Buchon liveries & two-seaters

The Buchón has no engine radiator under the nose, it’s the oil cooler and the air intake for the engine.

The mesh you can see is the oil cooler.

Where could you find a suitable Hispano engine?

I don’t think so. There was, I think, another Hispano-engined survivor, but something tells me it was converted to take a DB :rolleyes:

🙁

Maybe one day they might convert it back its HS configuration.

Thanks Daz,

J.V.

You mean like two wing rads and a chin rad? Or a spraybar like many Reno aircraft?

Bit of a late reply, but yes, something like that. Although I doubt that the Buchon could accomodate that.

The wing of the Me109/Buchon is quite small compared to a Spit for example, and the radiators installed there are quite thin/shallow (see photo posted on page 2 of this thread of the parked Buchon). You can tell from the same photo that there is an additional radiator installed in the nose for the Merlin installation. That means that going from the DB engine to the Merlin they needed to add radiator area already and decided not to modify the wings for this (probably to avoid having to do some major aerodynamic redesign work there). Perhaps they kept all the radiators in the wings and the chin houses the oil cooler, I don’t know but the fact is there that they needed more cooling capacity.

So now you’d want to move to another engine which has 10 liters more capacity and you want to run that at racing power settings as well? Expect to have to add something P40-like to the nose, or a complete redesign of the wing rads! Spray bars are an option but remember that you need to accomodate both the bigger engine and the racing settings, I’m guessing that just running a P-51’s Merlin at racing settings with stock radiators already neccesitates a spray bar system with quite a bit of capacity. Added problem: where are you going to stick your water tank? You need both room and CG margin for this.

Conclusions: A Buchon/Me109 airframe just isn’t capable of handling anything bigger than a Merlin in my opinion. Especially since I haven’t even discussed airframe strength and stability issues yet!

Anyway, it’s always fun to discuss stuff like this. But don’t let my ramblings distract from an interesting thread like this :rolleyes:

Ooooh, thanks for that, Martin! Obviously it’ll be in German, but I’m not too fussy! 😀

I would love to see that film “Star of Africa” that was made using Hispano-engined Hispanos!

Release date of DVD 31st January 2005 – check amazon.de and enter “Stern von Afrika”

Regards
Martin

I don’t think so. There was, I think, another Hispano-engined survivor, but something tells me it was converted to take a DB :rolleyes:

I would love to see that film “Star of Africa” that was made using Hispano-engined Hispanos!

On the pics that JDK posted, we can see a Buchon preserved in Spain with a Hispano engine. Are there any other examples left in the world with this type of engine?

J.V.

The Ottawa museum is a very nice one. I went there three times this year!

Will probably drop by a good few times next year too!

Thanks for that MRP. Anyone got a pic of the a/c in the museum?

The racer… Here’s a closer pic. Heh.

Yep, there is a very nice one in the first part of my ‘Buchon Survivors’ article
Classic Wings Vol.10. No4. 😉

Dave

Mike – it don’t have German markings on it, so I’ll leave it alone! :p

I think a Zero at least attended Reno – and I know for certain that two Spitfires were there once, too, at the same time.

Anyone care to guess??

A new thread I think…. Oh no, I’m going to get all artistic and start drawing my ideas :rolleyes:

Hah,
Mine’s a Wyvern. If the engine didn’t blow up on the last lap…
Cheers!

Nice model- would be fascinating to see a full size one. Searching around for an explanation via Google earlier I found a list of eligible ‘Unlimited class’ airframes, sure enough the Buchon is one!

One the subject of rare warbirds at Reno, a few years ago I remember a Zero on the entry list, did it ever make the race, and if so how did it do :confused:

Sounds like a starting point for a ‘Fantasy racing warbird league’, though your Buchon would run scared from my clipped wing DH Hornet 😀 😀

Connie Edwards

didn’t he have a stash of Mustangs at some point (ex-Dominican?); I thought he has sold them all off, but it would be nice to see one in original paint and hangar dust… I can feel a coffee-table book coming on, perhaps titled “hangar treasures” or some such thing.

cheers

gergv

OK, I confess, I made it up. I then wrote an article about it for ‘Bent Throttles’

Fun though! Gets the pedants going at model shows too.

Well spotted Will. The BMC logo was a spare from a 1/24 Mini kit I made for a friend’s girlfriend. The rationale was to make a Buchon with a sharkmouth (being well endowed in that area) and the sad fact that AFAIK no Buchon got such an adornment. After that it was just a question of getting carried away. 😀

Folks, as one who has seen Connie Edwards hangar FULL of BoB stuff in Texas (and he has others across the country), you would be amazed at what he has stored away…and what will eventually see the light of day sometime when he feels like parting with it, or passes it on to others after his death….talk about a treasure trove of vintage parts….oh MY GOD…;-)

Mark

Agreed….the thing looks like a combination of a modified Yak/P-40/Extra 300/contra prop Seafire amalgamation, somewhat attractive from a certain point of view but NOT very recognizeable as a Buchon by any means! Someone actually expended the money to try to build one of these things (besides JDK’s marvelous example seen here)? I can see the word ‘failure’ as an air racer written all over it, kinda like I felt about the Pond racer when I first saw it…

M

MMM, the rosette logo on the side of the ‘racer’ looks suspiciously like the ones seen on MG rally cars of the 60’s (Mini Coopers too, I think it is a general BMC logo). Is this a design proposal- the ‘JDK special’ , a mechanical hybrid of Buchon and MGB :confused:

Or is it a case of ‘kit bashing’ using a sheet of scalextric transfers 😉