Shorts S.31 1/2 scale Stirling

That has always struck me as good way of recreating a scale flying Stirling, substitute those lovely little Pobjoys for Lycomings…
Like you I find it a fascinating excercise, a pre war Avro 707 in a way.
I hope something turns up for you.

A 1/144th scale plan simply over laid with 1/72 scale Pobjoys.

John

Just don’t tell the Mrs that I was wrong again….

am I right though that there was only a pilots seat and anybody else sat on a wooden stool or something ?

Just as long as you don’t tell mine that I was surfing at work 😉

Yes, the pilot say on a proper seat and the observer sat on a bag behind him. I think it might have been the cement bags used for ballast!

DS

thanks DocStirling

Just don’t tell the Mrs that I was wrong again….

am I right though that there was only a pilots seat and anybody else sat on a wooden stool or something ?

I may be wrong (as my Mrs often tells me) but didn’t this 1/2 scale model show the need for design changes which resulted (and this is where I’m struggling to remember) in the longer undercart which if you see above, even at half scale is very different and also a different angle or size to the rear fuselage section ? If I’m right (and as I tell the Mrs, that can happen) then the 1/72 plan won’t be the same ?

Not quite – the tall u/c was the only way to alter the wing incidence when they realised that the take off parameters were not going to fit the required spec. They had already fixed the production jigs for the actual wing incidence, so all the could do was to make the old girl taller.

They discovered that the u/c was too weak when the first prototype collapsed on landing. Despite mods it was an ongoing problem.

I think there were might have been some alterations to the 1/2 scale U/C done to make it more like the main production one later on? I too struggle to recall:confused:

DS

A 1/144th scale plan simply over laid with 1/72 scale Pobjoys.

John

I may be wrong (as my Mrs often tells me) but didn’t this 1/2 scale model show the need for design changes which resulted (and this is where I’m struggling to remember) in the longer undercart which if you see above, even at half scale is very different and also a different angle or size to the rear fuselage section ? If I’m right (and as I tell the Mrs, that can happen) then the 1/72 plan won’t be the same ?

If memory serves we have discussed the half-scale Stirling on the forum a while back. There are some pictures of her flying, and in the Farnborough wind tunnel, on the public domain, so to speak.

There are no official plans for it that I have ever seen. Bearing in mind that it was dumped and burned at some point during the war (having apparently been pranged in a landing accident whilst on use as a company hack) and that all the official Stirling design papers were also lost in a fire, I doubt if a plan for the half-scale still exists.

I doubt we will ever see a flying version now – the nearest we might get is a large r/c scale model.

DS

My father saw the half scale Stirling at RAF Stradishall, when he was at an ATC camp. He wrote a letter to the ‘Aeroplane Spotter’ which was published with a picture of the aircraft.

Dave

There are no official plans for it that I have ever seen….I doubt if a plan for the half-scale still exists….I doubt we will ever see a flying version now….

What a pity. It would be a natural for Oshkosh, along with the 2/3 Spitfires and Mustangs.

Shorts had already produced the Scion senior with 4 pobjoys and I always wondered what the relationship between this wing and the Stirling !/2 scale was?

The S.31 was an exact aerodynamic model of the Stirling which revealed the need to increase the incidence angle but too late to incorporate the necessary mods which among other things would have meant replacing all of the centre section bomb support structure (ref Barnes). So a compromise of extending the u/c to give a greater ground incidence angle of 3 deg more on take off. Thus leading to the troublesome u/c problems.

Earlier Shorts had used a Scion Senior to prove the Sunderland hull. this spanned 55′ where the S.31 was 49’7″ span. The Scion wing was fabric covered and the S.31 was ply.

John