Truculent AMEJust found all the stats that I need!!!
14 to Silver City
G- AMLK – prototype – became G-AMWA – Crashed 9/63
AMWB – was originally AMPE c/n 13127 – Broken Up 1968
AMWC – was originally AMPF c/n 13128 – Broken up 1967
AMWD – was originally AMPG c/n 13131 – Broken up 1967
AMWE – was originally AMPH c/n 13132 – Broken up 1967
AMWF – was originally AMPI c/n 13133 – Broken up 1968
AMWG – was originally ANMG c/n 13211 – Broken up 1968
AMWH – was originally ANMH c/n 13212 – Damaged beyond repair – France – 1969
AMWI – was originally ANMI c/n 13213 – Broken up 1968
ANWJ – c/n 13254 – Broken up 1967 Lydd –
ANWK – c/n 13259 – Broken Up – 8/70 – Lydd
ANWL – c/n 13260 – Crashed Nov1,1961
ANWM – c/n 13261 – WFS Oct 1970 – Broken Up 8/70 Lydd
ANWN – F-BPIN – ANWN – c/n 13262 – Broken Up – 11/70
B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I listed as conversions from Mk31 aircraft.
6 + 2 to Air Charter
ANVR – c/n 13251 – Air Charter – Channel Air – Broken up 3/74
ANVS – c/n 13252 – Air Charter – Channel Air – Broken up 7/70
AOUU – c/n 13257 – Air Charter – Channel Air – Broken up 5/67
AOUV – c/n 13258 – Air Charter / Sabena – Channel Air – BAF – Broken up 4/68
APAU – c/n 13256 – Air Charter – Channel Air – Midland Air – wfu – 73 – Scrapped with PAV – 1975
APAV – c/n 13263 – Air Charter – Channel Air – BAF – wfu 73?? Broken Up – May 25 1975
Plus the last 2 Mk 31E conversions – Documented as such.
AMLP – to CF-QWJ – c/n 13078- Air Charter – BAF – Lambair – Crashed May 31, 1974
AMSA – c/n 13142 – Air Charter – Channel Air – BUA – Broken up 4/67
Total of 22 long nose aircraft – 10 Mk32??? and 12 “Modified” Mk 31 aircraft documented as such.
Source: Piston Engine Aircraft Production List (Eastwood and Roach) December 2007
So this means that unless APAU or APAV flew after March 31, 1974 – AMPL – QWJ was the last long nose Bristol flying in commercial service and possibly the last one flying in any configuration.
APAU and APAV appear to have been withdrawn from service in 1973 so it would be very unlikely that they were flown after that date.
If anyone has any info to the contrary please post and confirm.
I obviously have a personal interest in the history – The last surviving crew member of this aircraft would be Roy Boyes of Lambair – I was crewing on the aircraft 3 days before the final flight and had a Bell 47 contract not come up I could have been crewing on the aircraft that day. As it was I was (along with the Bell 47 pilot) the first from the company on the scene. Was not an good day!!
Roy decided to go for lunch that day with the Churchill Base Engineer – John Finch and thus was not on the aircraft for the flight.
Truc
Truculent AMEList of registrations that I have been able to find.
List of Long Nose Bristol Freighters.
14 to Silver City
G- AMLK – prototype – became G-AMWA
AMWB – was this originally AMPE?? c/n 13127
AMWC – was this originally AMPF?? c/n 13128
AMWD – was this originally AMPG?? c/n 13131
AMWE – was this originally AMPH?? c/n 13132
AMWF – was this originally AMPI?? c/n 13133
AMWG
AMWH
AMWI
ANWJ – Silver City – BAF
ANWK – Broken Up – Aug – 1970 – Lydd
ANWL – Crashed Nov1,1961
ANWM – WFS Oct 1970 – Broken Up ? Lydd
ANWN – F-BPIN – Broken Up – Aug – 1970
Are B,C,D,E,F also conversions from standard Mk31 aircraft??? or are the registrations temporary ones to hold a block???:confused:
6 + 2 to Air Charter
ANVR – Air Charter – Channel Air Bridge
ANVS – Air Charter
AOUU – Air Charter
AOUV – Air Charter / Sabena
APAU – Air Charter – Channel Air Bridge – Scrapped with PAV
APAV – Broken Up – May 25 1975
Plus 2 Mk 31E conversions – Documented as such.
