NiallCHi Stuart
Im not aware of any detailed drawings, but the Rolls-designed Peregrine nacelle for the F9/37 was tunnel tested in 1938 in the full size tunnel at Farnborough. The report survives in the NA (ref. DSIR 23/6911) and I seem to recall it contained a GA drawing of the nacelle, but nothing on the engine installation (since I’d assume there was no engine actually installed).
Niall
NiallCData Plate
Jerry
I think you may be right in believing the data plate is from a Whirlwind heli rather than the original Whirlwind. The highest mod number I’m aware of for the Whirlwind fighter is Mod 158 – introduction of Mk III IFF. This was approved 16/12/43 – very late in the aircraft’s life -and then cancelled 1/2/44 shortly after the aircraft was declared obsolescent.
Niall
PS: Stuart – I’ve sent you a PM
NiallC. . or probably didn’t
Hi Stuart
I wouldn’t hold your breath on this one. Brown force-landed near Arras after being hit by flak while attacking a train near Doullens and, although the numerous photos of his aircraft post landing show what appears to have been a very survivable forced landing, was found postwar by MRES buried nearby.
The only assertion I’ve seen that any parts of the aircraft went to Erprobrungstelle Rechlin was in Jet and Prop back in the 90’s. I assume this was Jerry’s source. I can’t lay my hands on the article at the mo but it suggested that the cannon installation, cockpit and radio went to Rechlin and, as usual in magazine articles, offered no source for that information. The museum at Rechlin has no record of a Whirlwind or parts thereof ever going there – from their admittedly partial records. I suppose the other question you have to consider is why any of this material would be of interest to Rechlin in early ’43. By then the Hispano, the radio fit and the Whirlwind itself would surely have been seriously old hat. Although, as always, anything’s possible.
Niall
BTW. Thanks for your email on other matters. Still working on (lengthy) reply while stroking imaginary beard:-)
NiallCAllison Whirlwinds?
But back to what if’s, what american engine was it being considered,
Beaverbrook states in a letter, 27 Oct 40,
…..there was an alternative proposal to fit american engines……Seem to recall when I wrote to westlands( in the 90’s) they hadn’t heard about it.
So What If …
allison V1710 C-15 ,Wright R-1820 or Pratt & Whitney R-1830Westlands were preparing ‘…Hawk’s’ for service use, I think in late 1940, so they would have had a few engines around…
cheers
Jerry
Hi Jerry
The American engine proposed for the Whirlwind was the Allison, but this proposal predates by a couple of years Beaverbrook’s comments about it in 1940 (or Westland’s involvement with the P40).
When the Operational requirement F.18/37 for a new 8-12 gun fighter to replace the Spitfire and Hurricane was initially discussed Wilfrid Freeman thought it was not worth pursuing as it did not represent a great enough advance on the performance of the Whirlwind. The Whirlwind – which had not yet flown – was forecast (mainly by the ever-optimistic Petter) to have a top speed of 370-380 mph whereas F.18/37 asked for 400. Freeman took the step of commissioning an alternative 12-Browning gun nose from Westland (which project was later given to Martin Baker) so that the Whirlwind could be made at least partially compliant with F.18/37. Petter appears to have proposed the Allison at this point to make the aircraft’s projected performance fully compliant with F.18/37. At the time – and for some while later – Petter was absolutely convinced that the compact, highly-loaded Whirlwind would require handed engines which rather limited the possibilities if more power than the Peregrine was needed. In the end when the tendered designs for F.18/37 were evaluated, none of the twin-engined offerings appeared to offer any real advantage over a single engined-design and the Air Min accordingly ordered prototypes of the Tornado/Typhoon.
As for “What If?” developments of the Peregrine-powered Whirlwind, Rolls bench tested the Peregrine at 12 lbs boost and extracted over 1000 hp from it. This configuration was also flight tested in the summer of 1940 in one of the 3 Whirlwinds used by 25 Squadron for operational trials. Rolls also tested another Whirlwind at Hucknall with fin-and-tube radiators and external, straight down carburettor air intakes – in this form they clocked the aircraft at 362 mph (vs 338 for the standard article). Ultimately though the Whirlwind didn’t really need more sea level power – on the deck it was the fastest aircraft in the RAF inventory when it entered service – what the Peregrine really needed was a new supercharger to address its lamentable performance at altitude.
Incidentally I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read that the Peregrine was “unreliable”, but I’ve never seen any data provided to support the assertion. Most of the “engine failures” in service appear to have been nothing of the sort – in most cases they were caused by fuel shortage or problems with the wretched Exactor controls.
