Thank you for that info FiltonFlyer… 😉

The Barrel Racer eh… The name is… descriptive, but not exactly complementary to the design.

You might be right there JDK, PR Dept. – HR Dept. I wasn’t talking to them… Fred spoke to them to ask how much it would cost to photocopy the AP.1709A It was then the trouble started with their estimate of costs… Later I found out that they didn’t believe I was asking for this infomation off my own back! As soon as they knew a gaming company would be receiving the finished model they assumed I was somehow financially involved… Hence the price, hence the end of the dialog with Fred, hands tied, so to speak!

Unforntunately I can’t see Westlands changing their tune if I go back to them, thats why I’m trying to get the information from other sources… The documents I ordered from the NA at Kew arrived to day, nicely photocopied on A3 sheets. £30 the lot, no hassle…

If you are after cockpit info, have you talked to the IWM photo archive to see if they have copies of the Air Min instructional cockpit photos?

Not yet, but I’m going to in the near future… 😉 Perhaps I should hire you to deal with Westlands… What do you charge?

Again, as before I appreciate what you’ve done and your time in helping me… Thank you!

AVIA 18/691 (which you’ve ordered) is (most of) the A&AEE test reports on the Whirlwind. This will give you most of the performance data you need. Be aware that the primary report (issued 31/07/40) is based on tests on the second prototype between Aug 39 and April 40 at which time it was hardly representative of production aircraft (Rotol rather than de H props, different pitch settings, different boost settings, external carb intakes etc). Most representative is the data for P6997 (in this file in Part 7 of AAEE/733). This file also contains performance/handling/cooling tests with the aircraft carrying bombs.

Good that has saved me a lot of time, thank you for the break down NiallC

There is an additional file (AVIA 18/1000) with a single A&AEE report on clearing the Whirlwind bomb installation and listing the variety of stores it was cleared to carry. If you’d like me to precis it, PM me. In reality 95%+ of all Whirlibomber sorties were carried out with 2 x 250 lb (usually fused for 3 seconds delay for low level work lest they present more of a threat to the Whirlwind than the Germans). On a few occasions 2 x 500 lb were used, fused for 11 seconds if used at low level.

How many pages does this report have NiallC? I think I will order a copy

There is one crash investigation report (Report W1229) in AVIA 5/19 which does contain some dimensioned drawings of the cockpit area and structure. You’d be better off going and inpecting this in person, since If I remember correctly many of the drawings have been separated from the crash reprt and are now dotted around inside a rather large file. Not a problem if you know what you’re looking at, but I don’t know what you’d get if you asked TNA to copy it.

Again, if its not to long I will get a hard copy made and inquire about the drawings you mentioned. Are they in a separate folder to the main report?

The RAF Museum Archive has a better selection of Whirlwind APs than the NA including the ground handling notes, modification leaflets, spares schedules and repair procedures, but I doubt there’s much that would be useful for your purposes and probably the best source for cockpit layouts etc would be the AP that you already have – whic also gives a lot of data on the aircrafts structure and systems.

I did at one time have the complete set of AP Vol’s and your correct that they are not much use to me in regards to cockpit data… But nither is 1709A, Vol I as the photo’s are not of very high quality and consquently leaves a lot of guess work as to what is what! What I would like to get hold of is the original photo’s that are in the pilots notes… Don’t suppose you know where you would find them do you…Ha!

Only a tiny fraction of the 20,000 or so production drawings survive and things like the loftings for the fuselage are not among them. Your best bet here is to contact Fred Ballam at Westland and see if he has anything that might be useful.

I’ve been to Westlands and spoken to Fred myself, very helpful man, but unfortunately Westlands HR Dept. are not. I won’t go into all that happened, but will say that in the end it came down to the old folding stuff… I got a photocopy of AP 1709A from R-R Derby for £25… Westlands wanted 32x as much for the same volume… So I don’t think Westlands is an option on a restricted budget!

Thank you NiallC, you’ve been a great help.

HP57

Not much but hope it helps a bit.

Firstly thank you for replying. I appreciate you for spending time to help me get information for this project.

I’ve read about the WIX building a full scale reproduction of the Whirly, a great shame it never came off! Do you know any of the team that were involved and how much information they had collected, before they closed the project?

When you mention the RAF Museum, do you mean RAF Hendon?

Peter Elliot, excuse my ignorance but who is he and where can I contact him?

Thanks again for your help.

Stuart.

Thanks Rocketeer, at the risk of appearing dim… What exactly do you mean by the term ‘Handling Squadron’

The right panel Has I think the word ‘Warning’ at the top and the word’s ‘Panel Removal Procedures’ at the bottom and that’s about all I can make out with these peepers of mine. Of course the later aircraft don’t have them at all, typical…
I did hope that the layout would be in the AP, but sadly there’s none like it at all. ******!… This historic aviation research malarkey can be a bit of headache sometimes… Ha!