Sískin

P&P, that is a great looking handle. I cannot confirm that is of a type used by the Siskin as the AP only references the 4 bomb rack and ‘release gear’ with no specifics as exactly what this is comprised of. I/we are more than happy to relieve you of the handle assembly with the hope that we can find some more specific information for its application in the Siskin. I will send you an email.

Regards
John

VWC Hucks Starter = the “world’s best”?

The Shuttleworth Trust might question that statement, given the fact that their Hucks is the only original 1920 build example remaining and every other one around is a reproduction

Jettison pull

Jettison pull

Thanks Dave. All the more reason for us to actually get an engine.

Regards
John

Lots of research.

When you get the thing built, we’ve got the world’s best Hucks Starter at Vintage Wings. Bring it there and we’ll crank it.

Dave

Hello p&p, The gauges in the ‘panel’ are placed per W.G. Armstrong-Whitworth drawing number SP. 4965 ‘Gen Arr of Instrument Board (Main)’ dated 16.12.25 and for the Siskin III. Most photos and sketches show a very different layout as used in the Siskin IIIa, but, as this is the only panel drawing that I know of and Canada did have a few Siskin III DC (dual control) aircraft, this is what I used for the display. The RCAF cockpit photo appears to be a modified IIIa panel, not III.

Yes, we’ve had 1 short lived snowfall to date but it looks like a longer, colder winter than usual. Send warm and sunny thoughts this way.

Regards
John

A great project. Re the photo of the cockpit and the physical panel display, in the position of the RPM indicator (photo) you have placed the Height gauge (physical display) – does the physical display reflect a Canadian setup ? An RPM indicator surely must be there… My eye was drawn to that spot because I think we also have here in Oz a bomb jettison pull handle for you, in the photo to the right and below the RPM gauge, above the CC gear hand pump. The one here has ‘Jettison’ written on a similar looking handle, and I presume the Siskin had a cable release system… keep shovelling that snow away from the workshop door !

What better fate than to have a rare part find an appropriate home.

Well done to the donor of that part.
Makes me smile.

Andy

Moving ever forward but not a lot of post-worthy news. With the on-going searching for Siskin appropriate items, it is surprising to me what appears from unlikely sources.

The Siskin used a CAV hand starting magneto to assist engine starts. While I have several Bosch ‘Anlass’ magnetos, rarely have I come across the British CAV version. Fortunately I became aware of one through a vintage car connection with a minor challenge that it was in the UK. Oddly enough, the UK owner was searching for a Bosch version for his car. It was a fair price but the shipping was potentially challenging: small package with a large weight. In another fortunate turn, a flying acquaintance is a first officer with one of our Canadian carriers and he hand delivered said starting magneto to me last week.

A collection of vintage dehavilland parts yielded an appropriate compass correction card holder, now attached to the display panel.

The most interesting item is the fascinating Bowden cable locking lever assembly shown in the last photo. In the Siskin it is mounted to the port upper longeron above the throttle. It operates a brake on the Vickers air driven fuel pump that pressurizes the fuel system. Apparently it was possible to overspeed the pump and pressurize the fuel tanks faster than the relief valve could function which would potentially lead to very wet feet in the cockpit. The resolution was to provide a brake on the fuel pump operated by this ratcheting lever.

Here is were the story becomes interesting. A search through this forum uncovered a thread from several years ago where someone was trying to identify one of these levers. I PM’d the poster, not really expecting a reply, but was pleased to hear from them in a matter of days. Upon explaining my interest, the owner told me that the lever had gone on its way to another project but he did have a second lever at hand. I then queried if it was for sale. No immediate answer was forth coming but, imagine my pleasure here, said lever arrived in the post two days ago. From Australia, pre-paid. No mention of money exchanging hands just satisfaction that it was going to an interesting project. For every roadblock that appears in a project, there seem to be an abundance of individuals willing to support what they deem to be a worthy undertaking. Thank you unnamed hero!

Now, does anyone have a Vickers wind driven fuel pump?

