powerandpassionHowever, in reading 1939 literature, it astounds me just how much of the US aviation effort was already in California prior to US entry in WW2. Douglas, Lockheed, North American, Northrop, Vultee, Consolidated.
Surely if it was just about space and cheap labour somewhere in Texas might have been better to gestate the US aviation effort. California was so far from the established East coast industrial base, it would have made more sense to build large aircraft plants on the east coast, perhaps somewhere like Georgia, lots of peanut farms to turn into industrial complexes, no winter snow, same time zone as New York, lots of cheap southern labour and railways to get management back to Grand Central station for cocktails.
Was there some incentive given by the state of California to encourage newly fledgling aircraft concerns to set up shop in the 1930’s ?
I have just read a 1942 publication on the setting up of aluminium rolling mills for aircraft sheetmetal which explains the following, that :
The Pacific Northwest became the center of aircraft production during World War II because alumina could be easily transported there by boat, and because the vast amounts of electricity needed to refine the ore to aluminum were readily available from the massive hydroelectric projects built during the 1930’s. Once established, the aircraft industry has remained centered there to this day.
So no doubt port infrastructure, cheap electricity, cheap labour (all those Okies travelling to California in the Grapes of Wrath),cheap land, proximity to the Pacific theatre, designs based on stressed skin aluminium structures combined with Federal government and Lend Lease orders stimulated the industry into rapid being.
Now that Boeings are being made with carbon fibre materials it is probably only the sunk costs of existing infrastructure, intellectual property within the existing workforce and cultural yoghurt of California and simple momentum that keeps the industry there. With the next paradigm being space tourism then I guess proximity to desert test ranges is a factor.
An interesting place to be.
powerandpassionThank you for all your replies, will report back on how it goes.
powerandpassionBulldog grip
Here is a definite Bristol Bulldog grip, but, as previously posted, these seem to be generic to 1918 – 1930 single seat aircraft. What I find most fascinating about these grips is the metallurgy. It appears they were (most likely) forged from an early type of silicon aluminium, prone to reverting to its native bauxite. The grip in the picture has sat on a shelf inside for 80 odd years. The timber is in excellent nick, the silk (?) rope is sound as are the stainless triggers, but the aluminium seems to be inexplicably crumbling away into dust. It was not until the late 20’s when the German development of aluminium copper alloy Duralumin rapidly superseded silicon aluminium alloys, on strength factors, that more resiliant products, in a historical sense, developed.
I understand that silicon aluminium alloys had advantages in casting, including lower cost, and these alloys persist in certain applications. Most particularly 1930 – 1950 British motorbike gearbox and engine castings are notorious for crumbling away. I have seen WW2 aircraft engine accessories such as magnetos and fuel pumps, some which remain ‘shiny’, some which are furry, implying silicon aluminium. So it seems that under wartime pressures different subcontractors used what materials and practices were at hand to perform their work, which would never be judged on longevity over decades. Bad luck today if your magneto casting came from a motorbike casting shop !
I believe there is nothing you can do to stop this crumbling away. Probably the stainless triggers are a composition which acts as a cathode to the sacrificial anode of the grip, giving it another kick in the guts. Maybe wind a little magnesium wire around the aluminium under the rope to act as a replaceable sacrificial anode. I don’t think you can rely on silicon aluminium as a structural member, so I will not put this spade grip in my Bulldog… conservators at a major museum may advise on options such as impregnating the grip with wax or resin to ‘glue’ its structure together for long term display purposes.
It is a wonderful piece. There is nothing quite like a spadegrip to connect you back in time to aviators now only flying on misty moonlit evenings, far, far away.
powerandpassionTR9 controller
Here is what I think is a TR9 controller, but probably is generic to radio equipment of the era. The detail of all the 10A accessories is remarkable, as well as the hand written notes relating to fuel management. In the notes their seems to be two priming pumps, implying perhaps a twin engined aircraft. Any guesses on aircraft ?
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powerandpassionExcellent
….And definitly looking forward as you pointed out.
Napier Lion Engine, and Mk.II type, from raised wing.
I would LOVE to see more deeply inside this cockpit…. :-))
What a remarkable model, well done ! Good to see some of these neglected aircraft being addressed. I do not think anybody on the planet could possibly critic the model. I hope the photos are useful and am happy that you can use them. I am happy to send you the original photos identified as Blackburn to put next to your model if you PM me a postal address, bravo, Mr. Pilatus.
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Looking for a BTH AVA compressor.
Will swap for any bits of Mossie or Hawker biplane. Or if that doesn’t work will just give it to you for free as long as you cover the postage. Australia. Does turn, but needs a good clean out. Probably has poisonous spiders in it ! Would be nice to see a CR42 and Gladiator in the air at the same time. Over the Parthenon or Abbasynian dust. Glory days.
powerandpassionHoly wires!
What some great pictures!!!
I say Hawker Horseley and ……perhaps TR.9 radio…..but no idea really
OK, here is another mystery picture, late 20’s. If you get it I will post a close up of a TR9 hand control,remarkable in its detail, if you think the previous radio was a TR9. I am relying on you to be more adamant about your ID, you cannot say ‘no idea really’, this is verboten. We want to find the truth.
This picture, I believe, is looking forward, there is a fold down windscreen on the right hand side which I can only surmise is due to propwash from a right hand rotating prop. Rolls Royce Falcon or Eagle? I understand all the radials were left hand rotation. It is nice to see the fresh, unpainted veneer on the inside.
Please identify this aircraft !
