"The Heart Of The Gnat"

[f1steveuk]

It is a thorny issue!

I concede that I don't have any cc'd copies, or carbons (as was the way back then), and it is possible Ken supplied photo-copies of his photo-copies, and as I put the crux info from them in Leap', I put it in the public domain, and to be honest, there's no point writing a book about something if you don't want it refered to!!


As for Brooklands, different matter altogether. Mrs Gardner gave me a print, and the neg' of a picture her husband, Goldie had taken (he was Sir Malcolm's project manager) of the 1933 Blue Bird being shaken down at Brooklands, along with a letter confirming transfer of copyright (which stays in place for 60 years after the death of the originator).

Then the picture appears on the Brooklands website, and is going into a new book. When I pointed out they need to ask me their response was? " well you can see it's Brooklands in the background so it must be our copyright" !!!! I then pointed out that their "copy" is obviously a scan, you can even see the staples from where it's been scanned from Leap' (the original obviously has no staples being a proper print), the response? "but it was taken at Brooklands, it must be ours". Er? NO!!

[Dominic Owen]

Were it not for the sheer audacity of it, the level of ignorance would be hilarious!!

[DamienB]

Brooklands are normally quite clued up on copyright - who have you been dealing with?

[Mike Bull]

it wouldn't surprise me in the least if that seemingly complete engine on the stand was a spare core mated to bits snaffled from 711. If you look under the stand you can also see a pool of spilt fluid and a spanner so someone was messing with it.

Can't be- again, that's a pic of 709 as delivered, taken BEFORE Donald agreed to purchase, and took delivery of, 711! (Interesting stand that it's on- clearly not a standard Orph engine stand- more like some kind of test rig that the thing maybe actually ran in?)

On the one hand you could still be right about 709 needing bits, hence the 'urgency' with which 711 was pursued, but then the whole conversion was done on an incredibly tight schedule, so that might be all the 'urgency' was about; push, push, push.

Page 72 of your Sheppard shows a pic that is captioned 'Jack Lavis, Ken Pearson and Tony James strip 709 of it's fuel system...' which taken on face value, you'd assume to mean that they only had the one. Thus, the fuel system came from 709, and was swapped over onto 711. The picture is credited to Bill Vanryne, who one assumes provided the description that became the caption. (Neil?) We know from all his help with his air start system how bloody good Mr Vanryne's memory is, so perhaps that's as close as we can get to some kind of proof that there was one fuel system, originating on 709, that was swapped to 711.

...or maybe they were just stripping everything useful off 709 before dumping the core! And why would there be no fuel system in the Gnat?!

[Renegadenemo]

Can't be- again, that's a pic of 709 as delivered, taken BEFORE Donald agreed to purchase, and took delivery of, 711! (Interesting stand that it's on- clearly not a standard Orph engine stand- more like some kind of test rig that the thing maybe actually ran in?)

Yes, but where did 709 come from? It could easily be that it started as a scrap core and was made whole again by stripping bits off the gnat, hence the gnat having no fuel system, only for Donald to say, sod it I'll have the gnat too for spares'.
Bill Vanryn recorded in his test log that the engine was 'noisy' when running down so chances are it was a bit rattly inside. Maybe this is why the gnat was purchased, to get at the spare engine.
And I'm still waiting on a plausible theory for why they took the jetpipes off and left them strewn around the place. If you look at the pic of the Orph' dangling from the ceiling it has no jetpipe or shroud but to leave a set abandoned must mean they had two sets so why did they take it off?

[Mike Bull]

Yes, but where did 709 come from?

British Aircraft Corporation's premises at Luton, again according to Neil, where it was 'acting as a test engine'.

I think 709 was a complete runner- remember it was on temporary loan from the AM, whereas 711 was then purchased outright and was fully Donald's- that was possibly the appeal of him snapping their arm off for it.

The jet pipe removal could be as simple as fitting it on the back of a scrap man's lorry!

[f1steveuk]

Brooklands are normally quite clued up on copyright - who have you been dealing with?

John Day has it to deal with now, although it has gone very quiet. Happy to let them if they acknowledge Goldie Gardner took it, for my part, don't care if my name is mentioned or not, it's just the dumb assumption that wound me up. Trouble is the T'interwebnet has made image theft very very easy, and Photoshop has compounded the problem!

[DamienB]

Not a name I know - I've dealt with Julian Temple and John Pulford, both are clued up - could be worth getting them involved.

[Renegadenemo]

I think 709 was a complete runner- remember it was on temporary loan from the AM, whereas 711 was then purchased outright and was fully Donald's- that was possibly the appeal of him snapping their arm off for it.

The jet pipe removal could be as simple as fitting it on the back of a scrap man's lorry!

So if 709 was complete the gnat must have been missing a fuel system or it was abandoned at some point. As for putting the jetpipes on the scrap man's lorry, it's a lot of spannering when an Orph' fits comfortably onto a Transit tipper. Nah - you'll have to do better than that.

Another intriguing thing is that the wrecked engine has had its mounting trunnions removed too. Why?

[Mike Bull]

I'm only guessing! My point is, there's a million and one possible theories within the few known hard facts. Maybe when they were discarding 709, they simply stripped it to save as many spares as they could get off of it.

If 709 was on loan, I assume the AM weren't interested in having it back once it was fuggered?!

Interesting stuff, anyhow.