Lysander floatplane project

Thanks for the quote (and the compliment) Jerry!

I really can’t see that a Lysander floatplane would’ve made much sense, and a floatplane Gladiator even less, particularly as the Germans were using Bf 109s and 110s.

FWIW, just as an uneducated guess, the engineering would be fiddly buy possible, but the performance awful on the Glad, while the relatively over-engined Lysander would do better, but was always vulnerable without fighter cover.

Hi
my scanner won’t play, so here is by request, the full text,(fair use rules in the interest of research).

source page 53
interceptor fighters
mjf bowyer
isbn 0-85059-726-0
Pub PSL

‘An exotic scheme devised with typical british ingenuity in moments of crisis,as was the case in the recent falklands conflict,was the fitting of twin floats to hurricanes for use in norway.On april 24 they were ordered as ‘urgent’ and two days later a pair earmarked for a blackburn roc reached kingston for testing in june.By the end of april the float requirement was extended to spitfires with an instruction that there was a ‘definite and urgent need to equip some on the highest priority’,This was ordered to apply to lysanders and gladiators on may 7,but the ideas owed more to imagination than usefulness,spitfire floatplanes were to appear periodically’

cheers
Jerry

Hi All,
Many thanks for the replies.
No problems going off topic,I’m a fan of your books James.
Personally I always think pdf is the wrong way to go it is to easy to copy.
cheers
Jerry

James, Re. Reprints of old publications, have you thought of producing a PDF version? Maybe a good way of introducing a new “audience” to your work at a low to no cost?

It’s a thought. Apparently attactive, but image rights for many books mean that there is a cost, and renegotiations. How books develop with multi-media in the next decade will be interesting, but I’m not placing my bets yet.

Looks like we are off the original topic, and I wouldn’t want to abuse our host’s hospitality much further!

Regards

James, Re. Reprints of old publications, have you thought of producing a PDF version? Maybe a good way of introducing a new “audience” to your work at a low to no cost?

Thanks, James for the explanation – publishing must indeed be a hazardous business these days.

Oh, I wouldn’t want to give the impression it’s a tough situation, we just have a particular business model, which works for us and enables books people seem to like, which makes it worthwhile.

Fortunately, I managed to acquire the Lysander book (for a bit more than the cover price !) but it can be frustrating for a newbie trying to build up a collection.
Good luck with future publications.

At least you know it should appreciate in value… Thanks; we have a interesting publishing programme, as do several other aviation publishers, so it’s all to the interested reader’s benefit.

Keeping it to yourself then, Mr Tweed? Humph… 🙁

😀 Sorry. I have no idea where the sketch is, and it was very not good anyway.

The trick with a Lysander floatplane is that the fuselage frame was not designed to take an aft attachment for a float rig, and getting the ‘U’ beam of the undercarriage to attach correctly – would be challenging.

Regards,

Would it not be possible to self publish digital copies of books like this through a retailer such as Amazon? I have a friend who has self published her novel on Amazon. Its costs almost nothing and the money from any sales goes directly to you minus a small deduction for the retailer.

The other advantage being that you can sell much cheaper while maintaining the same margin as you have no printing or distribution costs.

I apologise for this comment being somewhat removed from the subject of the thread, it was just a thought!

Funnily enough I sketched up an RCN Lysander with floats,

Keeping it to yourself then, Mr Tweed? Humph… 🙁

Thanks, James for the explanation – publishing must indeed be a hazardous business these days.
Fortunately, I managed to acquire the Lysander book (for a bit more than the cover price !) but it can be frustrating for a newbie trying to build up a collection.
Good luck with future publications.

Thanks for the compliments!

Funnily enough I sketched up an RCN Lysander with floats, but purely as a what-if of my own, for light relief from the Lysander research, and I’ve never seen any other reference to any serious proposals to putting one on floats. I’ll have to have a look at Jerry’s reference. Alex Crawford would be the chap to ask, but likewise I’m sure I’ve never seen any reference to Gladiator getting float equipped.

BTW: I’m surprised they didn’t use surplus Lysanders in Canada as bushplanes..on wheels or floats.

Never found any particular reason why they weren’t adapted more widely in the role.

However four were adapted as crop sprayers in Canada, but I understand due to the toxicity of the chemicals used, to the pilots it was a very unfortunate experiment.

I suspect that like the Swordfish set to be used as bush ‘planes in S Africa, they were simply unusual enough not to have a viable supply chain, and other factors combined to kill any chance of a post war civil career. Civilian adaptation to floatplanes would’ve been even less likely than military.

Bear in mind the Lysander has some nasty characteristics to do with trim/power in the go around, which were never fully solved to a reasonable level of safety.

(I once asked Mushroom why they didn’t reprint copies of several of their books, which were obviously in great demand, and got a ho-hum sort of reply. Strange)

Not strange, really. The one thing most people know about our books is that they sell out and if you want one, get one quick (I have no spare copies of the Lysander book beyond my file copies). We can’t afford to have large stocks waiting years to sell.

There are three run-on aspects of that –

– We know with any book that we’ve ‘satisfied’ the majority of the market out there; a reprint would simply not sell as well as the original run. (As the author, I’d love to see a cut of the e-Bay resale prices…)
– Secondly if we started to reprint titles that would detract from the fast sales of future titles, potentially ending up with needing to remainder titles – a disaster for any publisher, and a symptom of poor planning.
– Generally, we aim to produce a revised second edition, rather than a straight reprint (as we are about the subjects, not about potboilers for cash). Therefore each title needs to be reviewed in the light of ‘is there the material for a revised edition?’ In the case of Alex’s Gladiator book, there is, and Vol 2 of the second edition has just been released, with much more info than there was in the single volume smaller format first edition.

On topic, I am currently reviewing the case for a second edition of the Lysander book.

I hope that clarifies the situation!

Regards,

Hi
I am reading interceptor fighters by bowyer on page 53 he mentions the hurricane and spitfire floatplanes being high priority, then mentions that the order was also applied to the Lysander and gladiator.
Anyone seen a Lysander sketch ?
cheers
Jerry

Never seen a Lysander on floats, even in her role as an air-sea-rescue aircraft not – only one on skis.

Martin

You are absolutely right about JK’s magnificent Lysander book – but no point trying to plug it – copies are about as elusive as the Putnam Miles !!

(I once asked Mushroom why they didn’t reprint copies of several of their books, which were obviously in great demand, and got a ho-hum sort of reply. Strange)

This might be as good question for JDK…since he wrote a very good book on the aircraft. Blatant plug…:D

BTW: I’m surprised they didn’t use surplus Lysanders in Canada as bushplanes..on wheels or floats.
Not enough room?
Too inefficient?
Both?