Neatest Add-on?

The best add-on in my opinion was the turbo-jet installation added to the Shackletons. You could hardly see they were there.

By the way did they power these with petrol, or fit different tanks etc?

Bri 🙂

Having read the He111 Zwilling thread,I believe the additional engine,fuselage & wing make a very good contender.:D

Thats the one!!!.

Maybe not an ‘add-on’ in the true-est of terms as it was an experimental airframe and not an add-on to an in service airframe, but still as you say it pioneered the way for greater things.

Regards,

John.

How about the meatbox at Newark Air Museum that has an extra engine shoehorned into the fuselage to give it extra lift for a short take off??.

Anyone with more info please fill me in cos it’s buggin me now:( .

John.

Meteor FR9 – VZ608 test-bed airframe at Rolls-Royce Hucknall for the RB108 vertical lift engine; the engine replaced the main fuel tank aft of the cockpit. The airframe flew in that configuration but was mainly used for ground effect trials with different shaped intakes etc.

Without this trials airframe it is unlikely that you would have the Pegasus engine in the Harrier

Nice film footage of some of these trials on their Virtual Museum CD ROM – VZ608 running along the runway through lots of debris!

www.newarkairmuseum.org

You can also see a Shackleton Mk.3 Phase 3 – WR977 at NAM – “four turning and two burning!” was I believe a common phrase used to describe this version!

How about the meatbox at Newark Air Museum that has an extra engine shoehorned into the fuselage to give it extra lift for a short take off??.

Anyone with more info please fill me in cos it’s buggin me now:( .

John.

Definatly with the Vipers and BS-605s as mentioned above, also Sea Vixen FAW.2 enlarged booms for extra fuel, looked better than the FAW.1 IMO

It’s good to know I’m not the only one who thinks the Sea Vixen Mk2 looked better than the Mk1. Having seen the size of the booms though I can’t imagine the extensions carried enough fuel to give a meaningful increase in capacity, or did they extend the tank area back to where the forward end of the Mk1 booms were? If they did then just maybe it was worth it. Would think the extension would have produced some change in the aerodynamics of the wing though.

Neatest add on

Definatly with the Vipers and BS-605s as mentioned above, also Sea Vixen FAW.2 enlarged booms for extra fuel, looked better than the FAW.1 IMO

Vipers and Shackletons

It’s correct to say that the Viper 203s on the Shackleton ran on AVGAS (115/145), equally true that the fuel supply came from the main tanks as the Griffons.
Initially, there were only two throttle setting, idle and full. The engine was limited to a total of 30 hours run time at full, with a maximun run of two minutes at a time.
The Flight engineer had complete control of the engine including the throttles. The pilots only indication was a second set of rpm gauges fitted to the centre console. A set of four gauges on the side by the Flt Eng recorded run times, both full and idle.

Later modifications introduced an “inching” mechanism to allow almost any rpm to be set. The thrust from the Viper was roughly equivalent to the output of the Griffon at full throttle. It was said that there was no need for fuel jettison on Viper fitted Shacks, just wind up the Vipers and watch the fuel gauges rapidly descend towards empty!

On board you could tell when the Vipers were fired up, the aircraft flew level, the normal slight nose up attitude disapeared!

See the link for information about the original install
http://users.bigpond.net.au/Shackleton/viper.html

Peter Mills

thanks pagen

I thought they were jet fuel fed. Interesting that they used the same fuel as the griffons!

The Vipers on the Shack ran on the same fuel as the Griffons and from the same tanks. It was designed for limited use, and the blades would quickly cake up with lead deposits, it was to be used for only 5 minutes at full chat (2,700Ib).

I could be wrong on this bit, but I think it was an off, cruise, and maximun affair, ie no throttles.

Personally, I think that the two Bristol Siddeley BS-605 rockets fitted to the SAAF’s Buccaneer S.50’s, were an engineering marvel.

Shackleton

Ah yes the viper engine! I think it was the neatest installation of a jet engine and yes it was run on jet fuel rather than 100LL Not sure where the tanks were located for the jet engines though.

Bri, if u dont get much of a response to this, have a chat with either MJR or Pete Mills as they look after our Shacks at Gatwick.

Bex