Bluebird Archive Photos & Films

[Renegadenemo]

That fin looks different again. The rudder seems much deeper front to back. They faired in K7's tail where the rudder used to go but left the pintles (is that what you call rudder hinges on a plane? It is on a ship) in place. The fairing crumpled but the fin structure didn't leaving the pintles poking through the fairing. The crumpled bit is the depth of the original rudder so far as I could tell.

[KW Mitchell]

That fin looks different again. The rudder seems much deeper front to back. They faired in K7's tail where the rudder used to go but left the pintles (is that what you call rudder hinges on a plane? It is on a ship) in place. The fairing crumpled but the fin structure didn't leaving the pintles poking through the fairing. The crumpled bit is the depth of the original rudder so far as I could tell.

Hinges will do nicely, Bill.

[Renegadenemo]

That's me told then... and I thought you aeroplane types had mysterious names for everything.

[KW Mitchell]

That's me told then... and I thought you aeroplane types had mysterious names for everything.

You know us 'airheads' - big words - empty brains ----------!

Incidentally, are those two little brackets I can see protruding from the base of the fin, all that holds it to the hull?

[Renegadenemo]

Believe it or not that's all that held it to the plane! Those brackets seem to extend the whole height of the fin. There are two of those little feet on each side and what you see there is the bottom ends of an A-shaped frame running up the one side of the fin. There's an identical frame on the other side. You can see them a bit better here. It was bolted into a steel saddle inside the tail fairing with the usual, zillion bolts but I really don't know how it stayed on or upright, for that matter.

As an aside, I was lucky enough to get a look around the Eurofighter assembly hall at Warton a couple of years back and I got talking to an engineer who'd worked on the canards. "I still don't know," he said, "how, when those things travel, it doesn't just twist the nose of the aircraft."

[Tato]

hi i am most interested in engineering of bluebirds and that this can be working again. my studies are of muesum studies and this is spoken of many times. sorry my english is not good my japanese is. good work everybody.

[KW Mitchell]

As an aside, I was lucky enough to get a look around the Eurofighter assembly hall at Warton a couple of years back and I got talking to an engineer who'd worked on the canards. "I still don't know," he said, "how, when those things travel, it doesn't just twist the nose of the aircraft."

Aye, Kevlar's got a lot to answer for!

As for canards -----now that's got me thinking------ what if BB had been developed further??

[Renegadenemo]

I couldn't work out what most of the Eurofighter was made of. There was lots of tin in the reheat section but the rest was a little mysterious. The sections are delivered with no holes to fix them together. They're jigged then drilled so there's no residual stresses in the finished airframe. They told me also that the engines have three modes. fast, faster-still and 'combat' mode, of which the airframe can only tolerate about four seconds (if memory serves) before bits start coming off and most of the engine has to be replaced. Sounds more like 'get the flippety-blink out of the poo' mode to me How much fun must it be though!

[orgster]

I’m getting a little confused here folks? According to what I have read XM691 was a T1 proto type and a TWO seater and as far as I understand it XM691 was still a proto type at the end of its useful life when DC acquired it? There is a ref to this on this Gnat website which includes that the engine for XM691 was acquired by DC and came into play when the intakes collapsed (or as some people point out a certain item of someone’s tool box went on walkabout into places that’s only safe to do so when these type of engines are static) http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk ... ivors.html
I have also read that XM691 was cut and shunted quite a bit in its test life and things were glued on and chopped at various stages
Also after trawling various other sites on the Gnat I read certain test pilots reporting that the Orpheus had a bad habit of shutting down and going into tick over after they applied full power (hhmmmm I thought well fancy that) it seems that it got to be a regular thing to the extent that they grounded them at one point and questions were asked up the higher rungs of the fly boy ladder as to whether this engine was reliable? To be honest it appears that the IAF got to sorting the problem of reliability but not until the late 60's early 70's and only after many reports of the same problems

[klingon]

Thank you tato, and welcome!

Do not worry, most of the guys on the team do not seem to speak English anyway!

Aye-Geordies and sweaty socks!