Short Stirling & RAF Bomber Command Forum

Somewhat dear to me - the profile of the front part of the wing at the fuselage pretty much perpendicular.

(Anyone have the originals of this pic????)

Capture some stills from 'Speed up on Stirlings' the leading edge where the fuel tank is often seems to have a flat upper front edge instead of the normal smooth curve.


James

James, those are excellent!

And quite sufficient to work on - which I will do tomorrow.

I agree that the part of the underside where the bomb bays are definitely looks flat. The slight curvature on the wing photo is down to perspective due to camera position, but aft of the bays is the evidence I need... a definite upward curve with the upper curve less pronounced than the true Goettingen 436 section.
What the designers evidently did was to lift the trailing edge, adjusting the section to be more like the Clark YH used on Hawker Hurricane and Henley (and no doubt others - I know about these as I have been drawing up a Henley for the last couple of months) to reduce some of the trim differential with speed variation. They gave it some reflexing like used on flying wings - but less pronounced of course.

I am relieved to find that all the peering into under-wing darkness I did, from which I estimated some upward curvature aft of the rear spar was not in vain after all!

I will enjoy trying to work out a reconciliation tomorrow - after a good night's sleep (I hope).

Thank you so much for going to all this trouble for me. Mission accomplished!
Robin

Ah... The old Clark YH trim differential variation eh? .... you should have said ...... I'd have put this one up before if you had!

(This is the only photo I've ever seen where you can read the text on the trailing edge!!)


James

This one is nice and bright under the wing - just a little clipped though.

I've been looking at these myself for a while now and can see that there is quite a lot of metal work just to flare the wing into the fuselage.

James

James,
Thank you again!
Particularly that last one could have saved quite a few modelling errors. As you say so light under the wing - and above come to that - you wouldn't guess that the colours were actually dark green and brown... or black underneath.
But there's something odd in the background... surely not a 'Stuka' by the port wheel?? I can't think of a British type that had that look... or the wide-track undercarriaged fighter type seen behind it under the fuselage. One of the Martin-Baker prototypes maybe?
Curious!

Anyway the extraction of wing outlines was my first self-appointed task this morning and I am now content that I have the section reasonably close... and actually quite hard to tell apart from the section I originally guessed. Unfortunately I had to use my CorelDraw program and having suffered a computer crash a month back I am not able to convert my worksheets to any format I could upload here. Quite a few useful programs got lost in going onto Windows 7. A few I have managed to rescue but it's an ongoing story.

Thank you for your ministrations! - I can only guess at the wealth of information you must have at your fingertips!
Robin

Hi Robin

It's not black undersides, this aircraft is one of the first batch that had yellow painted undersides although they latterly were overpainted black. Not sure what that aircraft is by the wheel although I have a HD copy of this photo somewhere which might give more of a clue

John L

Quite so John - I wasn't thinking straight at that point... much more concerned about the other presences on the field!

That presumably puts this photo pre war when a German type would not be expected to be present - even if this is at an R&D establishment.
Do you know where it was taken?

Robin

Having just received some airborne shots of the model I thought I would put a few that are unlikely to form part of any future publication article here. Hopefully you will enjoy them for whatever they are worth.

I am still having troubles with the retract system although I am much closer to a final solution now.

ALso I just had a week in Suffolk and managed to visit Parham at last. I was delighted to find that not everything there is B-17. The field was also used by returning machines that were damaged in action and on display (apart from a B-24 rudder) are a pair of Stirling tailwheels and the dorsal turret from an early Mk.I.

No doubt the Stirling Project are aware of the existance of these?!

Robin

Hello Robin, I put together some 'stills' from the production movie, you may find some images helpful.
Cheers,
John
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2149&hilit=short+st ... production

Hi Robin

Thanks for that, we are aware of those parts plus a few more that are there. Thankfully we've already got a pair of tail oleos and an FN7 cupola

John L