Hi all,
A rather astute chap on the AWF spotted something on some Canadian Lysanders I’d not noticed, and seems to not be documented anywhere I’ve tracked down. AWF Lysander thread
There are some shots of Canadian Lysanders with a blister on the lower port exhaust ring at the front of the cowling. It’s not obvious, and as it’s Canadian a/c only, is often missed completely.
The blister intakes seem to appear only on Canadian built Mk.II Lysanders, but not on any UK based / built Mk.II Lysanders. The Mk.II was engined with the Perseus, rather than the Mercury of the Mk.I and Mk.III – and all the survivors seem to be Mercury driven beasts…
The Perseus engine can be told by the absence of teardrop bulges on the cowling. It’s also a shorter cowling than the Mercury’s, and the cowling flaps at the rear are a complete set without the cutout at the top which the Mercury set has. The small oil cooler intakes inside the front of the cowling are round on the Mercury, and ‘D’ shaped on the Perseus.
Also, there are pics of Canadian built Mk.II Lysanders without this mod. I’ve attached a couple of pics from the Canadian Aviation Museum’s website, and one from the New Brunswick College website (which seems to be down) which show this mod.
The excellent 4+ publication on the Lysander mentions that the Mk.II “accomodated a redesigned canopy and cockpit heating system” because of “the rough winter climate.”
So those seem to be the facts. It’s probably a heater intake, and probably for Perseus Lysanders only due to either the engine (Sleeve valve rather than the more conventional Mercury) or the timing of the production. The oil cooler intakes feed to the oil coolers (surprise!) which are positioned low, either side of the cockpit and provide the heating – now is this only true of the Mercury versions?
The questions are: Is it certainly a heater mod? Why? (Yes, I know it’s cold in Canada, but why like this? I can’t think of a similar example on another radial) Anyone know the full details? Any comments? Anyone got the mod note from Canadian Car Co? 😀
And how was the Canadian canopy different? I can see that the Westland unit would be draughty, but what changes were made?
By: JDK - 17th July 2005 at 15:15
Thanks KIGAS.
Like many of these things, once you start looking… Given the above tip, I’ve gone through the refs again. It seems that most (but not all) Canadian Lysanders had a heater mod, with a ‘jacket’ on the exhaust collector ring; inside the ring on the Mercury, outside the ring on the Perseus. The Lysander rebuilt at Booker seems to have had this inner heater jacket fitted, as did Dwight Brookes’ machine. However I’ve found ONE pic with three intakes (like the oil cooler intakes) except at the top of the nose ring. That pic was in Scale Models Aug 79 and shows the Booker Lysander fotted with these intakes that seem to lead streigh to the jacket – I’m presuming they were detachable, and not often used.
Given I’ve been looking at a number of Canadian Lizzies in snowy pics without these very obvious three rings, it can’t have been a lot of use or goin the other way, too much use?!
Anyone know anything more?
By: KIGAS - 16th July 2005 at 17:18
I think you will find this is a heater mod, the canadians fitted a jacket around the inside of the Mercury engine exhaust rings which provided hot air to the cockpit and the carb heat system, this would have been required on the Perseus but fitted on the outer of the exhaust.
Kigas
By: dogsbody - 16th July 2005 at 16:03
Wow, I’ve been called a lot of things, but ” astute ” was never on that list. Thanks. I had posted the same pics here back in December, but never received any replys. It was posted under the heading ” Canadian Lysanders “.
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July 16, 2005 at 9:16 am