Westland Wasp HAS 1: 'Ambuscade Flight: XT778'

[bigbadbadge]

Ooooooo lovely to see this developing  and quickly too,  looks great Tony.

The PE looks great too.  

We have lots of Tomatoes this year too, really pleased, I sit there eating cut in half and drizzled in vinegar, Olive oil , Salt and Black Pepper, yummy.  

Had a good crop of other veg this year too, very pleased.

Great work on the Waspie.

Chris

[The Spadgent]

Lovely measured work on the wasp dear boy. 👏👏👏

 

 Johnny

[perdu]

Now look what you made me do

 

I had to check the back end of he engine deck din't I?

 

 

 

That curved tail cone is one of those seen it, gotta do it things

 

It isn't on the Airfix Scout and I cant believe I missed it twice 

 

 

Oh well at least I have had my bits out!

 

 

Of the box obvs.

 

Beautiful generating Tony, expect me in all along this one.

[Brandy]

More magic from the bench of the Baron. You'll have to start using your full title: Baron Resin de Caderry!

 

Ian

[Fritag]

Fascinating and instructive insights into your method and workflow Tony; many thanks.

 

Are you keeping all the surface bodies separate for now/to the end or selectively stitching as you go?

Edited September 3, 2022 by Fritag

[Selwyn]

On 8/23/2022 at 5:54 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

I say, Bang on, old boy. Patron, in Absentia, obviously. (I always think that a bit of Latin adds a touch of class to a thread.

 

I don't think you're  allowed to say the B word. The replacement term was a Still. Until Senior Officers banned that one too.

Service Humour. Hopefully it's still allowed. We worked hard and played hard back in the day. You were either a serviceman/woman or a Civvie. That simple.

All due respect to the residents who endured the war, many of whom (I've read) went out of their way to help the forces personnel.

I never got to go down there. I was working long hours & seven day weeks in a support role, back here in Blighty, at a certain Helicopter base.

Another book in my to read pile, 3 Days in June. 3 Para and Mount Longdon. Bless them all

 

Very sad to hear that the pace of life is getting to you. (As it does to all of us at times. I arrived home from work today feeling ready for a nap!)

Maybe this one should be taken at walking pace, and damn the malcontents and their impatience. So, done by Christmas then?

How long is a Wasp main rotor blade in 1/24th? Will it still fit into your miracle machine?

Can you print a new brain? would it help? I could do with one myself on the odd day (or two).

Get well soon (Does the kettle lead stretch to the fridge?) Pete

 

You missed one out!

We started to call the locals "Bennys." The locals didn't like this so the term was banned.

We then started to call them "Stills," cos they were Still "Bennys." That was banned too.

One early morning an officer heard a chap remark, "Not many "Andys" around this morning."

When the guy was quizzed about this the answer was: "Andys Still a Benny!"

At this point I think the authorities just gave up!

 

Selwyn

[TheBaron]

A brisk Saturday evening update after watching the wrestling and waiting for Space 1999 to come on....

On 31/08/2022 at 18:12, giemme said:

Beware Tony, Italian Kitchen Patrol is around and watching you....

Knew that would draw you out of the shadows Agent Giorgio!

On 31/08/2022 at 18:48, Pete in Lincs said:

There does seem to be something amiss at the tailboom joint in this one?

It does indeed look that way Pete but is in fact one of those weird artefacts thrown up by the realtime lighting system in Fusion.

 

For the most part it behaves itself very well but  - particularly in this case where I'm using a default 'steel' material on bodies - there seems to be a nadir point in the lighting model which when picked up  by a shiny shape at just the right angle, throws some high contrast darkness into the mix rather alarmingly. You can see when viewed from a different angle how that region is in fact nice and regular:

.. and yet from a different angle, here's that the void is staring back at us from the boom now:

it's not just grey - that darkness also affects Blue Steel as well!

