I am looking for instrument faces for a 1929 Westland Wessex model I am building at 1/5. It’s an 6 passenger, 3 engine airliner, not a helicopter!

I have this sketch from Flight archives of the cabin with passenger instruments such as you are talking about and the sketch of the cockpit with the side engine instruments by the plots head.

All will be quite big at the 1/5 scale so i would like to get even the makers name correct.

Any info much appreciated

Richard, do you have a suitable streamline tube? One method of bending tube is to use the Fry’s metals very low melt alloys. These are poured into the tube and when cooled the tube can be bent as a solid and then the tube reheated and the alloy poured out. As a working exhaust, are you using multi cylinder engines?

John

Hi John, sadly no multi cylinder radial. At my 1/5 scale that would only be 7.5″ diameter. I will use a Laser single cy model engine disguised with a resin cast Genet, The Silencer is harder to hide hence my desire to make working exhaust ring.
If i can ever get some correct size steal tube in roughly the right shape I was planing to try ‘Cerabend’ that I think is like Fry’s metal.

[QUOTE=avro cadet;1736910]Hi,

As Mark has said, the photographs show the standard 2 part collector ring exhaust that was fitted to the 7 cylinder AS Genet Major engines. Whilst they look “flat”, they were an elongated steamlined section with a single outlet at the bottom and a flanged joint at the top (#1 cylinder). They were made from rolled sections of steel plate and welded along the seams. Unlike most exhaust collectors, there was no provision for slip joints to counter expansion. Interestingly, I have all the original drawings for this type of exhaust, the drawings are Avro not as I would have expected Armstrong Siddeley.

For my model i have to go with the photographic evidence.
Both will be difficult to make. the 12 folded and joined sections that some of the photos show or the rolled inside and outside of the circle that was more common.
I have photos that show both, but AAGW has slightly more evidence of the 12 folded job.
Both ways it will be a working exhaust on the model engines.

pressure effect, or alternatively and much more likely simply been of “flat” rather than “circular” cross section in an attempt to minimise drag?

Yes, you are rite, later Wessex had a proper Townend ring but still had the streamline exhaust ring who’s construction is still a mystery;

Townend Ring

For the brains trust here.

b) Does anyone have drawings/close up photos/etc for the Townend Ring installation on the Genet Major and/or Lynx.

TIA

Paul

Hi Guys,
I found this thread while looking for photos of Townend rings fitted to Genet majors on a Westland Wessex Aircraft, (not helicopter!)
It is a 3 engine, 6 seat airliner built in 1929, Westland built 10. The last one scraped in 1940.
My model will be 20% or 1/5 scale. 12 foot span.

My question is how were the rings constructed?
I have photos that clearly show a round ring and others that look like it was made in 12 straight pieces, However, they all show it has a streamline section, like a symmetrical airfoil.
Whereas i can bend a round tube into a 8″ ring i don’t think i can if it has an oval section, the original builders must have had the same problem so perhaps that is why it was made up in straight pieces.
It is possible it was made in 2 pieces and 2 halves, inside and outside, by rolling and shaping.
No museum aircraft of the time I have seen has this type of ring so I am wondering about the standard AS Genet practice in 1929.

I will attempt to post a few pictures of rings.
If you look carefully at the third photo yo can see the straight sections.

I hope all that helps the thread, thank you.

G-ACZP

I have 2 pictures of me and my family boarding G-ACZP at RAF Brawdy. South Wales in August 1958.
Could have been a few days before it went to Madrid.

Sorry i can not figure out how to post them so if you would like them it’s

OK i think i did it.