Author Topic: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)  (Read 24274 times)

Offline Weaver

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #25 on: December 11, 2014, 09:44:12 AM »
Here's a puzzler, could either of these designs be construed as a Delta, because the description of the aircraft in the book 'In the Wet' could be describing one of these, especially the 1947 design.  I know that a picture (see post #1) appears in an issue of the book, but I'm just wondering now.  While doing some research, I've discovered that Shute's full name was Neville Shute Norway, Neville Shute was his pen name and he did this so it wouldn't interfere with his professional career, which was an aeronautical engineer.  He actually started his career at de Havilland.

And these designs would have been known at the time of his book 'In the Wet' whereas the Atlantic was only made public in 1953.

I wouldn't have said they were deltas: "swept tapered tailless" and "swept tapered" would seem appropriate. If the first one is a delta, then so is an Me-163....
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Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #26 on: December 12, 2014, 11:43:03 PM »
Well! I have a slight problem --- now that I have the starboard forward half of the fuselage fitted, I've noticed that the fuselage looks like a banana  :-X  There a definite bend right at the 737/B-36 fuselage joint, I'll have to figure out how to fix this before I carry on --  I had built the joint a certain way and had to include the nose wheel well as I did it, this now presents a problem on how to fix it because it's not just a 're-cut' the joint sort of fix because half of the wheel well is glued to the B-36 side of the joint plus I included a keel plate top to bottom.  And I don't want to take the whole thing apart either ----  think on this I will --
« Last Edit: December 13, 2014, 12:34:00 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #27 on: December 13, 2014, 12:40:47 AM »
I had also made a keel forward of the wheel well, this was so I could re-profile the bottom profile so it didn't have the ""Boeing"" look to it.

Bottom pic shows the keel I had glued to a bulkhead which was then glued to the wheel well, this was then all glued into the fuselage before I fitted and glued the port forward 737 fuselage side to it.

I had thought I got everything lined up straight but now it appears that's not the case.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2014, 12:43:03 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #28 on: December 13, 2014, 12:51:58 AM »
And this is the problem, in the bottom pic the kink is really plain to see without the rule next to it --- gudamnit  :icon_bofh:
« Last Edit: December 13, 2014, 12:53:52 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #29 on: December 13, 2014, 04:21:56 AM »
"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #30 on: December 13, 2014, 05:34:23 AM »
The Delta House recommends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uepFO4psgKE

That would work better than having to think about it Jeff    ;D ;D

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #31 on: December 15, 2014, 06:00:26 AM »
As ever -- I got thinking again about what Shute had described in his book, one thing that struck me was there's no mention about the undercarriage.  I would've thought considering Shute' aeronautical engineering experience, that the multitude of wheels the Atlantic was envisioned to have (just like a Vulcan, Victor, Belfast) there would have been some reference to them.

So I'm thinking of using Nimrod wheels on a 4-wheel truck instead of the eight Vulcan wheels, at least this has a De Havilland connection -- although it seems a waste of the resin Vulcan wheel set I just ordered which is on it's way now -----   :-X
« Last Edit: December 15, 2014, 06:02:08 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline Weaver

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #32 on: December 15, 2014, 11:42:25 AM »
As I understand it, the Atlantic's undercarriage layout is a bit of a mystery, with no definitive drawing having survived. The big display model at Woodford has no indication of it: I looked specifically.
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
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Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #33 on: December 15, 2014, 10:17:43 PM »
Well in this 3-View sketch which Mike Meehan told me was of a very early design and not the last like some publications have said, it shows 4-wheel trucks

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #34 on: December 16, 2014, 12:08:34 AM »
After more delving into how and why --- found this over on the 'Secret Projects Forum'.  It seems the concept of the Atlantic was well advanced in 1953 so Shute could have known about this when he wrote his book.  Solves a lot of things for me ---

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,482.0.html

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #35 on: December 16, 2014, 06:58:50 AM »
And this is the problem, in the bottom pic the kink is really plain to see without the rule next to it --- gudamnit  :icon_bofh:

Fixed it easier than I thought it would go, I cut a slot with a razor saw from the back of the wheel well all the way around the offending side of the fuselage but not totally through at the top. Carefully prizing the slot open with a small screwdriver I slipped a piece of styrene strip into the slot which has held the gap apart so the two sides are now running quite parallel.  It didn't have to go very far to do it either thank goodness.