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powerandpassionThe Clearing Sale
Australia. Summer. Undecided whether to yield to drought, lost clouds, pregnant with tropical vapour, look lost against the blue sky, then panic together, like sheep, and drop thick warm rain onto the dry, dusty landscape. Here we are in New South Wales. Somewhere between Griffith and Deniliquin, for a Clearing Sale. When you are old, when your vein walls are thin and you are a farmer, when your years are marked by all the fickelness and cruelty and wonder of nature, when you have had enough and your children are too observant and have drifted to the city, when you are ready to go, you have a Clearing Sale.
And all your neighbours and stranger like me come to look and turn over your memories with their boot. So I was after the Bomber Wheel Delver. A plough with a Mosquito wheel stuck to it. Mosquito wheels seemed to be the perfect height to work their way through scabby paddocks. In the 1960’s, when the scrapman slaughterman ran his dry calculating eye over the old Warhorse, the wheels had a whole abacus full of customers. So the wheels went into the enterprising shops of smiths to be made into implements , to coach and plead the wheat out of the dry ground.
So here we were sixty years later, and the Delver was abandoned into my hands, and the Whitworth threads that held the Bomber wheel against its true nature yielded, faithfully, and the wheel was loaded on my truck. Dry, dry and more dry meant the metal was sound. I wondered at the rubber. What a bloody good tyre.
In this district, soldier settlers, hacking the gas of Fromelles out of their lungs, were granted land. They dug canals by hand and horse, and brought water in. So suddenly you come onto paddy fields of rice. It is time for the crop dusters. Yellow flags mark the corners of paddys. The cropdusters swoop, and at the impossible last moment, flourish over the powerlines of the road. I have never seen such flying. Either twenty year olds building hours around boredom or a forty year old wanting fate to shortcut some type of answer.
The Mosquito wheel will come with me and be cleaned and inspected. Someday, if fortune is inclined, it will be attached to a Mosquito. If I am flying, I will be nervous. Every awkward noise will draw my eyes away from the simple pleasure of flying. I will worry about the simple electron grip of eighty year old metal in the wheel, whether on this landing it will laugh and give way. And so I drive the truck home. I figure that this is as good as it gets, travelling into the dust and the blue sky, into the yard of the old farmer, finding the diamond and giving the dream enough to keep it’s lungs moving, up and down, up and down.*
*The author won a school prize for English literature in 1987 and has an interest in deHavilland Mosquitos.
This is the second Mosquito wheel that the author has turned from a ploughshear into a sword.
powerandpassionAW Siskin
Herr Pilatus, here is a new radio installation for you to identify, installed In Siskin IIIA, photographed in February 1927. Can somebody identify the aircraft in the background ? Is the hangar in the background the Cardington airship hangar ?
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The quality of the photos are remarkable for their clarity. Reflected in the valves of the radio set are the photographers. You can see a plate type camera, probably with a large format glass negative, on a tripod next to the photographer, and two gentleman technicians in jacket and tie, most proper.
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Now the radio set, sir, what is it ?
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Finally the wind generator, with I think a variable pitch blade arrangement. What I like the most about this is the crude fabric work on the lowerplane leading edge, an authentic workhorse rather than show pony. The fuselage panel edges also show bold stitching. I love photographs which show this kind of detail.
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powerandpassion…May I dare A.W. Atlas and A.W. Siskin
Correct, well done, AW Atlas and Siskin. I think you are now the 1920’s experten, Herr Pilatus.
powerandpassionI would strongly tend to say it is a FAIREY IIIF cockpit, 445th FLIGHT or 440th FLIGHT from checkered tail. Probably no relation with the N serial number.
I do not know, but I will accept your prognosis. We need to find another photo of the aircraft to prove it.
powerandpassion=PILATUS-P3;2184646 Your opinion?
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Mein Gott ! What a horror ! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry !
powerandpassionHave you asked Dave or Emily at the Westland archive yet? I’ll PM their contact details if you’d like.
Can I get those contact details too ! If they are going to be dusting off the 1920’s they may as well reach up to the 1930’s shelf…
powerandpassionWhich aircraft ?
Thank you for those VERY useful pics! The radio set is definitly from an A.W. Atlas, and correspond to the T.25 & R.31 W/T sets, which are mentioned in the Atlas manual.
Because you have been so kind as to positively identify the radio set I will post up some more, but it takes time to scan, size and post, so I can only do a few at a time when les enfants have gone to bed…
Rather than make it too easy, first you, mon ami, or the forum, les savages, needs to identify which aircraft the following c8ckpits belong to ! One is very easy ! I love the incredible detail in these photos of a practical workplace, with the interiors whitewashed. All date from the late 20’s.
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powerandpassionBison
Thank you for those VERY useful pics!
The radio set is definitly from an A.W. Atlas, and correspond to the T.25 & R.31 W/T sets, which are mentionned in the Atlas manual.
About the cockpit……don’t think it is an Avro Bison. The bison had a very flat fuselage back and a Scarff Ring turret. Maybe Avro 571? (if the N serial apply to the pic)……or Fairey III?
Pilatus, I have now become the global expert on the Bison…below is an image of the fuselage previously mentioned, which corresponds with the Bison II serial in Putnam’s Avro aircraft and also the horizontal stabilizer struts, tailskid and elevator horns on various images. It is interesting to see in the photo first posted a checker pattern on the vertical tailplane, which seems to be reflected in a metal fairing band in front of the tailplane. I can’t match this with any prewar squadron marking, perhaps someone more familiar with these markings, including prewar Fleet Air Arm might be able to place it. The RAE photographs dealt with radio installations, so show close up detail of these features on various aircraft. The Bison photo seems to show an aerial arrangement.
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