January Newsletter
Well here we are at the start of the new year and looking forward to continuing the build of "The Pride of Yeovil".
The whole team would like to take this opportunity wish all our friends and members a very happy new year.
Looking back on what has gone, on the whole it has been quite succesful, the AGM went down very well and we were able to show off the first framing for a Westland Whirlwind that has been cut for 75 years, we were also able to feature a whole raft of interesting speakers.
We were also invited to attend the 100 anniversary of Westland and The Aircraft Restoration Group did a great job in assembling framework to show off how far we had progressed with the build.
The day was also highlighted by the attendance of the Reverend George Wood one of the surviving Whirlwind Pilots who turned out to be a great T Shirt salesmen and we also very lucky enough to meet the family of the designer of the Whirlwind W E W Petter.
The team have also been able to add to our collection of Whirlwind parts over the last couple of years, from that well known online auction site, some of the parts are shown below.
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| Flap Ram |
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| Artificial Horizon |
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| Aerial |
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| Oxygen valve. |
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| Radiator track guide |
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| Prop Bracket |
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| Parts of the self sealing tank. |
New year message from our Chairman Mike Eastman
THE PLOT
THICKENS.
Before I go
into the plot may I first wish all our supporters,sponsers and those just
interested compliments of the season and a very happy New Year.
The Plot to build an
1-1 replica of a Westland Whirlwind Mk 1 Fighter as acurately as is
possible.
Where to start and
what with ?,well I am connected with the Aircraft restoration group
currently in North Yorkshire and very shortly to
move but more of that later. The Aircraft Restoration Group is a small band of
volunteers rebuilding old and historic
aircraft including things like Spitfires,Vampires etc ,etc.And have been doing
so for over 45 years.
A few years ago in
casual conversation I came accross equaly enthused guys discussing the Westland
Whirlwind fighter, the last time I had
anything to do with the Whirlwind was many,years ago as a boy with a model I
built and wondered why no one had saved one
for everyone to see.The idea then came if we are scratch building Spitfires etc
why cant we do a Whirlwind Fighter.??.
A few of us started
to excahnge this mad idea on the internet and emails flew around until on one
mad moment I said lets build one and we will supply
the where, but we needed the how as no drawings seemed to exist.This I where Stuart and
Chris came in and we managed to pursuade
Agusta Westland to not only speak to us but allow our mad idea to bloom by
giving us access to their archive and library.
Wow! but then to cut the story short we came accross 11 production drawings and
three wind tunnel models, Not excatly the
plans needed to build the aircraft.
The team expanded
with Matt and then Gunnar a CAD engineer and things really moved with also other
enthusiasts with various abilities all around
the world things started to come together.Sorry for not naming everyone involved
but they know who they are.
After over 18 months
of research and various virtual models etc production drawings started to appear
to enable materials to be cut. And so at the
begining of this year we started to cut patterns to double check everything was
going to fit and looked right, this I recomemend to
anyone on such a project as you find that once you cut hard patterns in thick
card etc in full size its then you start to
see bugs in the work you have and can then make modifications to bring the
planned structure into being and after a few modified
patterns we started to transfer from hard patterns to
aluminium.
In May we started to
get issues and rumblings that things where not well with ARG's
Landlord and we seemed to be being fenced in or
out.
Depending on your
view of the fencing etc being erected and also that applications had been made
for the site to redevelope for housing.This started to ring
alarm bells and a search began for a new location for our workshops and after an
initial dissapointment we came accross
Fishburn Airfield in County Durham just up the road from Sedgefield race
course.They have been most helpfull and offered us a new
site with a starter ten year lease and put up our own hanger.Having been very
lucky to come accross a world war 2 hanger
called a Romney at Doncaster it was dismantled and moved to storage at
Fishburn.Things began to become very uncomforatble
at our workshop and we had no option but to move all our aircraft workshops and
projects including the Whirlwind into
temporary storage Near to Ripon,but it meant we could not do much if any
work.
(By this time
a kit of parts for the rear fuselage had been cut and prepared to go into a
jig to assemble.)
Whilst all this was
going on we had planning applications in for our new hanger etc at Fishburn.If
anyone has every dealt with the various issues that
planning applications will raise will understand when I say the plot thickened
and it did so much as to be akin to trying to wade
through treacle wearing concrete overshoes and has taken over 6 months to
finally get all the permissions needed to now excavate the
hole and lay concrete to put the first building up for our historic aviation
centre.As has been said already the first building is
the workshops building and once that is up projects and tooling,materials etc
can move in and work can recommence on everything including
the Whirlwind.Hopefully we should be up and running by early April and open to
visitors who will be able to see the Whirlwind
rear fuselage going into jig and to start to take shape. Phase 2 is our main
Display hanger that will display the Whiwlrind once
complete along with other aircraft.
I hope to be able to
update again very soon with some more progress pictures of the aircraft and
finally we greatly appreciate your support it does not matter
if its just moral support but donation of materials contributions to our
registered charity or even if you are nearby actually come and
help put the aircraft together and be a part of it right at the sharp
end.
More to
follow.
Mike
E
We have had another visit from the Dept of Arm Waving
Further to my last, when I started to get an inkling of some pattern to the DH blade numbering system, below is my stab at what it all means.The table relates only to DH bracket-type blades, not Hydromatic equivalents or otherwise. It gets a little hazy around the smaller end of things (1, 2 and 3 series) and also the 6 series. But the middle bit, I am now confident of. I plotted some known examples without cheating (ie not looking at photos for reference, just using the numbers) and when I did check on the results I was pleasantly surprised! I'm including them here too.The key is where the widest part of the blade lies, as measured from the tip of the nominal design in each case. Of course the last digit alters where the real-life tip is. That's why it's been hard to work out backwards!
So to recap - 1st digit, prop type (5=alloy CP), 2nd digit = shank size, 3rd digit = position of broadest chord relative to tip, 4th digit = rotation PLUS MODIFIER TO INDICATE ROOT EXTENSION, and 5th digit = reduction in diameter by 'shaving' tip.
To explain the 4th digit - the basic system is 0 for RH and 5 for LH. But to indicate that the blade has been 'stretched' inboard of the widest point by multiples of 18 inches, another '1' is added, so the stretched RH's can be 1 or 2, and the stretched LH's can be 6 or 7.
I would be very happy for someone with a real blade to measure theirs and tell me this is wrong - but not as happy as I would be if they told me I was right!
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| Matt Bearman |
Whirly Stories
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| Copyright Richard J Cauana |
P7002
This Whirlwind joined 263 Squadron on the 13th of March 1941 while they were at St Eval and was given the Squadron code of HE-L, she suffered battle damage in August of that same year while beeing flown by Cliff Rudland. During November she went to Westland and then rejoined 263 at Charmy Down. On the 13th of December she suffered a tail wheel collapse and then went back to Westland for repair. During June 1942 she went to 18MU at Dumfries, from there she then joined 137 Squadron at Manston and carried the code of SF-W. In April she ditched in the sea just off Dungerness while being flown by Norbury Dugdale.
Operational hours 72:00hrs
Total flown hours 278:00
Sorry about the poor quality of the picture its the only profile that I have of P7002 and I have had to enlarge it a bit.
Many thanks to Rob Bowater for the above extract from his book, copies of which can be obtained direct from him at.
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| Signed print £25.00 plus P&P |
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| Beanie £12.00 plus P&P |
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| £9.00 plus P&P |
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| £6.00 plus P&P |
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| £16.70 plus P&P Various sizes. |
Contact chris-hayward@outlook.com
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| Copyright Westland Aircraft |
Copyright WFP 2011/2016
