Spitfire flies for first time in 55 years.

[Omegafanman]

Ok clickbait warning..... it is only a vintage Dinky 719.... but it does have a little internal battery powered DC motor which starts and stops by spinning the prop, which is cool (probably not allowed these days).
Dinky produced this Spitfire Mk11 model to coincide with the famous The 'Battle of Britain film' in 1969.
This one is all original and was owned by a pilot, who mounted it on a lovely metal stand. I took in in part exchange for a Tiger tank which seems apt. It all needed a good clean (still a bit to finish on the canopy and an exhaust to repair) but with the magic of my average PaintShop skills (note Prop blur is the real deal) it has taken to the air, and finally got a part in the movie. The motor has spluttered into life with some TLC, but I think that might need replacement. Just a bit of Thursday silliness. I was not aware of these, nice little model.
.

 

[sheepdoll]

The problem with having access to a nice laser cutter is I find interesting projects that would be fun to use it with.

Bot of a fan of the author Nevil Shute Norway. Years ago I considered building models of some of his areoplanes. He started writing Novels while working for Barns Walis calculating the stresses on the R100 zeppelin. Some say his Novels are plotted using Aircraft stress calculations.

Anyway the Merlin engine was developed for the Airships. There is something like perfection in it.

I had a toy model spitfire. Not sure why I like that design as much as anything. I also am a bit of a fan of the Dambusters theme song. Film is a bit rough about the edges. B. Wallis knew how to design planes. Curiously he and Shute had a falling out. Shute sold the film rights to his Novels to MGM, and never had to work again after WWII. After the war Shute Emigrated to Austraila, and possibly created the Aussie film industry. Biographically these guys would not cut it in this day and age. Some of their work come across as a bit racist.

Curiously Geoffery de Havilid was Joan and Olivia's aunt. Shute's other partner Tiltman's brother helped found MI6 and the CIA. (Codebreaking) Amazing how such were all connected. Not sure he ever crossed paths with Turing, although they both went to the same preparatory school. Although Shute was there during WWI.

I have a folder on my backup drive, full of every tech detail I can get on some of these old plains. Thanks to YT and other timewasters like Expedition Unknown on HBO max and the PBS documentary package on Prime and netflix, there are plenty of vids where someone rebuilds these from a few rusty pars. Much how I like to build watches and pipe organs. Downside it there are always parts missing and the documentaries seem to be written for 10 year olds and think the viewers are idiots.

Had to make a choice years ago, if it would be boats, Airplanes, or Watches. The watches won out. I did drift into pipe organs. There is still that little nag where I want to scratch build a plane. Probably an Airspeed Courier, which was the civilian model of the Airspeed Oxford trainer.


I always find it interesting how a lot of the pre war stuff was built out of wood. Even some of the fighter plains used wood in places or were basically metal versions of wooden designs.

At the time of writing this OF is supposed to go off for a major upgrade. I hope it comes back online before I start programming WWII plains into the laser cutter ...

 

[ghce]

sheepdoll

The problem with having access to a nice laser cutter is I find interesting projects that would be fun to use it with.

Bot of a fan of the author Nevil Shute Norway. Years ago I considered building models of some of his areoplanes. He started writing Novels while working for Barns Walis calculating the stresses on the R100 zeppelin. Some say his Novels are plotted using Aircraft stress calculations.

Anyway the Merlin engine was developed for the Airships. There is something like perfection in it.

I had a toy model spitfire. Not sure why I like that design as much as anything. I also am a bit of a fan of the Dambusters theme song. Film is a bit rough about the edges. B. Wallis knew how to design planes. Curiously he and Shute had a falling out. Shute sold the film rights to his Novels to MGM, and never had to work again after WWII. After the war Shute Emigrated to Austraila, and possibly created the Aussie film industry. Biographically these guys would not cut it in this day and age. Some of their work come across as a bit racist.

Curiously Geoffery de Havilid was Joan and Olivia's aunt. Shute's other partner Tiltman's brother helped found MI6 and the CIA. (Codebreaking) Amazing how such were all connected. Not sure he ever crossed paths with Turing, although they both went to the same preparatory school. Although Shute was there during WWI.

I have a folder on my backup drive, full of every tech detail I can get on some of these old plains. Thanks to YT and other timewasters like Expedition Unknown on HBO max and the PBS documentary package on Prime and netflix, there are plenty of vids where someone rebuilds these from a few rusty pars. Much how I like to build watches and pipe organs. Downside it there are always parts missing and the documentaries seem to be written for 10 year olds and think the viewers are idiots.

