G-AXLR XR809 RB211 Test Bed

[Mike Howles]

Many years ago whilst an Engine Technician at Brize Norton we had the opportunity to go over to Kemble and rob a load of bits from G-AXLR which was once XR809.

It was a bit sad to see the aircraft led on its belly with the words Crab Air crudelly put on the side with some bodge tape, Al Lathwell dod this and it now appears in a few photos taken around the same time. The aircraft sufferdd some structural twisting due to the RB211 being fitted to one side so it never made it back to Brixe to join the other 13 aircraft.

Anyway, I decided to build a model of it, a number of folk have and thanks to Ray Charles of Twosixdecals I have decals to suit now.

The Airfix VC10 mold has been around a while and has suffered a lot of changes. Non of which alter the appalling engine stub wings which are totally incorrect. The engines on the whole are not too bad. So there are two issues here, firstly to get the Stbd stubwing correct for the Conways and the Port to be scratch built to take the RB211. Oh, and, of course one needs and RB211 engine to fit to it. I managed to get hold of a coule of Tristar kits (Revell) from a chap in Canada so I now have 2 Tristars, one of which now only has two engines. I might use the other kit to build a 216 Sqn aircraft, perhaps the one that got its rear spar smashed when it hit the BZN runway too hard (incorrect use of autoland).

Ok, so first thing to do is fill in all those windows:

There we are:

A rough idea of the problems to come:

Because of the way the tail plane is fitted I decided to cut off the fairing and assemble it seperately:

Putting the engines in roughly the correct position:

Getting the longitudinal angle about right:

And trying to get the gap about right:

RB211 being prepared:

Gluing some pegs in to get the engine angle right:

[Martian]

Fascinating! Do you have a picture of the original you can share with us?

Martin

[cuprar]

Looking forward to this

[Mike Howles]

Fascinating! Do you have a picture of the original you can share with us?

Martin

Martin

Just Google images of G-AXLR or XR809, there are a few out there.

Mike

[Mike Howles]

Ok, a bit more work done on the stub wing.

The VC10 stub wing is a highly complex shape and you can look at photos on the web to see just how complex it is. I remeber from my experiences climbing over them when servicing the engines. The Airfix stubwing is completely the wrong shape, as is the BRAZ version so the only way is to do it myself.

So lets get this old attempt cut away:

I have marked the position of the torque box on the nacelles for reference.

This picture does show how far from the fuselage the engines actually are. As an example on nice summer days when working up top on the cabin compressor (changing a blimmin Linvar wheel no doubt) or something it was real nice to lie with your feet resting on the fuselage lying against the engine, most comfortable, this shows that the distance between the engine curve and the fuselage was roughly the distance from the small of my back to the soles of my feet.

Roughly add some plasticard to see whats what:

Add the leading edge:

Now we really are getting somewhere:

This really does look like the shape I am after. There are photos out on Airliners.net and such that really show these shapes well so thanks to those guys for takeing the shots and from my aging memory of it.

The position of the engines in relation to the fuselage are now looking a bit more realistic:

Put it this way, the inner engine lower cowling (huge door) has to open fully to allow the engine to be lowered when changing it, the airfix stub wing would not allow this as the door would hit the fuselage whereas on the aircraft with the door open there is about a foot of space left.

[richellis]

Ill be watching this, I have a VC10 stalled as I cant get the Braz engines to sit "right"

But I will say, the Braz engines are a mile better than the airfix parts for detail.

[Mike Howles]

Ill be watching this, I have a VC10 stalled as I cant get the Braz engines to sit "right"

But I will say, the Braz engines are a mile better than the airfix parts for detail.

Quite posibly but the airfix mouldings as awful as they are to provide the correct overall shape. I can add the detail as I go. I have run a test on detailing the intakes a bit better so it should look ok. We'll see!! I must admit I am not a huge fan of aftermarket detailing parts for the sake of it, I, for some stupid reason like to challenge myself in that area!! perhaps its because i started building airfix models in the early sixties when the only embelishments you could add could only be made from the bits of sprue and stuff you had lying around or bits of other aircraft, certainly not like it is today.

Nothing against that as I have seen the results on this forum and they are impressive.

[Mike Howles]

Just building up the stub wing:

Frontal shape is much better:

Aft shape is also coming together:

Now we're getting somewhere:

You can see here the difference in shape from the real aircraft and the airfix version and you can see how complex a shape it really is:

A bit od work on the RB211, making the jetpipe look a bit better with a turbine and tail cone fitted:

As they will be assembled:

More to come soon....if the weather stays rubbish!!

[Mike Howles]

Got more work done here.