Niall
NiallCHi Stuart
As originally conceived the TR9D radio was intended to occupy the space on the “parcel shelf” under the canopy – so the modellers are not entirely wrong. The Whirlwind seat back was simply two dural poles with a leather cover stretched over them. It was intended that this cover could be removed to gain access to the accumulators, oxygen bottles and other kit behind the seat. When the requirement to accommodate the TR1133 VHF set was introduced (Mod 8) together with the need for armour behind the seat (Mod 33) – which prevented access to the components behind the seat – the rear fuselage was substantially redesigned to incorporate a hatch on the starboard side – where previously there was none. With the further requirement to install R3003 IFF and the tropical ration tray the hatch was enlarged. As a part of this rearrangement the accumulators were moved up onto the “parcel shelf” and the radio relocated to behind the pilot’s seat with the oxygen bottles, Plessey revolver signal pistol, R3003 etc.
I’ve never seen a photo of this part of the aircraft with the accumulators installed, but I seem to recall the wiring diagram for the aircraft shows them installed one behind the other with the longer sides running port-starboard i.e. as per your model picture but with each accumulator rotated 90 degrees. There were always 2 accumulators (The Whirlwind had 24 volt electrics – maybe the 1st RAF aircraft to do so????) but the type changed during the aircraft’s life from 2 Type “B” accumulators to 2 Type “D” ones from P7106 onwards (and presumably retro-fitted to earlier aircraft). These accumulators are standard issue components so there should be photo in one of the generic electrical APs.
Note also that on very early aircraft the remote contactor for the TR9D was also installed on the accumulator tray, but was soon relocated when it was realised that it would be more useful if placed somewhere where the pilot could actually reach it.
Hope this helps
Niall
NiallCI too have Bryan in P7121 and Des Roberts in P7046. A Walrus of 278 Sqn was sent out to look for survivors with an escort of two more Whirlwinds (Len Bartlett & Hugh O’Neill) but only Oblt. A Wolf of the German crew was found and picked up.
HTH
Niall
NiallCHi
Thanks for the info, by sheer luck I just found my notes:D and the pages on the 40mm cannon:Done interesting I found whilst browsing was a letter on the four cannon and three .303 nose
the letter was dated 23 june 1940 to westlands from RDL
….It is requested however, that the auxiliary fuel tank proposal shall continue as required in our letter to the firm dated 31st may..:confused:
interesting I will have to delve deeper.
cheers
Jerry
Jerry
As far as I know the nose fuel tank was never installed. The Air Min had no interest in the additional three Brownings, but did order a TI of the Hydran ammunition feed and the additional tank. With the Hydran feed the guns were arranged in a horizontal row which made room for the tank above (as opposed to the two up, two down arrangement of the standard, drum-fed installation.)
L6844 went to A&AEE for ground and air firing trials with the Hydran feed with a single Hispano (photographs of the aircraft in this condition are always mis-captioned in books and articles as being of a trial of some imaginary 37mm or 40mm installation even though the gun is clearly a Hispano 404). The trials showed up a few problems, but were promising. When BTH made additional left and right hand feeds available the aircraft went back to A&AEE with a full set of four Hydran-fed Hispanos. The problems found in the earlier trials remained and a new one was found. The feed consumed compressed air at such a prodigous rate that the air pressure quickly dropped below the point at which it would operate. The Whirlwind of course had no pneumatic system, just a fixed bottle. Because of this and the other issues no air firing was carried out.
The Hydran feed was abandoned and effort concentrated on the French Chatelleraut feed. Westland were asked to make a TI with the Chatelleraut feed for which the guns reverted to a two up, two down arrangement which then left no room for the additional fuel tank. L6844 was tested in this configuration at A&AEE before going to the Aircraft Gun Mounting Establishment at Duxford where it suffered tail plane damage from ejected cases/links during air firing trials. When AGME was absorbed by A&AEEand moved out from Duxford L6844 was left behind, unserviceable, nominally on the books of Duxford-based AFDU, but not used by them.
Niall
NiallC40mm installation
Jerry
Nash & Thompson were asked to design the Whirlwind 40mm gun installation because there was a desire to avoid distracting Westland from the high-priority Welkin programme. Three days after Capt Frazer Nash was asked to proceed the project was cancelled because Whirlwind production had finished and there were few left by then. I doubt if much real design actually took place in that short time and certainly nothing was actually built.
Niall
NiallCBenz Compression ratios
I too have heard the explanation that the difference in compression ratio was due to the “assymetric” supercharger and/or its plumbing, but I can’t say that it makes much sense. The fact the plumbing to one bank’s intake plenum is longer than that to the other should make no difference whatsover to the pressure.