AMLP – to CF-QWJ – Crashed May 31, 1974
AMSA – Air Charter – BUA
Total of 22 long nose aircraft – 20 Mk32??? and 2 “Modified” Mk 31 aircraft documented as such.
Still possible that one of these aircraft (or more) was still in service after June 1974.
Any info would be appreciated.
Truc
Truculent AMEYVR – Vancouver International Airport – British Columbia Canada
In 1943 Burkeville was laid out and built by the federal government during the Second World War to provide 328 houses for workers employed at the Boeing Aircraft plant.
It was named for Stanley Burke, president of Boeing. The streets are named after airplane manufacturers.
The plain, no-frills dwellings came in several standard sizes. Most have been altered to fit the needs of two generations of residents.
After the War, Boeing sold the houses to returning veterans.
The tightly-knit community, already encircled by airport uses, is currently threatened by the intended further expansion of roads and runways.”
The name of the development was chosen in a competition among Boeing employees.
Burkeville and surrounding roads:
Grant Mcconachie Way – Canadian Pacific Airlines
Agar Drive – Okanagan Helicopter – now Canadian Helicopters
Russ Baker Way – Pacific Western Airlines
Airport Road North and Airport Road South
Wellington Crescent
Hudson Avenue
Catalina Crescent
Lancaster Crescent
Douglas Crescent
Lysander Lane
Stirling Avenue
Boeing Avenue
Anson Avenue
Handley Avenue
Cowley Crescent and Templeton Street
A great Vancouver story tells of how William Templeton, the airport’s first manager, saved thousands of dollars by laughingly declining the services of an American design firm and doing the job himself for about $14.
One reminder of his 1931 work: Cowley Crescent, which circles the first terminal: Templeton laid a light bulb down on the plans and traced around it with a pencil.
That’s why Cowley looks the way it does.
(Templeton had shown initiative before: with his brother and a cousin to help, he built and flew a home-made biplane at Minoru Park race-track on April 28, 1911, our first local plane.)
His tireless promotion got the Vancouver airport off to a strong start
I work at the airport – Agar Drive – so get to drive past the floatplane base as well as the South Terminal area on my way to work.
A new hangar is being constructed on the old Boeing plant site – (London Air Services) – so the south airport is still growing.
Truc
Truculent AMEThis was the first company that I worked for as an AME. I was not a part of this particular rescue operation – but was part of the subsequent repairs completed to get the aircraft flying again. Some where I have a photo of DBJ on arrival at Thompson – I do remember that we pulled out the jacks from the hangar to the ramp just in case there was a problem with the gear locks having some damage. The only external signs of damage were the loss of the beacon on the belly and the right hand engine oil cooler assembly being pushed up into the nacelle. Saved the insurance company a lot of money by saving the aircraft.
Link here; http://www.douglasdc3.com/lamb2/dc3lamb2.htm
Jack Lamb is the author of the story and has published a book about the exploits of the company (Lambair) – called “My Life In The North”. It is a good read if you are interested in early aircraft operation in the Canadian north. Many stories about aircraft rescues – including one of their Bristol Freighters.
Link here: http://members.shaw.ca/artbookbindery/mylifeinthenorth.htm
Truc
Truculent AMEI have a pretty good photo of a turret mounted .303 in a Bolingbroke.
This aircraft is located on Vancouver Island at Sydney – home of the BC Aviation Museum.
I have a higher res copy of it if you want it – just pm me and I will send it by email.
Truc
Truculent AMEThis might be of some help.
2 at Queensland Air Museum at Caloundra – 1 on display Mk30A -A79-828 C/n 4113 and another in storage – Mk30 – C/N 4018
1 on a pole that I know of in Tamworth as a memorial – and I think several others as well.
This site has some very good info as well.
http://www.adf-serials.com/2a79.shtml
Truc
Truculent AMEGo North my friend!!!