Getting the stub wing profile correct is taking a while but it's getting there:

Now I can start work on the RB211 engine. This has been made up from one off a Tristar as it was closest to the one fitted to G-AXLR.

I needed to build the core engine using the existing fan and rear casing, loads of filler and a lot of time.#

Then hollowed out the outer cowling to make it look more like an engine:

First fit to the fuselage to get the overall positioning right:

The engine cowling and core:

[woody37]

Fantastic work so far Mike, great to see this

[GrahamS]

Oooo this is interestingly good stuff!!

Graham

[slufdriver]

Fascinating stuff - I must have built 4 or 5 Airfix VC10s back in the 1970's and I had no idea how wrong the stub wing was!

I''m looking forward to seeing this one finished!

Richard

[David H]

Wow- That new pylon for Nos. 3 and 4 are a world of difference. Just looking at the shapes, i can see that would have been tough to do in injection-molded plastic, using the technology of the day.

Still, the complex shape has a cool look to it. Didn't know how much surface area was taken up by the trailing edge between Fuselage and Engine.

david

[Tartan11]

The "stub wing" for the Conway engines is looking good !

The Airfix kit represents the basic VC10 whereas here we are modelling a C Mk1 which has the Super nacelles.

For the Super the engines are further outboard (by 18 in from memory). Also they are angled 3.12 degrees nose up ( the basic nacelle is aligned with the fuselage datum).

That's why the stubwing leading edge slopes out & up.

As a check on the planview geometry the outboard engine intake & exhaust are respectively 186.75 & 175.42 inches from fuselage centreline (1.197 & 1.218" at 1/144 scale).

The inboard & outboard engines are 60 inches apart.

There is an article in Flight International with some illustrations of the RB211 installation (available on Flight Global websight I think) - year 1970 but I don't know exact date.

[Tartan11]

The website for the illustrations of the VC10 RB211 installation is

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/vie...20-%200844.html

Also see 1970-0465.pdf, 0466, 0843, 0845, 0846, 0851, 1754

[Mike Howles]

The website for the illustrations of the VC10 RB211 installation is

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/vie...20-%200844.html

Also see 1970-0465.pdf, 0466, 0843, 0845, 0846, 0851, 1754

Yes, I have the original Flight magazine containing said article which is quite handy.

[ExRAF]

The modifications are well illustrated by the photos - and something I would be put off doing!

[Mike Howles]

Managed to get a bit more work done in between other stuff.

Mainly getting the RB211 stub wing correct. Luckily there are quite a few images of the aircraft out there that I can use for reference as can be seen:

[madaboutmodels]

looking good, is there any more proggress?

[Silverstone 2]

Quite an undertaking you've got there!

Look forward to seeing the progress.

[Mike Howles]

Ah, I got a bit of a row because I was not aware of the correct protocol on GB's so I will continue the build progress here:

Major components together:

Engines dry fit:

A bit of assembly and a load of filling to do:

Engines fitted and starting to shape the stub wings:

Getting the conway stubwing right, looks just as I remember it:

RB211 stubwing:

Both:

Just need a tailplane:

It does match this picture reasonably well:

This is pretty much what I have been trying to acheive:

I am doing the filling around the wing roots to get the inner flap fairing right (ish)

As soon as that is done I'll post some more pictures.

[madaboutmodels]

what do you mean you got in a bit of a row?

[Mike Howles]

what do you mean you got in a bit of a row?

I was unaware of the protocol for posting pictures on GB build forums.

It's a Welsh term 'got a row' and a bit difficult to describe, it is not as severe as 'got in a row' in the English sense. 'Got a row' can mean something as simple as 'can you tidy your desk' rather than a full scale row in the English sense where it is a two sided slanging match involving shouting and such. Getting a row in Wales never involves shouting and rarely gets a verbal response. We are quite civilised really. Now for a full row you would be chopsing, but thats a different story.

Bit of a joke really, I just took the hint that was put on the GB forum where it is explained that you should place build images on the Work in Progress Forum rather than the actual GB build forum.

No problems, a bit embarassing in a way

[bzn20]

have you noticed the space between the two conways? thats the compressor duct in the middle,which you'll know ! .the airfix bit doesnt seem to take that into account.

great work on the stubs.the trailing edge was squared off viewed from the side and not tapered like the BOAC standard /K2 10s

[Navy Bird]

Now this is an interesting conversion! I love these unusual, seldom seen models. Great work so far!!

Forgive my ignorance, was this actually flown in this configuration? With one engine on port, and two on starboard, I would think that the net thrust on each side was equal, so there wasn't any embarassing "yaw moments."

Cheers,

Bill