Had to make a choice years ago, if it would be boats, Airplanes, or Watches. The watches won out. I did drift into pipe organs. There is still that little nag where I want to scratch build a plane. Probably an Airspeed Courier, which was the civilian model of the Airspeed Oxford trainer.


I always find it interesting how a lot of the pre war stuff was built out of wood. Even some of the fighter plains used wood in places or were basically metal versions of wooden designs.

At the time of writing this OF is supposed to go off for a major upgrade. I hope it comes back online before I start programming WWII plains into the laser cutter ...

Make me one of these if your laser can cut it ( mostly all wood and fabric).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Mosquito

 

[sheepdoll]

Yeah it is high on the list.

You can see how it evolved from the Airspeed Oxford. And other racing arircraft of the age.




I keep wanting to get the vacuum former out of storage and take it to the makerspace.

Used to frequent the Titanic Researcher Modlers Association (TRMA) before they went all face book. Actually I really want to make the Endurance, which sits at th e bottom of the Weddel sea. Not sure why like others I got so fixated on the Titanic. Was a good group for scratch builders. The big tits is sort of like rolex in the ship modling world. I think though the guys got to old to maintain the site. Too bad in a way as they felt like friends.

Never got that feel from the areo site.

The fiber laser does look really good for cutting some of the metal parts.

Did join some airplane (plans sites) and created passwords to download the plans. Wonder if the account still works?

Not sure what I would do with a model. I have Mariner 9 in a box,. St Paul's sat on top of the fridge for decades ( I used to collect cathedrals)

At least watches are small and do not take up a lot of space.

Funny how scratch building and dial making (decals) and such have so much in common.

Wonder if I could trade obscure areo models for watches?

I have a crashed drone somewhere in one of the boxes o- stuff. So have a couple electric engines ...

There really are not enough hours in the day, and I really do have between 500 and 2000 years of interests, I never asked to be a polymath it just sort of happened.

Brigadoon time yet?

 

[gbesq]

The Supermarine Spitfire was among the best fighters produced during its era. It was fast, agile, could get off the ground quickly and carried formidable armament. More than 20,000 were made and only a handful remain in flying condition today. German bomber crews were terrified of it and German fighter pilots didn’t fare much better.

 

[sheepdoll]

Nevil Shute Norway let it slip into some of his novels that they were interviewing pilots who may have broken the sound barrier. Usually the wings came off, but a few survived. He hid a lot of secrets in his novels. In real life he was basically Q. designing all sorts of big and tall gadgets. From P.L.U.T.O. to Radio controlled drones, to the spy gadgets Felming and other used. Curious how Shute(Norway) Dahl, and Flemming all became authors. I think Dr Seuss (Gisele.) was also involved in some of this stuff.

Acorrding to one doco the wings of the spifire were what made is so fast.

One more set of photos before Brigadoon time how these airframes were put together.



Not sure where I found these photos. Amazing tech. And when one reads (Norway's) Novels, these folk had really big egos. (or not.)

And for a really interesting story look up Amy Johnson. 'Shute' was infatuated with her and probably based characters on her. Everyone thinks it was Amelia Earhart. But it was was many others forgotten who got the job done.

Funny to think AI now is what Aircraft design was like 100 years ago.

People will be so like they used <whatever> in AI how crude? Or people could do amazing things without all these rules and regulations.

Just think, using these designs and a Laser cutter or CNC router, you too could have an IKEA like flat pack airplane.

The same tech is also used to build piano and pipe organs. There were also people like James Ferguson who carved watches out of wood. I am sure there were wooden versions of the Antkythera device, Which I was also thinking of cutting on the laser.

Anyway. See you on the other side.

 

[ghce]

sheepdoll

Yeah it is high on the list.

You can see how it evolved from the Airspeed Oxford. And other racing arircraft of the age.




I keep wanting to get the vacuum former out of storage and take it to the makerspace.

Used to frequent the Titanic Researcher Modlers Association (TRMA) before they went all face book. Actually I really want to make the Endurance, which sits at th e bottom of the Weddel sea. Not sure why like others I got so fixated on the Titanic. Was a good group for scratch builders. The big tits is sort of like rolex in the ship modling world. I think though the guys got to old to maintain the site. Too bad in a way as they felt like friends.

Never got that feel from the areo site.

The fiber laser does look really good for cutting some of the metal parts.

Did join some airplane (plans sites) and created passwords to download the plans. Wonder if the account still works?

