Not Spadeadam, Woomera in South Australia.
The rocket was test fired but never launched in the UK.

I suspected it could have been Woomera but didn’t know Blue Streak was never launched in the UK – a great shame!

Short clip of a Blue Streak ICBM test launch (unfortunately without sound) at RAF Spadeadam on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0a73ctJIP0

Enjoy! 🙂

Saw a woodpecker today, the first of the year, and it looked just like they are supposed to, all green and red but a bit scruffy with it. It was just sitting by the side of the road and didn’t even move when I drove (slowly) past.

Do woodpeckers eat carrion? I know they are supposed to eat grubs and things but the road in question always has lots of rabbits on it, and usually quite a few which have been run over.

Does anyone know the exact big end to small end distance of the Merlin conrods? I want to make a rough kinematic model.

Not exact, but it’s approximately 252.75mm (measured) so possibly 9.950” as designed?

Are you saying that he should mill the inner spar caps out of the spar joining plate?

You’ll have to forgive my ignorance of the structure of the original, particularly the spar attachment points, but I don’t see any real problem with doing this.

In other words creating an I-beam out of the spar joining plate?

Effectively, yes. Of course you would then need to carefully join the ‘inner spar’ to the ‘outer spar’ but the proposed solution already includes a huge amount of milling.

I have done a few mods to my replica Spit wing spar. The purpose here is to reduce any stress riser points (I’m a little concerned with where the thick stub mounting plate meets the angles) and also to add a middle web plate that was absent on the previous design.

Comments are welcome…

Interesting spar drawing.

I haven’t had time to read in detail every post in this thread but at first glance your spar doesn’t look stiff enough.

You are obviously a very practical engineer and, quite rightly, have only ‘designed’ what you can make but those tricky Spitfire spar-cap tubes are there for a reason.

It is difficult to visualise but (returning to your practical approach) imagine one of your angle-section spar caps say 8 feet long. Now imagine putting a pipe wrench at the mid-point and twisting the spar cap as hard as you can – twists quite a bit doesn’t it.

Now imagine putting a pipe wrench at the mid-point and trying to twist the same ‘weight’ of square-tube spar cap that much – hard work isn’t it?

I hope this may help but at the end of the day it’s your project. If you get more satisfaction out of designing your own spars instead of building something that somebody else has designed then you go for it.

Even if you never fly it, even if you never do more than the spars, it is unique, it’s yours and nobody can take it away from you. I can respect that.

Also the ‘step’ is a long, long way back.

Indeed, As I said 😉

Oops…sorry, mustn’t skim read posts in a rush! 😮

Yes its the right length but isn’t it too wide for a racer? The racing floats are about half that width – to reduce frontal area and therefore drag.

Yes, agreed, it does look a bit ‘fat’ for a racer but I just wanted to get an idea of the overall size.

For example the underwing floats on a Supermarine Southampton (similar wooden hull construction – not sure about floats) are only about 12 feet long.

Short Singapore underwing floats are about 14 feet long but also much ‘fatter’.

If they are underwing floats, and they could well be, they must be from something big.

So my thinking is expensive-build, single-engined, twin-float racing seaplane from 1920’s – 1930’s.

Also, obviously, no engine-coolant ‘radiators’ built into the floats. 😉

Still thinking out loud. 🙂

I think that the original specification called for a jettisonable crew compartment…

I’ve not heard that about the Vulcan but it was certainly true of the Victor.

I’ve always thought it could have been due to wartime experience with the Lancaster.

How many accounts had there been of pilots ‘holding it steady’ while the rest of the crew baled-out only to be lost themselves.

Even in its intended high-level role I don’t think there would have been much chance for the rear crew in a shot-down Vulcan; the speeds and g-forces involved would have made escape very difficult.

In the end (as has been said) it probably came down to cost.

Of the Vulcans lost in accidents I think only one complete crew managed to survive.