Regards,
John

Wyvernfan, thanks for the photo. This is one of the RAFM wings out on loan that I have yet to see in person. I am working up a list of the more esoteric items missing from the cockpit collection such as Vickers gun heaters, Holt flare buttons, Vickers wind driven fuel pump and brake, Mk 1 IFF key etc. You never know what collection may have these items hidden away or unidentified.

A correction to my earlier post. Crossed my notes with the wrong photo. The eagle eyed will see that the panel has a P3 compass mounted below the ASI, not the 5/17 as noted.

Regards
John

I saw this at the Midland Air Museum a couple of weeks ago and assume it’s a Siskin wing?! No idea if they have anything else on the type there as well.

Rob[ATTACH=CONFIG]255697[/ATTACH]

Time for another post.

Earlier in the summer I spent 3 days at Canada’s national Libraries and Archives researching all available Siskin related information. I went with two recent graduates, 1 Masters and 1 Doctorate, and learnt a lot about how archive searches are now performed. In the day, it was dust, sort and take notes. Now it’s dust and photograph everything at high resolution with a pocket camera. The actual searching of text is done off-site with a computer and a pint. In the time there I photo’d about 1600 pages of documents. In amongst them I found this gem of an RCAF Siskin IIIa instrument panel with a very non-standard layout.

A few notable items:

Central panel incorporating ASI and 5/17 compass is usually the map locker and map panel display frame. This is actually the purpose of the photo illustrating a report on replacing the P3 compass with earlier and more available 5/17 as used in the Siskin III.

The primer is labelled: Farman Starter. never heard this terminology. Any insight?

The tumbler switches for engine magnetos and hand magneto have unusual (to me) covers. Comments?

Hope you find this of interest. It’s only the second cockpit photo I have come across.

Regards,
John

Ahh that is what I like. Rapid Visual Progress, and also a means that you are determined with this project.
Good job.
Cees

Great display. I presume all the bottles of whiskey in front of the cabinet are for punters to sit down on a comfortable couch, pour a snifter and study the display ! Good museum initiative !

Only a two month gap between posts but surprisingly, there is activity.

Our panel mockup to date and a photo of the core Siskin display.

The concept behind the panel is to indicate what is missing and fill in the gaps as suitable instruments come our way.

What you see in the images are a Mk VIII C Oil pressure; a Mk V fuel pressure; Mk IVA asi; Mk V B altimeter; 6 gang switch box and a single pole tumbler.

The following items are missing:
6A/117 Mk V rpm (600-2600, 4:1)
6A/155 Oil temp Mk IA
6A/149 Watch, Aero
5/17 Compass
6A/128 Mk VA cross level or 6A/245 Mk VII cross level
Holt flare buttons
5 panel lights
Spare bulb holder
5C/625 Twin tumbler magneto switch.

I’m sure there’s much more but any leads on the above will certainly suffice for now!

Some reasonably positive movements on the Jaguar engine front. Keep tuned to this channel.

Regards
John

Apologies for the image issues. Something screwier than usual going on with Photobucket.

Regards
John

A few photos and observations regarding the Siskin IIIa wing help in store with the RAF Museum.

First, try to overlook the self satisfied smile on my face after finally making contact with an original Siskin part.

Some of the lower surface markings. Interpretation would be welcomed.

Inside the wing. A few items of note. Firstly, unlike the III wing which uses a top hat shaped steel strip for the perimeter, the IIIa wing has strip formed into a circular shape with the end rolled in toward the centre similar in end view to that of a circlip. Next is the cloth wrapping of the inner structure of the ribs. I am used to seeing metal wrapped where chaffing may occur but this puzzles me. Lastly, note that the fabric envelope is retained in two ways: a double loop around the cap of the rib and a straight stitch through the top envelope and the bottom looping around the complete rib.