On 31/08/2022 at 20:50, bigbadbadge said:

We have lots of Tomatoes this year too, really pleased, I sit there eating cut in half and drizzled in vinegar, Olive oil , Salt and Black Pepper, yummy.  

Had a good crop of other veg this year too, very pleased.

That all sounds fantastic Chris - good luck with the rest of the harvest over the next few weeks. I'm afraid the sprouting broccoli and kale here got really badly hammered by caterpillars when I took my eye of that part of the garden...

On 01/09/2022 at 09:34, The Spadgent said:

Lovely measured work on the wasp dear boy

Most kind Johnny - my thanks.

On 01/09/2022 at 14:26, perdu said:

Now look what you made me do

😁G'wan - you know you want to!

On 01/09/2022 at 14:26, perdu said:

That curved tail cone is one of those seen it, gotta do it things

If it's any consolation Bill I'm encountering many more curves on the Wasp than I realized were there. Field report follows. 

On 01/09/2022 at 14:47, Brandy said:

You'll have to start using your full title: Baron Resin de Caderry!

🤣

('Amanda' for short....)

8 hours ago, Fritag said:

Fascinating and instructive insights into your method and workflow Tony; many thanks.

My pleasure Steve.

Partly it's wanting to leave traces that might help others, but if I'm honest, it's also writing things down so that I don't forget them later. 🤪

8 hours ago, Fritag said:

Are you keeping all the surface bodies separate for now/to the end

That's it exactly: I made life a lot harder (and the design process correspondingly slower) on the Vixen by creating homegeneous solids far too soon.  This time around I've not only divided the airframe up more coherently into regions, but am keeping the different bodies comprising each region unstitched until the whole airfame is blocked out

There are three main reasons for this. Firstly, there's quite a lot of complicated three-dimensional drawing required in places (more than initially anticipated!) so this is a great help in projecting diifferent profiles in order to keep shape harmonized. Secondly, when it comes to thickening bodies to create the wall-thickness, it will give me a lot more flexibility in varying those values based on which ones need to be strong in order to provide structural strength, and which ones thin for finer detailing. The last factor is simply that thicknening some of the compound curves involved would in all likelihood create error messages where the thickened profiles interfere with each other within tightly-curving areas.

 

Were this thread an Annette Peacock song, it would doubtless be titled 'His Infinite Obsession With Curvature'.....

8 hours ago, Selwyn said:

At this point I think the authorities just gave up!

The Bennys Mightier Than The Sword. ✊

 

'The Wasp will be simpler.' I said: 'It'll hardly have any compound curves as complicated as the Vixen.'.....

Unless you begin to look closely and then it's an inerlocking field of subtles curvatures all the way around. Some even cunningly pretending to be flat surfaces - until notice the way highlights flow around them. Nice of the Air Ministry to pick a rich dark blue colour as well to help obscure some of these effects from view. Luckily the Dutch Navy had a more humanitarian impulse in painting theirs lighter hues to make it easier to follow the contours:

^{Image credit: BTEU/NEDMIL}

An absolutely cracking panorama of the Wasp from various angles here if you scroll down the 'similar images' panel below. Kudos to the original photographer of that series - the best period shots I've seen anywhere. This one showing the Wasp flight of Hr.Ms. Van Galen is as pure a visual moment as you could hope to see.

 

That design above? That was one of those the angled/curved windows at the back of the cabin:

Like many features on the Wasp, it interacts with mutliple parts of the airframe in ways that are challenging to integrate in three dimensions.

 

This helicopter has also been teaching me what sequence to design it in as on several occasions now I've started to do one area, only to have to backtrack and do a different piece first in order to match all the sides up. The nose was a good example of this:

I could only really make sense of the complexity of these non-regular shapes by reference to the surounding features with which the have to align:

With the cabin sides, rear and nose done, only at that point was there enough information present in the design to begin the roof. But wait: there's something tricky happening in the front corner framing to take care of first:

So it turns out you need to have that filleted top profile done for the door first. Knocking that up:

 - also caused me to pay attention to the fact that there's a small cutaway in the door sill, permitting it to open and close around the front landing gear structure.

