CamlobeCharles Church Lanc
Slightly off topic but…
In the late ’80’s, while work was underway on his Lanc, CC paid a visit to the 8 Sqn Griffon engine bay at Lossie. Having tried to get the four Merlins ‘fettled’ elsewhere, an approach was made to the Shack engine bay. A deal was done (all above board, I must add) with an agreed amount paid to the Station Commanders fund for work done. The engines were in fantastic condition internally. Part of the work done was to ‘convert’ the engines to run on detergent oil (OMD 250 aka Aeroshell W100) as opposed to straight mineral oil (OM 270 aka Aeroshell S100) . If memory serves me correctly, the engines were Packard Merlin 224’s, but I am not certain.
During this work, a chap, who was the Sargeant in the Griffon engine bay at the time, agreed to leave the RAF and work for CC. Unfortunately, following the hangar roof accident, and the loss of CC, the job disappeared.
Funny old game, aviation.
camlobe
CamlobePeter,
Very well thought out and presented. I see no problems with this and the clarity of it all is easily understood, even by me.
camlobe
CamlobeBMW engined 190
OK, I am getting on a bit now, so I don’t remember things as well as I used to. Maybe my fellow forumites can assist.
When I was in Florida again a few weeks back, I dropped off a propeller for an NDT check in Kissimmee. While I was waiting, I had a wonder around the museum (you know the one, they have a couple of Havards that people can partake aviation in). In there was the airworthy Molt Skycar, a few other interesting items, and a BMW engined 190 being restored to flight. The 190 is being assembled using the remenants of three recovered Russian aircraft and newly manufactured parts.
Is this the White 1 Foundation airframe?
p.s. while there, Tom Blair’s P38, P51 and Spit Mk V decided to fly as well. Ahh, What a good day to get a prop checked. The Spit got held up on the taxiway and had to return to the hangar for some water spray into the rad. The OAT on the day was about 100 degrees. Phew.
camlobe
CamlobePressurised Shacks
Don’t know if it counts, but we used to reckon the Shacks were mildly pressurised
because the holes at the front were bigger than the ones at the back.:p
Actually, joking apart, there were some large gaps here and there. On more than one occasion, I can remember putting my book down with the intent of going from the nose gunners position back down to the tail to the elsan. Only to realise that there was snow on my boots.
However, even when I spoke to some of the design staff at at the Shack 40th aniversary in Woodford back in 1989, there was no mention of a truly pressurised version being submitted for consideration as the maritime role was still foreseen to be all low level work.
As Merlin Pete states, the Griffon 57’s, 57A’s and 58’s were low altitude (LF)engines. The ratio of supercharger gearing was 6.615 to 1 for low gear and 7.7 to 1 for high gear, not really that high compared to HF type engines. For the 58, full throttle hight in low gear was 2000 feet. Full throttle height in high gear was 3000 feet. Due to the reduced exhaust back pressure at altitude, the power in low gear at sea level was 1960 Hp and 1990 Hp at 2000 feet with a boost of 67 inches of mercury (18 psi above atmospheric). For high gear, power at sea level was 2450 Hp, 2490 Hp being available at 3000 feet. However, that 2450 to 2490 Hp was with 81 inches of mercury (25 psi above atmospheric) boost while injecting between 18 and 22 pints per minute of Water Methanol into each engine into the eye of the supercharger. The two Water Meth tanks held 26 gallons each and supplied two engines each. If a water Meth supply failed, the affected engine would automatically drop back to 69 inches of boost, but the charge temperature would climb fairly rapidly. With the Water Methanol injected, the fuel delivery to the engines automatically reduced from 187 gallons per minute to 178 gallons per minute, the methanol content acting as supplementary fuel while the water content very effectivly cooled the charge (from 100 degrees C down to 50 degrees C). Once again, Rolls Royce had produced an engine perfectly suited to the aircrafts requirement. And all of this dross is from memory. I am sad, but probably correct.
Although we used the terms low gear and high gear, Rolls Royce terminology was Moderate Speed and Full Speed.
And I have digressed even further. Apologies for the thread drift.
camlobe
CamlobeAh, back at last. Goody.
