Anyone like old aeroplanes?

A Junkers 52 just flew past my window! Swissair had a couple that it used for "nostalgia" flights (also a DC-3), and I think the "Tante Ju's" are owned by another company now. They operate out of Dübendorf military airfield, just a couple of km down the road. Makes a change from Tigers and FA-18s howling overhead.

 

That'll be one of these puppies then

http://www.preservedaxisaircraft.com/Luftwaffe/junkers/images/Ju52_HB-HOT.jpg

I have to admit I always had a thing for the old Dakotas

http://www.poynting.co.za/consulting/images/proj_dakota2.jpg

 

The very one.

 

Tones,

My old workshop was on an aerodrome, one of the guys in the hanger opposite me, used to keep,restore and diplay old Yak's, eastern blok trainers, mad things, radial engines, nosiy buggers but man could they move and areobatics The chap (scottish) took me up once, the floor is some form of perspex or such, I ask why is this so instant reply, "So I can see where I'm going, when I tumbling backwards" Very nice guy, Unfortunatley he died during a display in Dubi so years ago, in a microlite.

 

i live a few miles away from the shuttleworth collection in old warden. in the summer they do an airshow a month with lots of old bi-planes and a spitfire - the latter's merlin engine is my favorite sound ever as it blasts overhead at a few hundred feet.
they also have an extensive car collection as well.
cheers

julian

 

I'll always remember my work experience jaunt at Wolverhampton airport, speaking and working with a guy (I forget his name, its something unpronouncable and Polish but everyone calls him Genna) that flies a YAK-52, which us exactly the sort of thing wadia-meisters scottish friend used to fly (old radial engined soviet bloc training aircraft), going by w-ms description.

Wonderfully noisy I thought , and it was great watching it fly everyday, though I do remember one time he almost crashed it on landing whilst I was there (he came down a bit hard and severely bent the wheel on the undercarriage leg I went out with the fire crew to go and retrieve the remnants and various small chunks of soviet scrap from the runway).

On the last day I was there we had an RAF Chinook HC.2 come in for some fuel, but the helipad area at the airport is very crowded so he put it down in the main runway for 30 minutes (we closed the airfield for him and he was refuelled out there). The pilot paid for the fuel with an MoD funded credit card and let us have a look inside the chopper....really impressive piece of machinery the Chinook, given this happened to be the first time I'd seen one up close my first thoughts were 'bloody hell thats big!'

 

Spitfire

Chaps

I served an apprenticeship as an aircraft toolmaker with Vickers Ltd during the late sixties.

Spitfires were mainly manufactured at Castle Brom but for reasons of not putting all your eggs in one basket, they were also made at various sattelite factories throughout the country, including the Vickers factory where I worked.

We had a totally wrecked Spitfire delivered to the factory and over a period of about 4 years, the apprentices totally restored it to as new condition. It actually flew.

It was put on permanent display outside the factory until the early seventies when it was sold to a wealthy collector.

During the later part of my apprenticeship, I became a trainee Estimator and I was given a load of Spitfire drawings to cut my teeth on. I had to learn how to price an aircraft.

Two interesting snippets, the main factory had 958 suppliers and sub contractors and the cost was just under £4000.00 per aircraft.

Regards

Mick

 

Re: Spitfire

I always imagined those beautiful elliptical wings would be a nightmare to build. Beats me how Reginald Mitchell got away with it.

Apparently Mitchell's comment (shortly before his death) on being told that the Air Ministry had decided on the name "Spitfire" for his fighter was something to the effect of "just the sort of bl***y silly name they'd choose!"

 

Tones

Aircraft wing panels, like all panels are pressed into gentle or even severe curve by a machine called a rubber platten press. Once the tool is made, you can press any shape.

Another snippet, the wind resistance of a Spitfire was no more than an 18" diameter disc.

Regards

Mick

 

I'd always heard that the spitfire had a problem with lengthy inverted flight - something to do with fuel starvation. Don't know if this is true or not.

 

One of the problems in the Battle of Britain was apparently that the Merlin had carburettors, and turning a particular way could starve the engine. I've heard that Spitfire pilots counteracted this by throwing the plane a particular way before engaging in a dogfight. The Daimler engines of the Me109s were fuel-injected and didn't have the same problem - but they had only 10 minutes duration over England. The Luftwaffe looked at drop tanks (which were to be so effective for the USAAF's Mustangs later on) and rejected the idea. One can be lucky...

 

Re: Tones

I was thinking more of the internal spars on which the panels were fixed, Mick. I would have thought that that elliptical shape would have been a pain (as opposed to, say, the Hurricane wing, with its relatively straight lines).

 

Thanks tones. I found the answer while googling

Quote comes from http://www.spitfiresociety.demon.co.uk/engines.htm Worth a look.

I'll get my anorak

 

I suppose it depends on how old they are. I love the sound of the old pison engine aircraft, I was working at Coventry Airport a few years ago, they have a good collection of ex RAF planes. The sound of 4 x Merlins sparking into life on the Shackleton sent the hairs on the back of your neck tingling.

The trouble with old aeroplanes is they are old, but they still need to be maintained in an airworthy condition. This usually involves lots of structural close inspections, examnations and ultimately repairs. Dakota/DC-3's all that magnesium alloy ! Ahhh! these aircraft are practically disolvable, great old workhorses though, Air Atlantique still use some to very good effect from Coventry, still going strong after all these years ( some of them Film stars too!!).
I have spent a few thousand of hours carrying out structural repairs on old birds, dirty smelly shitty work ( but excellent for paying the bills, ) .

One of my favorite planes that I've worked on was the mighty Phantom F4 , a relative youngster from the 1960's and with those ghastly Jet engines . Even until quite recently it was one of only a handfull of Modern(ish) fighter jets with a higher than 1:1 power/weight ratio meaning it could go vertical and still accelerate. Sitting at the end of a runway watching one of those babies sit on its tail and 'go ballistic' was a sight for sore eyes. Even better when you've just spent the past two months taking it apart and putting it back together again for a big check/inspection- no nerves though when it goes for its test flight , all that training, proffessionalism and teamwork , what could possibly go wrong..........


Old planes,
Nah, been there, done that , give me a nice new, modern aircraft (like i work on at the moment) and i'm much happier.