 

That drawing was then used to extract the required door shape from the curving cabin wall in that region:

 

With that added:

-you could then get the roofers in.

 

By this stage in proceedings I had throbbing temples from my gaze flickering back and forth between multiple photographs and the drawings in Fusion, but eventually I arrived at a grid that enable me to produce a roof:

The front section of this looks slightly at odds in this form because of course it's missing the front roof windows (the ones that could be jettisoned when ditching) that give the Wasp its characteristic bulging eyebrows. Their absence is best explained by the absence of any window features so far - I'm concentrating on the broad outlines of the airframe first, before going back over it in a series of passes to progressively block more and more features in. This is how she looks as a series of cross sections so far:

This wireframe view in Fusion is very handy in such instances where you want to be able to compare your layouts with the various structural drawings of the airframe in the manual. It's worth noting in this regard that for the most part I view manual drawings as indicative for shape and proportion only - they let me know what is there in terms of underlying structure, but for definitive visuals the photograph remains prime.

 

As a solid? Well it's beginning to fill up quite nicely now:

A closer look at the front:

Craning your neck around from the Observer's seat:

Reverse-angle:

Some port to finish the meal:

The two major features left at this point then are obviuously to reconcile the windshield with roof and nose profiles, plus filling in the recess between rear cabin windows. Graham's shots in the forum walkaround for the Wasp include a particularly useful interior shot of this latter feature that contains a lot of information about shape:

Anyway, hope you're having a good weekend and take care until next time.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by TheBaron
Because no-one could stop me.

[giemme]

There is definitely a lot of curves in this whirly bird, Tony

Fascinating 3D modelling,  as per norm

 

Ciao 

[Pete in Lincs]

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

is in fact one of those weird artefacts thrown up by the realtime lighting system in Fusion.

Yeah, I knew that. Ahem.

It is now becoming a fine looking thing.

Throbbing temples doesn't sound too good though. Please take care, despite the demands from the balcony seats, we can wait.

It's going to be well worth waiting for, IMHO.

[hendie]

It's coming along in leaps and bounds now Tony. Excellent workmanship on display as usual

[perdu]

Yeah keep relaxed Alan Tony* don't work too hard for us.

 

Looking marvellous.

 

 

 

 

 

* can somebody pop over here to Streetly and give me a slap for getting two, yes two expert exponents of the Fusion360 foo mistaken in my befuddled head.

 

Sorry and utterly belittled by my bad, mate.   

[bigbadbadge]

Thanks Tony, enjoying eating the Tomato glut!!!

Wow what  an update and the unmistakable shape of this lovely little helicopter emerges.  Great design work.

Chris

[TheBaron]

Afternoon all.

On 03/09/2022 at 20:51, giemme said:

There is definitely a lot of curves in this whirly bird, Tony

Not kidding Giorgio! 😁 In fact I'm beginning to think that British aircraft designers in the 1950s-60s weren't on an hourly rate but were getting paid by the curve.

On 03/09/2022 at 21:05, Pete in Lincs said:

Yeah, I knew that. Ahem.

It wouldn't be the first time such an effect had fooled me in Fusion either Pete - in fact I've switched out that metal material for a plastic one just now in order to avoid all those distracting highlights.

On 03/09/2022 at 21:05, Pete in Lincs said:

Throbbing temples doesn't sound too good though.

Off to see the Doc again in an hour or so as semi-migraine for several weeks now - LC just continues to be the condition that keeps giving! Appreciate the kind sentiments.

On 03/09/2022 at 21:38, hendie said:

It's coming along in leaps and bounds now Tony. Excellent workmanship on display as usual

Plenty of backtracking and design revision too Alan - though it wouldn't be CAD without it would it?