Hmmm, is it me or is this forum still a tad slllooooowww?
camlobe
CamlobeWonderful watching and listening to that lovely V-twin powered APU running. And doesn’t the aircraft look good. Best wishes to all involved.
p.s. The APU reminded me of the one fitted to the BBMF Dak. When it first arrived in the early ’90’s, no-one had a clue about this little unit. After about ten minutes, I had it up and running. Lovely little thing. Choice of pull cord and electric start. Heated the rear fuselage area up in a couple of minutes. Only used it once in real anger in Caen in ’94. Stop/start for fuel and ground manoeuvering and the main gennies wern’t even getting on line. APU to the rescue and kept the main batteries charged without any problem. Bit noisy when using the Elsan though.
camlobe
CamlobeJon H,
Glad to hear you have got those irreplaceable logs. The recorded history of an aircraft makes a huge difference to a project, helping to identify modifications, repairs and also some of the exotic places travelled, such as…er…Speke.:diablo:
Keep up the good work, and if time ever allows, I shall pop over to see progress. So glad you guys were able to rescue MLZ, especially as it really was eleventh hour. The rate and quality of work you guys are doing is superb and you all deserve a hearty acknowledgement. This is mine.
camlobe
CamlobeHello ZUYEV.
Avionics is a cover-all heading that includes communication, navigation and mission systems. Please exclude what is not relevant to your needs. It has been a few years, and therefore this list is probably not accurate due to the passage of time. Others here will be able to assist, but here goes:
Avro Shackleton AEWII
Air Radio:
Qty 2 HF (can’t remember model number) Very usefull for listening to the BBC World Service when not talking to Architect.
Qty 2 V/UHF (Initially both PTR175, laterly Qty 1 PTR 175, Qty 1 PTR 1751)
Qty 2 UHF (PTR 175??)
Someone will put me right on this.
Station Boxes fitted at all crew stations. The available selections varied depending on the particular crew station
Navigation:
ADF (Automatic Direction Finding) I can’t remember model number. Very useful for listening to Radio 1 until 1900Z, and Radio Luxemberg after 1900Z. Receiving stations for the Captain and Navigator only with the controller above the Captains position.
LORAN (Long Range Navigation)
TACAN (Tactical Navigation?? a military version of VOR/DME)
GPI 4 C (Ground Position Indicator) An early version of moving map, with the aircraft symbol moving over the pinned down chart.
Remote Compass Indicators (Navigators being the master, with repeaters for the Captain and Co-Pilot)
RadAlt (Radio Altimeter)
ILS (Instrument Landing System)
RT Homers (Radio Transmission Homers, able to accurately locate Emergency Homing beacons)
Sextant Carried in the rear of the aircraft and used through the astrodome above the Navigators seat for star plotting.
Drift Indicator A visual look-down device mounted on the starboard side of the aircraft behind the Navigators seat.
Mission Systems:
AN/APS 20 Airborne Radar of 1940’s vintage, with scanner mounted below radar tray in the front ten-foot bomb bay area, feeding to three monitors in mid-fuselage area. The radome housing the scanner was the most visually obvious aspect of the mission equipment. The waveguide connecting the scanner to the tray had a conductive gasket fitted at the connection point, and was allegedly priced at over £600 in the early 1980’s. The tray incorporated the equipment for the running and powering of the radar system. Fitted to the tray was the largest magnatron I have ever seen, and was not good for watches or heart pacemakers. Magnatron? Remember, the AN/APS 20 was a MICROWAVE radar. Cooling of the tray systems included engine glycol (AL 3) and PCB’s (polychlorinated bi-phenols). The electrical power supply for the radar system was primarily from two engine-mounted alternators (No1 and No2 engines) with an invertor (No 9) as a backup in the event of an alternator failure.
AMTI (reduced surface clutter)
APX7 (IFF identifier). In latter years, this pair of boxes were removed from the tray and two pairs were mounted in the nose of the aircraft allowing the ‘Scopies’ to change boxes in mid-mission.
ESM (told you the direction ‘opposing’ signals were coming from) The second most visual aspect of the mission equipment fitted, mounted on the fuselage roof and resembled a huge spark plug.
The displayed imagery on the seven inch monitors was raw radar. No computer enhancement whatsoever. It is very easy to understand why the ‘Scopies’ would appear completely drained, physically and emotionally, following a fourteen to eighteen hour sortie wrapped up in their ‘tents’, as their curtained off stations were known.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember what other mission equipment was installed. Sorry.
The Gannet AEW3 utilised the AN/APS 20 radar previously installed on the Grumman Avenger AEW. The Gannet had two radar stations mounted in the rear fuselage facing forward. When this system was retrofitted to the Shackleton MRII’s to form the Shackleton AEWII, a third radar station was added, all three facing sideways to port, two of the stations forward of the rear spar and one aft.
