Litvyak's profiles

[Litvyak]

So a bit of a teaser of a work in progress... figuring out how to do terrain the way maps do, cuz I want to do a BCAA road map of Utari Mosir, figured the smallest uninhabited island would be a good place to try my hand... this is Broughton Island (aka ostrov Broutona/остров Броутона aka Buroton-tō/武魯頓島), northernmost island of Utari Mosir. Got all the ridge lines in, and doing the shading on the east side of Mount Broughton, side by side with the RW topo map... I think I'm on the right track?

I'll tell you right now, though, this is going to be a decidedly long term project!

[apophenia]

... I'll tell you right now, though, this is going to be a decidedly long term project!

It does look like great fun, though! And, when you're done, few others (at least, in our neck of the woods) will know those islands the way you do 

[Litvyak]

So I've got the small and easy map done - the three uninhabited islands, Broughton Island, Chirpoy, and Lesser Chirpoy. I rather like how the mountains turned out, especially Chirpoy - I think I did a decent job of representing the topography there, but I'm sure they'll get even better as I go along doing the other islands... slowly.



I used the AAA road maps that I became all too familiar with on summer family road trips all around the States as a kid/teen on navigator duty for my dad as an inspiration/guide... wanted to give the feel of a map you'd pull out of the glovebox when stopped at a layby or a roadside service centre for a coffee and sandwich. I'd appreciate any feedback on ways to improve it, that I can incorporate into the next maps when I tackle them!

Edit to add: forgot to mention - the scale is 53 pixels to a statute mile, so each pixel is appx 100 feet.

[Litvyak]

Well a happy realisation, having finally found a bit of AAA map online that shows a mountainous area, I don't actually need to draw the mountain topography for the road maps... this simplifies things a lot. So I went ahead and reworked the previous map to give a more AAA design feel to it, too...

[Frank3k]

You can also "borrow"or copy the style from Google maps. They have a terrain display option that does both elevation and shading.

[Litvyak]

So here's one a bit more interesting - the island of Shikotan. The roads almost all follow existing roads and tracks marked on the 1950s-era topo maps I used as a basis to draw this, the settlements are all in location where settlements existed; names are from the original Ainu names that were Japanicised. Names of mountains and other geographical features are either Ainu names, or if the Japanese name wasn't of Ainu origin - then a (loose) translation from the Japanese.



I also reworked the legend... and now that I'm posting this, I see I need to fix the northern part of the highway, between Notoro and East Shakotan... which I did, and uploaded the new version to my wiki, but seems that the board doesn't want to remove the old one from its cache and is still showing that instead of the new one. Suffice to say between Notoro and Shakotan, outside of city limits Hwy 89 is a divided highway.

[apophenia]

Impressive work! So much detail when a glance at Google Maps' version of Shikotan shows not a single settlement (not even Malokurilsk) or road.

I note that oligarch/ex-KGB/IT guy Eugene Kaspersky called the island "Shikotan – the Kuril New Zealand" in his blog. I kind of like that. In your universe, BC gets a mini-NZ of its very own 

[perttime]

Google Satellite view does show roads and industrial looking towns. I only spotted one marked helipad but there could be another.

[Litvyak]

Impressive work! So much detail when a glance at Google Maps' version of Shikotan shows not a single settlement (not even Malokurilsk) or road.

Thanks - it's a huge help having the old US military topos to work with, these are from 1954 and it cites on it being based off the 1915 Imperial Land Survey maps and 1922 and 1924 USHO charts - looking at satellite views there's precious little trace visible of most of it. It wouldn't be too difficult to figure out where to put settlements, but having the roads and trails marked is a huge help over having to "survey" new routes on maps...

I note that oligarch/ex-KGB/IT guy Eugene Kaspersky called the island "Shikotan – the Kuril New Zealand" in his blog. I kind of like that. In your universe, BC gets a mini-NZ of its very own 

Yeah, my initial thoughs had been that UM is kinda a low-population backwater, well on the whole I've changed that having realised it's more than just a foot in the door of Asia, it's a whole leg... and Shikotan in specific, I figured being so immediately adjacent to Japan would mean a lot of Japanese going to UM under the NSA rules would probably have gone for there. Also it has a history of agriculture, and... yeah. I think the only reason the Kurils are as deserted as they are is because the Soviets took them. So with this new approach Urup is still the relative backwater, Shikotan is the most densely populated, both have around 17,000 but Shikotan is 300/sqmi and Urup is 31.9/sq mi - and 12k of Urup's 17k are in the south in the city of Urup.