On 04/09/2022 at 01:02, perdu said:

Yeah keep relaxed Alan Tony* don't work too hard for us.

I still recall getting yourself and NavyBird mixed up as Bills when I first joined the forum Bill! 🤪

On 04/09/2022 at 08:28, bigbadbadge said:

enjoying eating the Tomato glut!!!

Good man Chris! They're coming on thick and fast now so yesterday evening spent making pints of tomato soup for the freezer.

On 04/09/2022 at 08:28, bigbadbadge said:

the unmistakable shape of this lovely little helicopter emerges.

It's so unmitaklable that you wonder how I can keep making so many mistakes with it's shape! 😁

 

Whatever it was that Marcus Aurelius said about helicopters, he was exactly right.

Let me remind all concerned of my blithering platitudes posted this last Saturday:

On 03/09/2022 at 19:31, TheBaron said:

for the most part I view manual drawings as indicative for shape and proportion only - they let me know what is there in terms of underlying structure, but for definitive visuals the photograph remains prime

It's not that this statement is untrue (it's not, in fact it's a necessary method for a non- engineer/aeronautical designer such as myself in order to help me understand what's going on with form and function) but simply that it carries within it a number of potential traps. One of these is the tendency which I'd stupidly fallen into over the last couple of sessions of simply assuming that getting one section correctly shaped was enough to allow you to proceed onto the next in sequence.

 

And so on 

and so forth.

 

Having completed the cabin walls, roof, and nose 'bulb' it as: 'Oooh I'm glad I saved the flat windshields to last for a nice easy job and - noooooo!!!! why won't anything match up in threee dmensions?'  Several hours of twiddling nose details made things either work from the side view or from the front - but never both. Eventually I realized that simply adding extra bits of drawing to pull things around in ever smaller regions was the classic warning sign that this wasn't going to work. (I've learned from hard experience that errors in CAD are rarely solved by adding more stuff on top of them...).

 

It's those long dark teatimes of the soul that really convince you that this time you've taken on more than your capable of, so it was early to bed, a few pages Ian Newton's 'Bird Migration' and a night's sleep on it.

 

After staring at some more Wasp photos, I eventually came to realize that there were two sources of error influencing matters. The first was simply to do with photos - all lenses distort an image to varying degrees of course, and generally the shorter the focal length, the greater the distortion across the image plane. The other factor is simply the the way that perpspective alters the relative size of things in relation to each other within the frame, in ways that orthpographic view in design software like Fusion don't. (There is a perspective view in Fusion but unless you can accurately model camea lens and sensor paremeters in such software, it won't be the same perspective as the camera.). In terms of the photos of the Wasp I was using as planar references in Fusion, being taken with different lens/camera combinations, the key references points between them would never match up exactly between front and side. With simple shapes involved this isn't necessarily a set back as you can often finesse these by eye and instinct, but the front of this helicopter involves flat and curved shapes coming at each other from all sorts of directions and angles. 

 

Afer tweaking the front and side views so that they matched as closely as possible, I average out the difference between them and then set to work on the drawings from scratch. This time around, instead of drawing nose and windshield up as separate stages, I worked on both as a combined drawing, the beginnings of which are shown here:

With those key corners and outlines noe accurately reconciled with each other in three-dimensions, there were no mysterious gaps or overlaps now.

 

Satisfied that this revised method was bearing fruit, I built up the nose section:

TWith that done, I was then able to loft straight from the rear profile of the solid nose in order  to create a windshield that would meet up accurately withthe roof profile:

I didn't go straight out to edge of the pilot's door at this stage however , as there are some complicated things going on in that region with with roof and door frame curvatures - lofting stright into these would add curves in what should be a flat windshield. To deal with this I left a narrow chaneel at the side (basically equsting the the window frame on that side:

 

 

This allowed me to build that narrow section separately in such a way that is expresses the meeting of the curves in the tiop corner, without disturbing the planar nature of the windshield:

 

Also added was the engine deck recess that ptrudes forward inthe rear of the cabin, seen here from the inside:

The overall look so far then:

Mirrored:

 

 

Still got that big boxy bit to do that sticks out from underneath the engine deck area  - whatever it's for....