Not sure what I would do with a model. I have Mariner 9 in a box,. St Paul's sat on top of the fridge for decades ( I used to collect cathedrals)

At least watches are small and do not take up a lot of space.

Funny how scratch building and dial making (decals) and such have so much in common.

Wonder if I could trade obscure areo models for watches?

I have a crashed drone somewhere in one of the boxes o- stuff. So have a couple electric engines ...

There really are not enough hours in the day, and I really do have between 500 and 2000 years of interests, I never asked to be a polymath it just sort of happened.

Brigadoon time yet?

Hello from one Polymath to another, sadly you don't get much choice on who you are, what you find easy and interesting others find intimidating and impossible.
I started very young building and designing things and that progressed into working life with designing and building and moving from one project to another, in the end I decided you really needed to throw in a large dollop of laziness or you would forever be frustrated by the world and those around you for not seeing the obvious.
In recent years ( very recent ) I have decided that what should be done is just one big huge all consuming project < insert Howard Hughes in here >.
Unfortunately no one lives forever and the clock will eventually run out and no matter which way you look at it there will be a large pool of unfinished projects.

 

[BrokenSkunk]

R.J. Mitchell was a resident of my home town, Southampton, and Spifire production was local. We have an aircraft museum named after the great man.

Production was at a factory in Woolston on the banks of the river Itchen. However it was frequently bombed, so production was distibuted to workshops all over the city and the surrounding areas.

Southampton was hit hard during the blitz. We're very easy to find by air, simply fly across the channel, find the Isle of Wight, fly north up Southampton water and the city is in the middle, at the point where Southampton water forks into two rivers (the Test and the Itchen). Take a look at a map and you'll see what I mean. The blackout didn't really help hide the city, in much the same way that London was found by flying Westward along the Thames until you come to the charateristic wiggle.

The Supermarine factory was pretty much at the fork in Southampton Water, close to the site of the 1970's built Itchen Bridge.

The Spitfire itself was modified from / based upon an aircraft built to compete in the Schnider Trophy, a seaplane race.

Lastly, in very loosely Spitfire related Trivia, check out "Spitfire" by Public Service Broadcasting. "Funny sort of bird. All in one."

 

[sheepdoll]

Nevil Shute predicted the Southampton bombing in his novel 'What Happened to the Corbits.' Gave him a reputation for being prescient which he exploited later in life.

Curiously there is also a Southampton bay across the straights from us in Benicia. Every Thursday evening the Sailboats come out for a regatta or something. The straights are really busy with shipping, Tankers, Bulk carriers and car carriers etc. It can be interesting to watch the small boats dodge the big ships.

Farther Up the Straights is Port Chicago, which was the only place where the Continental US saw large scale explosive destruction. Two ammo ships exploded. Hard to imagine the bombings. The town was abandoned in the early 1960s when the navy took over the side.

 

[sheepdoll]

OK: I thouroghly wasted the morning.

and

Somehow I do not think I will build a merlin from used watch parts. I was up half the night reading this thread:

https://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/threads/quarter-scale-merlin-v-12.24153/

I only made it to page 10

 

[ghce]

sheepdoll

OK: I thouroghly wasted the morning.

and

Somehow I do not think I will build a merlin from used watch parts. I was up half the night reading this thread:

https://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/threads/quarter-scale-merlin-v-12.24153/

I only made it to page 10

It's only a waste of you don't build one

Great videos! As they say the Mosquito really was the unsung hero with other planes getting the love whilst the Mosquito did all the hard work.

Well at least you made it to page 10, just 37 more to go.
1/4 scale? With all that effort why not build a full scale. Just joking of course, imagine the hours invested in one of those, mind-blowing.

 

[Scarecrow Boat]

ghce

1/4 scale? With all that effort why not build a full scale.

Pretty sure that’s what Peter Arnold said when he took upon this project in his garage

 

[ghce]

Scarecrow Boat

Pretty sure that’s what Peter Arnold said when he took upon this project in his garage

That's just nuts! Commendable but nuts.


Just think of the various captions you could put on that photo such as " look Marge, see what I found at the local boot sale"

Or " Some men drive bigger cars because ........"

Edited: Aug 25, 2024

 

[hen]

Scarecrow Boat

Pretty sure that’s what Peter Arnold said when he took upon this project in his garage

So glad people like this exists, they are saving a lot of herittage. Either planes, trains or automobiles.