What's really interesting is that the northernmost point of Urup is further south than Race Rocks, and yet even Shikotan gets winter sea ice - I suspect those winter-season flights from Shana to Saipan get plenty of passengers looking for some sun!

Google Satellite view does show roads and industrial looking towns. I only spotted one marked helipad but there could be another.

Yeah there are two settlements on Shikotan as it is, Malokurilsk (Shakotan) the bigger one in the north, and Krabozavodskoye (Anama) the smaller one... I wonder if there was more before the big quake of 1994, that did destroy a fair bit on the island, if I've understood things right only one of the fish plants were reopened, two were basically destroyed.

[perttime]

Looks as if some roads just end between the hills where I cannot see any signs of activity.

[Litvyak]

Welp, my year in Ghana is at an end, I'm flying out tonight, and after I finished packing I finished this map of Urup... last one for a while, as August promises to be stupidly busy...

[Litvyak]

Felt like doing something, so decided to work on more Trident 7A liveries.



Northwest Territorial Airways, styled NWT Air after controlling interest was acquired by Air Canada, acquired a single Trident 7A from Pacific Western in 1992, initially receiving the airline's then-current livery. Air Canada introduced a new livery in 1994, of which variants were devised for all subsidiaries, including NWT Air. C-GNWD was repainted in 1995, and carried this livery until 2000, when it was sold to Estafeta Carga Aιrea of Mexico.



SAETA of Ecuador bought a single Trident 7A from Varig of Brazil in 1981. Repainted by VARIG prior to delivery to Ecuador, it was repainted into SAETA's new livery in 1993, retaining it until its retirement in 2000.


SAHSA of Honduras acquired two Trident 7As from All Nippon Airways in 1981, to which fleet a third was added from Pacific Western in 1987. All three wore this variant of SAHSA's standard livery, which added a green line under the window band. HR-SHG was retired in 1990, HR-SHF was sold to Blue Air Lines of DR Congo in 1991, and HR-SHE seen here was retired in 1991.

[Litvyak]

The Trident 7B was a stretched version of the 7A introduced in 1968, with a fuselage extension of 8 ft 11 in that increased the maximum passenger capacity from 147 to 180. In most other respects it was identical to the 7A, including the use of HAE-built RR Medway RB141-3 engines, but the range was reduced from 2,300 to 1,981 nmi and the V_MO was slightly slower, at 512 kt for the 7B vice 529 kt for the 7A.

[apophenia]

Good to see you back in action, Xen!

And loving these liveries 

Probably OT but have you ever considered a Trident airliner update akin to the Avro 776 MPA (ie: powered by twin RB.177 high-bypass turbofans)?

[Litvyak]

I'd never heard about the Avro 776 until now (I only have the "Fighters and Bombers 1933-1950" volume of "British Secret Projects") - and I'm intrigued! I do have in the documents an MPA proposed by DHBC based on the DHBC-5 Swan (HS.748 analogue), which was an in-house project conceived by DHBC as a "low cost" supplement to the Canadair Argus; it was ultimately not taken up by the RBCN FAA, and the single prototype had the ASW equipment removed and was taken on by the Royal BC Constabulary for the coastal patrol role. But now I'm intrigued by this idea. The Argus was retired in 1984, after which its function (previously shared with Vulcan B.2(MRR) and the DHBC-8 Merganser (BC-built Shin Meiwa US-1) was filled by the DHBC-8 alone. But now I'm wondering if perhaps Trident-based MP (and maybe AEW and ELINT) aircraft might not be a good idea.

These would all have to be rebuilt from civilian Tridents, as now that I've finally finished the complete DHBC serial numbers list the addition of new airframes to the list would entail entirely too much work - unless I reassign some of the c/ns to these military variants: from the first Bluebird to the last Kehloke DHBC built 3,270 aircraft, this number is set in stone! *unless*... I suppose I could add numbers in the late 1980s/early 1990s: after 1987 there were only Kehlokes built, and there wouldn't be too much to change in the numbering, if we add a few built in 1991-1993. This also gets me wondering about the effects of the sale of DHBC to Boeing on these military Tridents; I wonder if Boeing would've been alright with the Trident's type certificates going to Supermarine as a condition of the sale... well I suppose they'll have to be. I doubt Supermarine would build any new complete Tridents, but they'd then be responsible for supporting the existing ones, keeping that function in BC, which is an important consideration for a military type...

