Interesting find. The FN7 mid upper turret was fitted to the MkIII (and some MKII) Sunderlands (and other aircraft). Part of the reason they are so rare is that post war Sunderlands (such as the MkV which equiped 35 Squadron in South Africa) did not have the turret.
The egg shape that Cees refered to looks like this:
A different engine perhaps?
Ah yes, it was. A Napier Lion V of 405 hp only – and it’s on floats. The UK service Ripons apparently had different engines to the Finnish examples. There is probably more similarity to the Blackburn Baffin which had the Pegasus engine (not sure which mark) and served in the UK Fleet Air Arm before being sold to New Zealand. We’ve not found the flight test reports for the Baffin yet.
Ideas welcome.
Martti,
Are these any use? They show the speed tests with and without a torpedo loaded.
They are copied from the files at the National Archives in the UK. I’ve got most of the file – PM me your address and I can post a CD with all the details.
With torpedo
Without torpedo
Over here: http://forum.planetalk.net/viewtopic.php?t=7568 there is a thread looking for info on the Baffin/Ripon’s ability to do aerobatics. If there is anything in the Finnish reports, Dave would love to hear from you.
Allan
Does anyone have operating information – in particular in relation to launching – about the various sport water gliders that have been mentioned in the course of this thread?
It would be very interesting. Unfortunately, when I was researching the Windermere glider, the people who flew the aircraft were no longer with us and I had to rely on information from their families and those involved in converting the glider. So, we don’t know a great deal about how it operated.
One useful bit of evidence is this article in The Times from 13 Feb 1943,
So, allowing for errors in a press report, it seems there was a winch in the speed boat – possibly a combination of towing and winching? Windermere at that time would have been relatively quiet (no petrol for speed boats) and, of course, there were controls in place to allow Sunderlands from Short Brothers’ factory to be tested.
There was a good length of lake for a long take off run but the rope getting wet was, according to one pilots son, the reason they couldn’t get much height. He told me they couldn’t get a cable but cable fouling on the lake bed would be relevant – the northern basin of the lake is 210 feet at max. I don’t what length of rope they had available.
I use to have an article from the ATC Gaztte in the 1940’s about the Slingsby Falcon.
Dave, if you (or anybody else) could find it then it might contribute to the knowledge we have.
Allan
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