This is interesting and should be of particular interest to Anne Orak. Eyelets along the trailing edge at the aileron. Best guess is that this is part of the gap seal. On the earlier aircraft the aileron gap seal followed WW1 practice of a cloth strip glued to the top of the wing trailing edge and the bottom of the aileron. Using laced eyelets would certainly make it simpler to r&r the aileron.

That is all for now.

Regards
John

pnp, certainly lots of machining for the ‘Sleeve Fittings’ (A-W terminology). These are almost all S2 steel as are the spigot nuts and ball end bolts and sockets used for some of the fuselage verticals. I am slowly learning to differentiate between similar fuselages by where ball and socket fittings or forked fittings are used. BTW, Fork ends and fuselage bolts are S1 spec. All of the tube in the fuselage is T5 bouncing between 22 and 24 gauge. The loading spreading sleeves that go between the machined fittings and the tubes are split T5 tubes mostly 22 gauge. Inter plane struts are T6.

Regards
John

John, great piece and great progress ! If only you were carrying an XRF to confirm the metallurgy ! Nice to see you getting access to bits and pieces. I don’t disagree that the system of building is straightforward. So was the Bristol system used in the Bulldog. I would counter by saying that Hawkers got ahead of them all by making the bits and pieces used in Hawker construction easier and cheaper to build, with the technology of the day. The sheer fecundity of the Hart biplane family bore this out, while the other constructor systems, for all their ingenuity, became manufacturing dead ends. There seems to be an incredible amount of machining in the Siskin bits. Lucky for you, CNC machining was developed 80 years later ! Might not be too hard to do this, if only we knew the metallurgy ! I reckon Siskin III tubes will be 3% nickel alloy T50, major wing joints & fittings nickel chromium alloy S2, minor fittings S1 and spar material a combination of DTD54a – S88. Easy ! Armstrong Whitworth spars are very similar to Hawker Hart type spars….

Stafford

Last week I was able to spend some time with the RAFM staff at the Stafford facility. The primary purpose was to inspect the existing Siskin parts and to investigate some likely ones.

The most intriguing item is this:

Anneorac pointed out this item via the museum’s ‘Navigator’ search engine. I was curious to see if it fitted any of the known dimensions for the Siskin III/IIIa. The answer? Both Yes and No.

To make this easier, here is a labeled close up of the cluster.

This is typical of the structure used for the Siskin and Atlas as well as the AW14 and AW16 although each has variations on the theme.
The primary joint is pinned together. While the fuselage is constructed of fore and aft sections, in each section the longerons are one piece. The vertical and horizontal members are connected to the longerons via machined steel fittings sometimes using blade connectors and other times using ball and socket connections. In general terms the forward fuselage uses blade connections and the aft ball and socket. To spread the load between the thin wall (22ga) longeron and the machined fitting, there is a thin steel sleeve.

The parts are bolted together with spigot nuts and threaded rod/bolts. Here are inner and outer views.

The annotation on the spigot nut (0.35″, flat to flat) is: SP73382.

What is of interest to me is that this appears to be a much simpler and easy to manufacture joint than many of the contemporary and follow on constructions ie. Gloster and Hawker’s.

In this cluster the longeron is 1.25″ and the spar carry through is 2.5″ which agrees with the Siskin drawings and schedule of spares. What doesn’t conform is the blade termination of the carry through. On the III and IIIa, which have a single spar lower wing, the spar carry through extends approximately 20″ outboard of the longeron. This fact doesn’t mean its not Siskin though, because the later Siskin V used a twin spar lower wing that did not have the carry through extensions.

The other item of note is the ball end fitting on the top of the cluster.

On the Siskin III/IIIa this is a blade fitting and not a ball. My forward fuselage drawing for the V indicates a ball fitting which leads to toward the conclusion that this is a Siskin artefact, just not the more commonly recognized variant.

I am just beginning to work through all the information collected at Satfford and I am sure that more will come forth. As it does I will post here.

I’ll end this post by extending my thanks to all the staff of the RAF Museum who made this happen. The enthusiasm and effort expended to support this arcane bit of research was outstanding and deeply appreciated.

Regards
John