Take the Bruce north of Brisbane to Caloundra Airport – Home of the Queensland Air Museum!!
Take lots of batteries and have lots of space on your digital card for photos – cause there is a lot there!
Heres the link:
There are other places as well but can’t seem to dig them out of a very foggy brain today!!!
Have fun!!!
Truc
Truculent AMEI was searching for some completely different information when I came accross this web site with information on the equipment used to listen and calculate the position of aircraft by sound. Since one of the questions that was raised earlier in this thread regarding the deliberate de-synchronization of the engines to confuse these devices was raised I thought this information might be relevant to this discussion.
Also has some very good information on the old searchlights!
here is the link
http://www.geocities.com/mepurina/victory2.html
Starts off with searchlight info and then into the sound locators. As expected they were not used much after Radar came along – but it is noted that they were left for the enemy to see as decoys.
Also a bit of information on a heat seaking locator that would pick up the heat signature from the engine(s). Never knew they had that capability that early!
Truc
Truculent AMEHere are a couple that I have dug out of my digital archives.
Always Like the old “Frightner” This one is a Mk31 done up as a ficticous airline – so I could do my own paint scheme and not have the correctness cops chasing after me.
Had the dubious pleasure of working on the only long nose Mk31E in Canada. Yes it was a Mk31 – CF-QWJ (Ex G-AMLP – BAF) This was 1 of 2 aircraft that were modified from standard Mk31 configuration with the leftover bits from the Mk 32 production line. Have a couple more images as well somewhere in the Vault. Some info here http://www.lambair.com/page28/page4/page46/index.html This was the company I worked for in the 1970s’.
The Halifax is done up as my Dads’ favorite aircraft – he spent a lot of time in this aircraft during the summer of ’44. He was Captain on a 4 engine bomber before he had a drivers licence!!! He claimed he liked the Halifax better than the Lancaster – he had more time in the Hallibag and never flew the Lancaster on Ops. Claimed the Lanc was like driving a great big Street car – while the Hallibag was more like a bus. He expressed stong sentiments against all those whose tried to bash either the Lanc, Halifax, or Bomber Command – he was known for speaking his mind. Whatever he may have thought, the real issue was that he was there and I wasn’t!!! He passed away just after the aircraft attack on the Twin Towers – I asked him what he thought of the events and his only comment was “Doesn’t even come close to what we did one night to Stuttgart!” – he could be pretty crusty at times.
Both backgrounds are done using a program called Bryce. You can do magic with Bryce.
Aircraft done in Ulead PhotoImpact – a very good alternative to Photoshop for the digitally impaired – like me!!! I didn’t grow up with computers – hell we still used slide rules when I went to high school – but like any canny old dog I have workarounds for almost every thing I need to do – just takes me a lot longer than a “Young Un!!!
Enjoy
Truc
Truculent AMEI always seem to forget that many times links to external sources get changed and then finding information can get a bit difficult down the road.
Here is the paragraph describing the synchronization of the props in the B-24 from the link.
“We had slipped into our place in the formation, and I was concerned about the number three engine, which was just outside my window. I had synchronized the props, first by tachometers, then finer synchronization by changing prop pitch until you got rid of the changing shadows seen by sighting through the two props on the left, then the two props on the right. Final synchronization was by killing the sound “beat” of the two left props being a little off timing from the right. If you listened, you could hear a varoom-varoom-varoom. I would then speed up or slow down the right pair to sound-synch with the left with gentle nudges on the pitch of the props, resulting in the sweet smooth roar of our well-synchronized engines. I’m pretty hard of hearing now, and I like to attribute it to my glory days as a B-24 Pilot and Co-pilot. Well worth it to have had such a once-in-a-lifetime privilege.”
I don’t think the author would mind me pulling this from a very interesting story.
Truc
Truculent AMEJust some more info regarding prop synchronization.
Engine and prop synchronization are the same thing – and it does not matter as to the condition of the propeller – damage or a reduction in diameter as the RPM is all that is important.
