The “floating pins” are part of the MB jettison gear, that have removable clips on the ouside of the canopy, that in turn are attached to wires that eventually end up inside the canopy terminating in the “emergency release” ball , which when pulled, removes the clips, and allows the canopy to expand to its actual size, slipping off the pins that hold it to the brass/ bronze sliders, and away into the slipstream; if the tear drop canopy does not do this, how is it jettisoned?

With regard to the rail width, at F11, it is (as previously stated) about 22″, this is measured dead centre of the rail, (height and depth) but at F11, (always assuming you have the correct profile) the frame is your guide, far more important is the actuall height of the rail; there are drgs floating about from PR Spits, some of which had fixed canopies, and other oddities like the mk 1V.

The front of the canopy rail at the windscreen hoop is about 23″, again this is “form follows function”, as the instrument panel is the profile of the top of F8, and laying a sheet of either ply or aluminium betweenF5, F8 and F11 will give you an approximate shape of the top of the fuselage.

The canopy changes shape as it slides, pulling in tighter rearward,and expanding forward, so it will allow for a degree of error in the true shape.

I do have a drg for the rear windscreen hoop somewhere, I’ll try and find it; that has the width dimension on it.

Flying Legends….Can any knowledgeable person tell me what the whining noise was caused by in the P-39 while taxing. Was this the driveshaft? Does the P-63 have the same noise. I only noticed this while it was taxing & not when flying.
All aircraft make noises of some sort so I assume this to be normal for the P-39.

Propshafts don’t normally make any noise, but straight cut gears whine like hell; is there a gearbox inline to align the shaft with the propellor?

To be fair, all the work so far to get Miss Helen into the hangar has been done by the guys from the Fighter Collection! The aircraft will be surveyed & a plan of action will be drawn up, thanks to all for the best wishes, She will be back!:cool:

I would however again ask that any speculation is kept to yourselves as it helps no one in the long run & sometimes only makes folk look a little foolish.:o
Cheers
Rivet

To ‘stuart gowans’ There was no prop blade or U/C change on the Saturday as the damage only happened on the Sunday!:rolleyes:

To ‘the bump’ There was no fuel leak on Saturday, that was an overflow for when the electric pump is on but the fuel cut off is pulled back, the only place the fuel can then go is overboard through the drain. 😉

Yes thanks for that, just a bit puzzled as to how that amount of damage had been repaired overnight, but as it turns out, it hadn’t even happened before I left Sunday; the original post of the thread suggested that it had occurred Saturday.

The highlight for me was the Mustangs, and the B17’s, the BBMF were so far away, they might have been displaying at another event.

Sadly I thought the Spitfire display was too predictable, and a little boring, I appreciate that mixing the “mk’s” together, affects the display, (presumably because of the huge difference in BHP), but as usual the Griffons growled up and down nearest the crowd, whilst the “baby spits” went off and played on their own.

I am however thankfull that the event was otherwise “uneventfull”, and thank both the organisers and the participants, for a good day out (pushchair in hand).

I’m slightly confused here, as I thought that I saw this A/C fly on sunday, was I seeing things?

If, by just removing the radio, they were able to attain 47000ft, then it must have been the same type of radio that we used to have at home in the ’60’s, a nice walnut cabinet, with a built in record player…..

well i dont think were quite on the verge of a shortage of Merlins yet.

something in the order of half a million were built and many found non-aviation uses after the war, so i doubt we’ll be in trouble for some time yet.

168,000, give or take a few; cyl heads may be relatively easy to produce, but they’re not what will be needed, its crankcases, crankshafts, camshafts, reduction gears, and cam covers with “Rolls-Royce” cast into them!