A more credible explanation is that I think the Benz engines used master and slave conrods rather than the blade and fork type used by almost all other manufacturers of inline engines. With blade and fork conrods the centre of both banks’ conrods is the centre of the crank journal. Therefore the strokes of both banks are the same and the position of the pistons at their lowest and highest points are the same for both banks. With master and slave rods the master rod is centred on the journal, but the slave rod pivots around a point some distance away. Therefore bottom dead centre and top dead centre for the pistons attached to master rods are different to those attached to slave rods. If top dead centre is in a different position for each bank then the compression ratios must be different (assuming the banks have identical cylinder heads).
For this reason all radials (where use of master and slave rods is more or less compulsory unless you want a very long, slightly spiral engine) have at least two different compression ratios – one for the cylinder using the master rod and another for all the others in the bank that use articulated rods. Going off at a tangent slightly, on the Bristol Mercury (and no doubt other Bristols) the slave rods were not spaced in an even circle around the master one, but were at three different radii from it – meaning that the 9 cylinders actually have 3 or 4 different compression ratios, presumably in search of improved smoothness compared with having 1 cylinder having one compression ratio and the other 8 all sharing another.
Niall
NiallCIan
I have a short obit somewhere that simply states that he died in hospital after a few weeks illness.
BTW, as you probably know, while AOC 10 Group he presented your avatar to the squadron concerned.
HTH
NiallC
NiallCAces High (Chris Shores and Clive Williams, Grub Street, 1994) cites the aircraft flown by Frank Carey when he made claims in Jan-Mar 1940 as being L1728 and L1726 (the latter twice). Mason’s The Hawker Hurricane assigns the codes NQ*B and NQ*R respectively to these two aircraft (which doesn’t of course necessarily mean that they were wearing those codes at the time of Carey’s victories in them)
HTH
NiallC
NiallCThis technique goes back even further. In the mid 1930s the Fairey Hendon was also moved into hangars sideways on a purpose designed skate.
NiallC
NiallC‘Rags’ Rabagliati
Rabagliati was shot down by flak off the Dutch coast during a Roadstead op. in Typhoon EK273. He is believed to have baled out, but was not rescued.
NiallC
NiallCOne word – Engines
Er No! One other word: Lysanders. And a rapidly expanding (and demanding)army
NiallC
NiallCFirst thing to remember is that the National Archives is just that, not an industrial/corporate archive. It’s strong on policy, development and operational use of aircraft, but contains almost no data of the kind you’re looking for (for the period in question anyway).
Of the files you’ve mentioned there are two exceptions:
AIR 10/2643 is the Whirlwind AP (which you already have)
AVIA 18/691 (which you’ve ordered) is (most of) the A&AEE test reports on the Whirlwind. This will give you most of the performance data you need. Be aware that the primary report (issued 31/07/40) is based on tests on the second prototype between Aug 39 and April 40 at which time it was hardly representative of production aircraft (Rotol rather than de H props, different pitch settings, different boost settings, external carb intakes etc). Most representative is the data for P6997 (in this file in Part 7 of AAEE/733). This file also contains performance/handling/cooling tests with the aircraft carrying bombs.
There is an additional file (AVIA 18/1000) with a single A&AEE report on clearing the Whirlwind bomb installation and listing the variety of stores it was cleared to carry. If you’d like me to precis it, PM me. In reality 95%+ of all Whirlibomber sorties were carried out with 2 x 250 lb (usually fused for 3 seconds delay for low level work lest they present more of a threat to the Whirlwind than the Germans). On a few occasions 2 x 500 lb were used, fused for 11 seconds if used at low level.
There is one crash investigation report (Report W1229) in AVIA 5/19 which does contain some dimensioned drawings of the cockpit area and structure. You’d be better off going and inpecting this in person, since If I remember correctly many of the drawings have been separated from the crash reprt and are now dotted around inside a rather large file. Not a problem if you know what you’re looking at, but I don’t know what you’d get if you asked TNA to copy it.
The RAF Museum Archive has a better selection of Whirlwind APs than the NA including the ground handling notes, modification leaflets, spares schedules and repair procedures, but I doubt there’s much that would be useful for your purposes and probably the best source for cockpit layouts etc would be the AP that you already have – whic also gives a lot of data on the aircrafts structure and systems.
Only a tiny fraction of the 20,000 or so production drawings survive and things like the loftings for the fuselage are not among them. Your best bet here is to contact Fred Ballam at Westland and see if he has anything that might be useful.
The good news is of course that whatever you create, nobody will be able to criticise it on any solid grounds:-)
Hope this helps
NiallC
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