Engine and propeller vibration is a whole other matter and in that case the differences in prop physical condition will have an effect. We had a DHC 2 Beaver that had a vibration from the engine/prop only at very high power settings – turns out it had one old blade and one new blade – the prop was balanced but the blade resistance to bending was different. At high power settings, the old blade with many hours of flexing was work hardened – making it stiffer than the new “softer” blade. As a result when we pulled high power the new blade tip was farther forward than the old blade – and like a helicopter rotor was out of track!! Took the prop back to the prop shop and they rebuilt it using 2 blades with about the same hours on them – problem solved.
BomberBoy – the first scan that I posted is from the AAF training manual from the B-17 – if you actually read it – it does say that someone in the nose has to look at the prop overlap from that position!!
Also according to this web article the props on the B-24 were also synchronized in the same manner.
http://461st.org/Liberaider/sevenseven_to_tower_really.htm
I have about 3000 hours of flight time – much of it in DC3/C-47, Curtiss C-46s, DC-4 and DC-6s, PBY-5a and PBY-6a, and a whole host of other aircraft. I can assure you that you can hear everything in the cockpit and an engine out of synchronization is immediately noticed. On one long and very boring flight on a DC3 from somewhere in the north of Canada to Churchill Manitoba – I got the idea to bug the flight crew since they were hogging all of the heat by closing the cockpit door – we only had one Janitrol heater in the aircraft and it dumped only into the cockpit (freighter aircraft – not a normal configuration) – so I slid up the center floorboards, found the propeller pitch control runs and gently tugged on one of them – placed the engines out of Synch – crew corrected – I adjusted the other side – crew corrected – etc. etc. etc – until the crew finally realized that something was wrong and flung open the door to catch me in the act of making another “adjustment”. They were not happy campers!!!!
I would presume that many pilots wouldn’t think about telling anyone about synchronizing the engines and props as it was such a routine thing to do. Most of the aircraft that I flew in had the tachometer synchroscopes and were actually very easy to synchronize. See the attached scans of a King Air 200 – this twin engine turboprop has 4 tachometers as the PT-6 engine is a free turbine. The gas generator rotates at a speed selected by the power lever angle and the power section – ie prop rpm is controlled in flight by the constant speed unit that receives its speed signal from the propeller condition lever. In addition the gas generator turbine and the power turbine turn at different speeds and in opposite directions to cancel some of the torque.
The little prop synchronizer unit is driven by differential frequency from the 3 phase permanent magnet tach generators. They used the permanent magnet technology so that even in the event of an electrical power failure of the aircraft electrical system, the crew would still have rpm indications from the standalone system. If you can remember a bit about 3 phase generators and motors – the speed of a 3 phase motor is directly related to the frequency of the ac power. The frequency of the tach generator output is proportional to the input speed of the rotating magnets. The standard rpm input for piston engines is ½ engine speed and if I remember correctly this is a result of having to mount the tach generator somewhere – the front of the crankshaft had a prop attached so that was out, and in most cases the back end of the crankshaft usually had a starter attached. Since the camshaft was available it was used and of course the camshaft in a 4 stroke engine (Except Radials) turns at ½ the speed of the crankshaft.
The American standard for turbine engines using tach generators is 4200 rpm input will give a 100% reading on the gauge. There are other systems out there so not every engine works with these.
The tachometer type synchronizer uses the 3 phase from both engines as an input – if one engine is turning faster than the other then the motor of the synchronizer unit will rotate – the unit is wired so when that happens it will spin towards the faster engine. Use of the propeller controls to stop the spinning of the indicator will synchronize the engines. Once manually synchronized the switch is positioned to the on position if an electronic synchronizer is installed – this will control the propeller constant speed unit electrically to maintain the synchronization – within limits. There are 2 systems in use – the older type I systems will have a master engine and will synchronize the other engine to the speed of the master engine. Obviously we have to have rpm limits for a disconnect – a failure of the master engine must not drag the other engine with it on a shutdown/failure. The second more modern type – type II system doesn’t have a master engine and simply matches the engines to each other by reducing the speed of the fast one and increasing the speed of the slow one. There is no master engine with this type.
