dave Swindell]

9 minutes ago, dogsbody said:

Weren't those speed brakes, not dive brakes?

Chris

Semantics I think Chris, on the B.1 this would probably be a more appropriate term, but the B,2 Pathfinder spec specifically called for dive brakes for a low level shallow dive bombing delivery profile. 

The design objective in both cases is to limit speed, but in the B.2 this was intentionally in a dive.

[dogsbody]

Thanks, Dave. My knowledge of Valiants is quite shallow.

 

 

 

Chris

[Dave Swindell]

Pictures paint a thousand words, and with @wavodavo's kind permission, to avoid any copyright issues here's some close crops of the area in question

 

  

 

Note:-

The "fingers" appear to be a light colour, not black indicating they retract internally (probably silver painted from the reflection in sunlight)

Capping strip / blanking plate across the top of each set of fingers to close off the brakes when retracted - note this doesn't appear to rotate and increase the brake area when deployed as did the similar installation on the vulcan, the braking area is proivided by the area of the more numerous fingers.

There are 4 sets of brakes below the wing, but only 3 sets above.

The 2 outboard brakes in each set don't extend as far as the inner sets of brakes, but otherwise they each appear to be the same size.

Difficult to tell from the angle of these photo's, but logically from an engineering point of view the strongest point to locate these would be on the aft side of the rear spar. Modelling wise for retracted brakes it would just require  long narrow rectangles scribing to represent the capping strip for each brake -  don't think I'll bother with them deployed.

Thanks again  to Dave for answering my query.

[71chally]

Superb reference pictures, answers questions for me aswel, thank you both.