Nice! Wonder if all that glass in the Avro cockpit made the crew more vulnerable to flak.

Damn, that Vulcan was a beautiful aircraft! I remember seeing a slow pass by one at Farnborough, then at the end of the runway it pulled up in a near vertical climb.
Peter.

I got caught up watching the props go in and out of sync

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
Damn, that Vulcan was a beautiful aircraft! I remember seeing a slow pass by one at Farnborough, then at the end of the runway it pulled up in a near vertical climb.
Peter.

Had one in Calgary once, for an air show. What struck me was just how high off the ground it was, not to mention the unorthodox shape for a big aircraft.

Grizz

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
Nice! Wonder if all that glass in the Avro cockpit made the crew more vulnerable to flak.

You mean Versus all the thin "bulletproof" aluminum skin?

I'd expect the "Perspex" would slow steel shards from flak better than the 1/16"
aluminum would...

Good point Allan. Didn't realize the aluminum was that thin. Makes the danger from flak much more real!
My late uncle, a tailgunner in a B-17, was wounded by flak over Germany, but not severely.

Non-pressurized aircraft, even large ones like a Lancaster
have the thickest aluminum skin on the wing surfaces
(an area that must not deform in use)

While the fuselage on most modern aircraft is "Stressed skin" monocoque structure the Lancasters large unobstructed bomb bay is not possible without fatally compromising an unframed structure.
Therefore since it had to carry the weight of that framing a heavy skin was weight that no engineer wanted to use engine power lifting into the sky in place of fuel or bombs.

So the Lancasters strength comes from it's internal framing

weight is obviously very critical on something that is supposed to fly, but especially so on what was at the time a long-range heavy bomber....

Basically if it wasn't "Payload" (either fuel or bombs) you wanted it to be lighter.

Modern aircraft have much thicker skins because they are generally pressurized...

OR have "wet wings" where the wing skins are the actual walls of the fuel tanks.

Quick Trivia question:

What was the first production aircraft to have modern "Wet Wings"? (in the conventional modern sense of the term)

quote:

Originally posted by Allan DeGroot:
Non-pressurized aircraft, even large ones like a Lancaster
have the thickest aluminum skin on the wing surfaces
(an area that must not deform in use)

While the fuselage on most modern aircraft is "Stressed skin" monocoque structure the Lancasters large unobstructed bomb bay is not possible without fatally compromising an unframed structure.
Therefore since it had to carry the weight of that framing a heavy skin was weight that no engineer wanted to use engine power lifting into the sky in place of fuel or bombs.

So the Lancasters strength comes from it's internal framing

weight is obviously very critical on something that is supposed to fly, but especially so on what was at the time a long-range heavy bomber....

Basically if it wasn't "Payload" (either fuel or bombs) you wanted it to be lighter.

Modern aircraft have much thicker skins because they are generally pressurized...

OR have "wet wings" where the wing skins are the actual walls of the fuel tanks.

Quick Trivia question:

What was the first production aircraft to have modern "Wet Wings"? (in the conventional modern sense of the term)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aircrew loss was way higher in Lancasters than B 17s, because the designers cheaped out on the dimensions of the escape hatches from the aircraft, which made it very difficult to egress in an emergency.

Grizz

I know next to nothing about crew egress hatches and procedures from a Lancaster.

On a B-17 the easiest positions to escape from
are the waist gun positions, the radio Operator
and the tail gun position

The tail gunner has his own escape hatch and is probably the
easiest and fastest way out of a B-17 in an emergency.

On a B-17 most of the crew egresses through the bomb bay and these
positions are closest to the Bomb bay


The ball turret gunner was both the most likely to be killed by flak or fighter gunfire
and the least likely to escape, because of the tight confines of the gun position most ball
turret gunners left their parachute in the fuselage, (a bad choice between the parachute and a flak suit)
so they'd either have to climb out of
the turret back into the fuselage recover their chute then egress the aircraft or drop out of
their turret without the chute... Two gunners did exactly that and subsequently survived their
fall from >30,000ft... (through "fluke" circumstances, and not without injury)

One survived through falling in a ballistic arc down a hillside through snow covered spruce
trees which gradually slowed his fall, though not enough to prevent him breaking his legs

This last proves that something very unlikely can happen if there are enough tries at it...

I seem to recall a Stewardess survived the midair explosion of a jet airliner in the 1960's
more or less the same way

Just found this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlvJBmDlfEY

Bournemouth 2014. Posted in August 2014. The wingover at the end is pretty cool.
Peter

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
Just found this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlvJBmDlfEY

Bournemouth 2014. Posted in August 2014. The wingover at the end is pretty cool.
Peter

CWHM belongs to these guys.

http://www.warplane.com/

A lot of effort and money has gone into restoring this plane to flying condition. Just flying it over to take part in the tour was a major accomplishment. Wanna see it, just visit the museum at the Hamilton airport after they bring her home

Grizz

Thanks, I did not know that.
Peter.

Had the pleasure of seing the old girl back home at the Canadian War Plane museum in Hamilton, last week. Quite an accomplishment for a 70 year old plane.



The marvelous Merlin that makes her fly.




Grizz