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

[perdu]

21 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Still got that big boxy bit to do that sticks out from underneath the engine deck area  - whatever it's for....

Tony

I understand the crew pop their sandwiches in there if being based away from 'Mother'.

 

 

Possibly.

 

The exposition , thinkingery wise has been very useful Tony.

 

It has helped me see that curved piece at the back of the engine deck as a result of designing the front cone as an oval entity with the upper section removed.

 

I'll be trying to show that next time around, just a whisp with the file should do it. top of the deck.

 

Really enjoying this because the basic helo is familiar to me after my previous assaults on the Saro Babies.

[perdu]

29 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

I still recall getting yourself and NavyBird mixed up as Bills when I first joined the forum Bill! 🤪

Yeah but we are both Bills...

 

Alan you are not, 'Tony' Alan is not neither no way not.

 

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

11 minutes ago, perdu said:

Alan you are not, 'Tony' Alan is not neither no way not.

Toby or not Toby? That may be the question, I can neither confirm nor deny that confusion abounds in questionable amounts.

I would now be very grateful if someone could explain that lot to me. I have no idea of it's origin. I'm tired. That could be it.... 

[perdu]

1 minute ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Toby or not Toby? That may be the question, I can neither confirm nor deny that confusion abounds in questionable amounts.

I would now be very grateful if someone could explain that lot to me. I have no idea of it's origin. I'm tired. That could be it.... 

And I will have a pint of whatever he is drinking...

[Pete in Lincs]

Actually it was green tea. 🫖

I will shortly be going for a lie down...

[mark.au]

Commenting on this master class of design feels like attempting some useful input to a Stephen Hawking theory… my sense of inadequacy develops further when the only part I understood was the errors inherently associated with comparison of photos vs drawings!  In lieu of something interesting or intelligent; good job Tony!

[hendie]

I'll go with what he said ^^.

Very little to add other than that us a masterful approach to the windscreen/door framing conundrum.  I think you've got it spot on

 

[The Spadgent]

I’ll just let you carry on with it dear boy. Looks fab. 👏🙌

[Brandy]

Watching and learning.

I'll probably forget it all, but at least it's sparking the little grey cells a little.

 

It definitely looks like a Wasp so you must have got something right!

 

Ian

[TheBaron]

Went to Homesavers to buy a storage box during the week and had a religious vision in aisle 6.....

On 05/09/2022 at 15:49, perdu said:

I understand the crew pop their sandwiches in there if being based away from 'Mother'.

😁

I'm still no clearer as to its function Bill but it awas a magnet to graffiti artists...

 

On 05/09/2022 at 15:49, perdu said:

It has helped me see that curved piece at the back of the engine deck as a result of designing the front cone as an oval entity with the upper section removed.

 

I'll be trying to show that next time around, just a whisp with the file should do it. top of the deck.

I can't recollect where I found this image online  Bill but it does show quite  a nice view of that region in cross-section:

 - plus the opening for the mystery cupboard (though still no clearer what's in there...) 😄

On 05/09/2022 at 16:07, Pete in Lincs said:

Toby or not Toby?

If you know, you know....

On 05/09/2022 at 22:06, mark.au said:

good job Tony

From one of your abilities mark, that'll do me.

On 05/09/2022 at 22:36, hendie said:

Very little to add other than that us a masterful approach to the windscreen/door framing conundrum. 

That would be 'masterful' in the sense of taking an entire day of dead-ends for the penny to finally drop in my case Alan. Or are you Tony? Bill has me all confused now Trevor. 🤪

On 06/09/2022 at 12:12, The Spadgent said:

I’ll just let you carry on with it dear boy.