 

[Omegafanman]

@sheepdoll Ref Barnes Wallis some people forget (and as usual the UK failed to fund) his many other insights which probably influenced planes like the Panavia Tornado. He was one of our visionary engineering inventors leading to the world’s first production swing-wing combat aircraft, the F-111 Aardvark, with American money of course as UK was bankrupt (again ;0)…. Or was it UK money from the war bonds 🤔

Ref the Mosquito build how about 1:1 scale…. With public help it will fly in the UK again.
https://www.peoplesmosquito.org.uk/

 

[sheepdoll]

Do not tempt me. (Actually I do not really have the room for even a small model.) And I still want an Envoy/Oxford.

There is also an article here https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/secret-mosquito-180967119/ which is more technical, although the larger images do not load for me. I was curious how many might still be flyable. Seems this project has be around for a while.

What I always find fascinating is how many women built and flew these planes as part of the manufacture. I suspect over regulation and perceived "public safety." makes a lot of this sort of thing unaffordable.

Spent last week re reading Nevil Shute's "Rainbow and the Rose." Interesting how I can now look up (and even hear the sounds described) of the aircraft mentioned. Like many Shute books it improves with age and re reading, although his dated social attitudes often get in the way. This one dealing with illegitimacy, where a child was hidden rather than face the truth. Like many men Shute idealizes some women and totally trashes others. Still his efforts were to empower women and show that they were capable within the rules of the day. A lot of this covers the same era as his Autobiographical "Slide Rule" which I also re read (and mentions mosquitos.)

Interesting enough, One of the characters in Rainbow and the Rose, builds model airplanes with his kids.

Fair warning: do not click on the you tube "Jelly Fish Machine." Like the fictional Keith Stewart in "Trustee from the Toolroom." he builds scale model areo engines and others. Trustee is my favorite book and lead me to watch collecting (Even if the maguffin is a clock) Turns out that is world which much exists and my mentor in the 1990s much like the character therein.. Although it would be better today if banker's and accountants did such a hobby during evenings and weekends.

 

[Omegafanman]

sheepdoll

Do not tempt me. (Actually I do not really have the room for even a small model.) And I still want an Envoy/Oxford.

There is also an article here https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/secret-mosquito-180967119/ which is more technical, although the larger images do not load for me. I was curious how many might still be flyable. Seems this project has be around for a while.

What I always find fascinating is how many women built and flew these planes as part of the manufacture. I suspect over regulation and perceived "public safety." makes a lot of this sort of thing unaffordable.

Spent last week re reading Nevil Shute's "Rainbow and the Rose." Interesting how I can now look up (and even hear the sounds described) of the aircraft mentioned. Like many Shute books it improves with age and re reading, although his dated social attitudes often get in the way. This one dealing with illegitimacy, where a child was hidden rather than face the truth. Like many men Shute idealizes some women and totally trashes others. Still his efforts were to empower women and show that they were capable within the rules of the day. A lot of this covers the same era as his Autobiographical "Slide Rule" which I also re read (and mentions mosquitos.)

Interesting enough, One of the characters in Rainbow and the Rose, builds model airplanes with his kids.

Fair warning: do not click on the you tube "Jelly Fish Machine." Like the fictional Keith Stewart in "Trustee from the Toolroom." he builds scale model areo engines and others. Trustee is my favorite book and lead me to watch collecting (Even if the maguffin is a clock) Turns out that is world which much exists and my mentor in the 1990s much like the character therein.. Although it would be better today if banker's and accountants did such a hobby during evenings and weekends.

The Oxford is a lovely plane and had a distinguished war record. I think WC Guy Gibson may have crashed in once once but I need to check that.
Back to Mosquitos and restoration, this chap (Tony Agar) spent 40 years building one. It will never fly but at least now runs and is well looked after and loved at the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage centre. These pics are from Sept last year. His is an amazing story of dedication which has left a nice legacy for future generations. He is a very modest fellow / nice chap as well.:-

After nearly 40 years, the restoration has become Tony's life work. Tony has truly created something very rare and exceptional, all without any financial backing. It's difficult to comprehend the amazing lengths to which he has gone to over the years to find and obtain so many essential elements. Scrap yards, crash sites, disused airfields, industrial warehouses and with the generosity of many aviation enthusiasts and friends, parts have been obtained from Canada, America, New Zealand and Australia. All combined to provide the vast array of parts. Even the most ardent aviation enthusiast will be amazed at the great resourcefulness, single minded determination shown by Tony throughout this restoration, overcoming personal tragedy, almost impossible logistical problems, scrimping, saving, scrounging, bartering, rummaging and working very long hours and sometimes in very discouraging conditions.

https://www.lincsaviation.co.uk/lots-to-see/aircraft/mosquito