Synchrophasing must be done with an electronic unit. There are usually magnetic targets mounted on the spinner backplate that pass by a pickup probe installed on the engine. The positioning of the targets is important and can vary from one engine to the other in their locations. The electronic box will look at the phase pulses using a very accurate clock and using a computer program will know where the propeller blades are positioned in the circle. To control the blade phasing angle they will speed up or slow down the propeller via the constant speed unit to obtain and maintain the specific phase relationship between the engines. It is possible that at the last stages of the war that the automatic synchronization and synchrophasing systems might have been installed in aircraft like the DC-6 but I am not positive about that. I do know that the 6s that I flew in had the systems – very large electrical control box full of tubes etc.
Truculent AMEBeen away from the computer for a while and came across this thread.
Me “DAD” was a pilot on Halifax IIIs – 51 Sqd and he told me that they syncronized the engines by getting the inboards synchronized by ear and then using the inner prop overlap of the outer prop to synchronize the outers like a strobescope. I had a look through my limited British aircraft library – including the Halifax, Lancastrian and York and found no references to the method used to synchronize the propellers – but I did find some info in my training manuals for the B17 and the C-54 that basically state the same thing – Scans included.
The DO 328 aircraft has both prop sync and phasing – is a bit different in that the engines are only in sync at “Climb” or “Cruise” settings. In addition the props are initially balanced on the ground and then fine balanced during flight. Prop sync on takeoff is accomplished by the CSU governor adjustments – and on this aircraft the digital tachs are very accurate. As a further refinement to the reduction in noise level for passenger comfort the airframe is “Tuned” by the application of sound deadening material placed over the vibrating bays as well as mass balance weights applied to the fuselage frames. Dornier took noise reduction seriously – and the difference between a Dash 8 and the 328 is most astounding! No such luxury for the war and early cargo machines. 🙁
The prop synchronization was so important from a stuctural point of view that the manufacturers had to place restricted speed ranges on the engines – operating in the restricted ranges caused harmonics to be created that would destroy important things like wing spars. Most people think that the airflow behind a propeller is a solid pressure disk – but it isn’t. As each prop blade passes the structure – think leading edge of the wing – there is a higher pressure “Pulse” that thumps the structure. If the frequency of the thumps is a match for a harmonic or prime frequency of the structure – it will begin to vibrate heavily – think of striking a tuning fork repeatedly at the correct frequency. All structures have a natural frequency and if that frequency is excited the amplitude will increase. In some cases the restricted speed ranges of engine operation were right where the engine operated best – which made for some awkward power and speed settings.
Some large transport aircraft have synchrophasers that have multiple mode selection that are used to tune the vibration level to an acceptable level with varying aircraft loads, configurations and airspeeds.
The deliberate un-synchronization of the engines may have been a requirement for operations – one that would have surely decreased the useful life of the aircraft – but in a time of war might have been an acceptable technique as the aircraft were not expected to last that long under battle conditions. I would wonder if the same result could be obtained by individual aircraft being in synch – but all aircraft in the group operated at different speeds. Would that have caused the unsyncronized beat frequency???
Hope this helps in understanding the syncronization and phasing requirements.
Truc 🙂
Truculent AMEBiggles – check out the http://www.avcanada.ca site – lots of good information there.
Best of luck in your move!!!
Truc
Truculent AMEThanks Folks for the very speedy reply. I jusk knew that someone here would have the information:) 🙂
Truculent AMEJoe – Thanks!!!!!
I have used your site for information on aircraft of 51 Squadron between April and September 1944 – the months my father (now deceased) flew as a Halibag pilot. Like so many of the old Bomber Command Crews – he was very reluctant to talk about his role.
His favorite aircraft was MH-M (M for Mike) and it was through this site that I gathered the information that this aircraft was destroyed 21st November 1944 at Sterkrade. This was after my father had completed his tour and would have been instructing on Wellingtons at the time.
This is a very good site – easy to use – and even though the information is listed in a methodical way – it still manages to catch me off guard – especially the “one of 6 aircraft lost on this raid” statements.
Keep up the good work and wishing you all the best for the upcoming year!!
Chuck
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