Hope this is of some help.
camlobe
CamlobeWith reference Gerbs’ fretting rings, (not a medical condition, I assure you) they did what they were supposed to. Dowty checked the legs and they came back serviceable. The boss at the time, G+10 even went to the extrordinary lengths of gathering three ex-Lanc captains to pick their brains on the landing ‘incidents’. As well as passing on three copies of the original, blue covered, Lanc Pilots notes, those gentlemen responded with great encouragement to G+10’s prediciment. The unwritten experience those gentlemen passed on has no doubt benifitted BBMF Lanc pilots since.
A number of us looked at the situation to see if we could identify any additional causes, especially due to the relatively light weight the Lanc now operates at. As most of you will know, the Lanc uses surplus Shack tyres. I popped over to the station wheel bay to have a chat with the guys in there. In the ensuing conversation, I discovered that they were doing everything by the book. Exactly what you would expect from the Royal Air Force professionals. However, they were using the Shack book. Now, that might not sound like much of a difference. But the Shack AEWII operated at a weight of up to 96,000 lbs. The Lanc was considerably less. I had a chat with the boss and the riggers about the main wheels being inflated to Shack pressures. Eyes opened, pressures were dropped, and the problem has not re-occured to my knowledge.
camlobe
CamlobeRead the governments response that Richard Grey posted. Signed in the optomistic hope that the government of the people will listen to the people of today.
camlobe
CamlobeAndy G,
Thanks for pointing out the important part that I did forgot to mention.
As an aside, those brilliant engineers in Germany made fantastic aircraft and engines to power them. The mechanical fuel injection system used on the DB series was individually adjustable to ensure correct fuel/air mix to each cylinder. This fuel injection system ensured Me109’s could bunt without an engine cut, unlike the Spits and Hurri’s of the day. However, as Andy G mentions, because the DB’s had fuel injected directly into the inlet ports i.e. after the supercharger, these engines did not benifit from the adiabatic cooling of the charge. Rolls Royce’s Merlins and Griffons, carb’d and fuel injected versions, introduced the fuel into the air prior to compression by the supercharger, thereby enjoying the benifits.
camlobe
CamlobeI noticed that the MTOW on G-INFO is 4900 Kg. Is it me or does this seem a tad heavy?
camlobe
CamlobeOriginally posted by Jon H
Or we send Camlobe over there and tell him his return flight is on whichever one he gets flying first!
Tell you what. I’ll do you all a deal. You guys and gals make sure it is fully and properly funded, and I’ll fix one of them and fly it back. 🙂
Did I mention that, as well as having some bits of paper that say I can certify American and European registered aircraft, I also have some bits of paper that say I can fly American and European registered multi-engined aircraft.:D
camlobe
CamlobeMerlin Pete,
The closest I can get to confirming (or denying) the Hendon ASR launch engine fit, came from a friend of mine in the early ’90’s. We were visiting in order to collect some AP’s from the library and my friend commented on the ASR launch, IIRC undergoing strip and repainting. Knowing of my personal interest and professional involvement with Rolls Royce’s finest, he cheerfully advised me that it was originally fitted with Sea Griffon 101’s.
I have no reason to think otherwise, especially as my friend served his career on the RAF Air Sea Rescue fleet.
camlobe
CamlobePen Pusher,
That ‘bit on the supercharger’ is the charge cooler, normally called the intercooler. It can be found on 60, 70 and 80 series Merlins as well as 100 series (if memory serves me correctly).
Following two stages of supercharging, the charge (or fuel/air mixture) has been compressed to such an extent that its temperature has increased to a level where detonation would happen in the combustion chamber. The solution was to install a heat exchanger between the supercharger outlet and the engine inlet ports. This heat exchanger is liquid cooled, and the pipework feeds to a radiator fitted in one of the underwing cowls. An engine driven pump circulates this charge coolant and forms a totally seperate system from the engine coolant system.
Although this system sounds similar to what you find on vehicles, including Land Rovers, most road vehicles are fitted with an intercooler, not a charge cooler.
The difference?
An intercooler cools air compressed (normally) by the turbocharger before it enters the inlet manifolds. Fuel is then added at the inlet port (fuel injected petrol engine) or in the combustion chamber (direct or indirect injection diesel).
A charge cooler cools the fuel/air mixture or charge prior to entering the inlet manifold.
Why did the Merlin / Griffon engines have a charge cooler?
The genius’s at Rolls Royce utilised the benifit of adiabatic cooling of the charge.
What???
If you mix the fuel and air prior to compressing it in a supercharger, the charge has the property of evaporative cooling (put simply) lowering the charge temperature on the Merlins and Griffons by approximately 25 Degrees C, lowering the tendency to detonate. Think of it as free intercooling.
camlobe
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