Off the cuff I'm thinking the Trident 7D would be the best option: about 39 m long (precise length not yet determined: for the record, my Trident drawings are all done to a scale of 1 pixel per inch), max 147Y, longest range of all the Trident variants at 2,500 nmi, and powered with the RB141-4, built from 1972 to 1983: ideal range in time for looking at replacements for the Argus as the land-based MPA, and still deep in the Cold War, and I'm sure MOD (and APTO in general) would be quite happy to have an ELINT/EW variant of the Trident to fly out of RBCAF Uwenpet on Iturup... if we replace the Argus on a 1-for-1 basis with the Trident MPA that's 8... up that to 10 or 12, add 4 or 6 ELINT/EW versions, maybe sell a couple of the latter to ROCAF (or arrange like the NATO E-3s with Luxembourg, and give the APTO ones to HK)... 14 can easily be arranged (PWAL and IDAL each lose 3 in 1979, CP Air loses 6 in 1981-83, Western loses 2 in 1982)... some AEW ones could be rebuilt from second-hand airframes later, zero-houred by Supermarine?

Okay, I think I have something to work with here!

As an aside, I have another idea swimming in my head - not even as far as a name yet - for a replacement for the Spitfire II: a multinational project (BC [Supermarine]/Japan [Kawasaki]/Primoria [Sukhoi-Komsomolsk] and others, maybe South Korea, Australia, UK?) for a 6th-gen VTOL fighter, probably with both manned and unmanned variants...

[Litvyak]

So here's the full Trident (civilian) family of variants.

Variant	Max pax1	FAA exit limit	Length	Wingspan	Height	Powerplant	VMO	Range
Trident 7A	147Y	170	124' 11"	98' 0"	28' 3"	HAE (RR) Medway RB141-3	529	2,300 nmi
Trident 7B	177Y	225	143' 0"	98' 0"	28' 3"	HAE (RR) Medway RB141-3	512	1,980 nmi
Trident 7C	159Y	225	136' 7"	98' 0"	28' 3"	HAE (RR) Medway RB141-4	523	2,270 nmi
Trident 7D	147Y	225	133' 5"	98' 0"	28' 3"	HAE (RR) Medway RB141-4	523	2,500 nmi
Trident 7E	189Y	225	147' 5"	101' 7"	28' 3"	HAE (RR) Medway RB141-4	523	2,180 nmi
Trident 8	189Y	265	150' 8"	101' 7"	29' 11"	P&W JT8D-209	523	2,380 nmi

1. Single-class layout with 31" seat pitch
RB141-3: RR Medway further developed by Hoffar Aero Engines for the Trident project, 16,000 lbf thrust
RB141-4: Medway further improved by HAE, 17,100 lbf thrust
JT8D-209: 18,900 lbf thrust

The 7A, 7B, 7C, and 7D differ in structure primarily in terms of their length; they share the same wing and empennage; 7B, 7D, and 7D add an aft door, increasing their FAA exit limit to 225 (though it's exceedingly unlikely anyone would ever try to cram so many inside one). Aside from that, the primary difference between the 7A and 7B on the one hand and the 7C and 7D on the other, is the use of the improved RB141-4 engine on the latter two. The 7D is a direct successor to the 7A, and has the longest range of any Trident variant.

The Trident 7E once again stretched the fuselage and retained the RB141-4, but the wing design was modified to accomodate the much increased length of the fuselage, with a higher angle of incidence.

Hoffar were unable to improve further on the Medway, so for the Trident 8 (commonly known as "Skookum Trident" in BC) DHBC opted for the Pratt & Whitney JT8D-209 with its greater thrust. The Trident 8 retained the new wing design of the 7E, but everything aft of the rear doors was redesigned around the JT8D, and the vertical stabiliser was increased in height by 20 inches, giving its aft section a distinctly different look from the earlier variants. The size of the overwing exits was also increased, which increased the FAA exit limit, though its stated maximum capacity remained 189 in a single-class layout, as had been the case with the 7E. All variants had a service ceiling of FL390.

[apophenia]

Excellent type overview! Thanks for that 

I have a personal preference for smaller MPAs ... and the Argus was an absolute monster!

Still, if these will be civilian Trident rebuilds, I'd be inclined to go for the 'shorty' Trident 7A airframe. Assuming that the longer 'D model range is the result of added fuselage fuel tanks, you could make up the difference with Comet 4-style external wings tanks.

Again, all just personal preference and this is your show ... so I'll now get my oar out!