 'Carry On With It Dear Boy' sounds like it should have been one of the more camp productions at the end of that film franchise Johnny!

On 06/09/2022 at 13:38, Brandy said:

I'll probably forget it all, but at least it's sparking the little grey cells a little.

The doctor recently put me on a medication called - I kid you not - 'Mastermind' Ian.

 

I mentioned at the start of this thread that I'd be chucking in further bits of infoarmation as the build progressed, so for anyone wanting more background on the Wasp, there's an exceptionally informative reel here:

Harking back to the era when companies like Westland actually had their own film units, it's got some great footage of moving deck trials at RAE Bedofrd, as well as lots of good detail on unfolding and readying the heliciopter for flight. i think it's Richard Baker doing the VO.

 

Confessions of a Roofing Contractor

The longer I look at the Wasp the more complicated its shapes seems to get - the cabin/cockpit roof  being no exception. My previous lash at this was simply a placeholding exercise necessary to establsh the sill correctly all around the top of the crew accomadation: this time round it had to be the real thing. The more I looked the more the apparently 'simple' set of curves seemed to become an infintely varying set of contours (think Drumlin Country). Pretty quickly I realized that not for the first time it was going to require some music and lots of staring at images to resolve things with pencil and paper:

My faith in music has recently been rekindled by discovering how much fantastic dance music is curently coming out of South Africa so with 'Heart of the G' by Heavy-K up uber-loud and on repeat, observations were eventually condensed down to their simplest form:

The rear of the roof isn't too hard  but the roof above the two front seats contains a range of transparent nuances not always easy to pick out accurately from photographs when you're trying to identify changes in contour. Another penny dropped when I realized that the most straightforward way to clarify such information is the way that highlights travel across a shiny surfaces when they are moving in space. Of course stills will freqeuntly show highlights on a surface from a particular angle, but unless the image is moving you can't watch how one shape blends into another: interpreting between two stills is not always a s safe bet with something like the Wasp's roof.

 

I won't bore you with the whole process but it starts from here with a sill all the way around, the central strip and curving cross-members of the central frame:

Those are the three key factors to get right so although the subsequent drawing process involved more image planes that anticipated, the process was one in which I felt I understood the changing flow of shapes from one region to the next:

 

(I screenshotted the above angles so you that can compare the highlights on the roof design to where the highlights appear on the actual aircraft).

 

Next up was that 'mystery cupboard/gimp box' that sticks out from underneath the engine deck where it angles up to meet the boom. There's an unintentiaonally revealing walkaround here that disabused me of the notion that that this feature was a purely linear feature:

You can see that both the side profiles and lower surface also contain yet more curves....

 

With most of the major front outlines blocked, at this point attention shifted to the tailcone to begine finishing off shaping there. I don't intend adding any fitting in this phase,  just concentrating getting the overall shapes done right. Again, closer inspection of sources revealed that the top boom/tailcone fairing flares out at the rear around the transmission for the tail rotor:

These build-saving angles are from another discovery - a superb Navy Wings video walkaround of pilot Steve Daniels doing a preflight check of XT420. Well worth a watch and oddly relaxing....

Producing that final section of fairing though meant I had to break the 'no-fittings-thus-far' rule and so had some early fun building the first solid object of the build - the mounting plate onto whichthe rotor transmission is bolted:

To be more accurate, it's a combined rotor transmission/tailplane mounting as you can see from the semi-circular opening a the bottom. Once that was in place I then had something to gauge building the rear flare of the fairing against:

Waspier and waspier....spooky.

That's all for today except to finish with the violent thunderstorm that swept in last evening whilst I was waiting to pick up eldest up from the bus:

I was brave and didn't cry.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[giemme]

8 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Waspier and waspier....spooky.

True!    

Ciao

[perdu]

26 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

I was brave and didn't cry.

I might have.

 

Phew I thought during the roofing section that you might have missed the trough between the roof windows for both sides.

 

Shoulda known better, did I mention phew?