Offline Buzzbomb

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #36 on: December 16, 2014, 09:32:50 AM »
First class work mating the Vacform bits together. This is looking really nice.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #37 on: December 16, 2014, 10:54:45 AM »
Thanks buzzbomb

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #38 on: December 19, 2014, 03:56:32 AM »
When I first started this project, I had decided as it was to be an RCAF operated one and built in Canada, the story was to have it powered by Orenda engines, specifically an Iroquois without the after-burner.  I had started to make some brass tailpipes for it which would have looked like this in the top pic, but I've decided to abandon this idea for this build.  What I'm going to use on this build is a set of Freightdog Olympus 202 tailpipes (bottom pics)

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #39 on: December 19, 2014, 04:14:52 AM »
But I haven't abandoned the brass tailpipes completely.  I've got a couple of other Vulcan winged projects on the backburner, one which will be a much larger Atlantic, which, thanks to Evan, I'll be calling an Avro Pacific.  This will entail using a Boeing 767 fuselage but with some slight modifications to the profile.  The power for this (and my other project) will be a pair of CFM-56's in a new inner wing section which will have to be scratch built, but will have the full Vulcan B.2 outer wings.

So I had to make advanced plans for this because I need to draw it out first, which meant taking a bunch of measurements from the inner wing I've already cut off for this fuselage.  The top pic here shows a sketch of the two chord faces which have been equally spaced out with the same number of spaces, these two faces are 1 3/8" (35mm) apart for the Olympus 202's in this project but will have to be spaced wider apart for the new engines.  Next pic down shows the difference between the Olympus and CFM-56 faces.  What I have to do is draw the inner wing section as it is at the moment, I will connect the corresponding points on each chord with a line, then I'll keep the outer wing connecting chord as it is, but then extrude the connecting lines to a new point which will be wide enough to except two CFM-56's side by side.  In the end it will look a bit like how on the HP Victor, the engine section has a bulged under-wing, only there will be a bulge on both top and bottom of the wing. Or maybe similar to the Victor Mk.3.

http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx168/jasper999/P1100491.jpg

Bottom pic shows the Vulcan inner wing in position on the 767 fuselage.  Out of interest, the wing root chord depth of the Vulcan wing is very close to the 767 wing root chord
« Last Edit: December 19, 2014, 04:56:20 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #40 on: December 19, 2014, 04:18:22 AM »
Out of interest, this is the difference between the Atlantic and Pacific fuselages

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #41 on: December 19, 2014, 04:32:12 AM »
Forgot to mention, the sketch of the chords will be used on this project so I can place the spars I have to make. I need quite a few so that when I skin the wing root to match the fuselage, it keeps it's chord shape.  I'll transfer all the vertical lines to the inner wing root side.

I've started to measure this all out and what I had done was to make a couple of jigs that I can slide over the fuselage (top pic). I'll give them a spot of glue to keep them in exactly the same place and this way I can remove and replace the inner wing as I keep checking it for fit. Next two pics show the inner wing in place on the jig.

Bottom pic shows how I'm going to make the multitude of spars, I cut some 2" diameter holes in a sheet of styrene card which has the center of the fuselage marked on it, this will be the datum line for measuring down to the various positions on the wing chord.  I need to do it this way because although the top of the chord is quite close to the fuselage side, the bottom of the chord has a huge gap.  And I'm not going to fill it with putty --  :P
« Last Edit: December 19, 2014, 04:35:36 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #42 on: December 19, 2014, 04:38:45 AM »
In this pic you can see I've left a gap between the wing root chord and the fuselage, that's so I can slide my rule in between so I can measure for the side centerline down to the bottom of the chord. The idea here is when I measure back to the fuselage I'll deduct 2 or 3 mm each time so it will close up once the wing is glued on. 

Where you can see the front jig, the bottom of the wing chord profile practically matches the bottom profile of the fuselage, only in front of the jig does the chord profile ride up the side of the fuselage so will be some tricky cutting and trimming to do. In between the two jigs, the bottom of the wing and bottom of the fuselage are very close to being the same, and from the point where I started the scratch-built rear fuselage, the bottom fuselage profile here is starting to curve up and happens to match the up-curving profile of the wing chord
« Last Edit: December 19, 2014, 04:46:53 AM by kitnut617 »

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #43 on: December 20, 2014, 02:33:52 AM »
Coming along nicely.
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

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Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #44 on: January 06, 2015, 02:42:53 AM »
Not a lot done over the last couple of weeks I'm afraid ---  :-X   :-[

but I've been pondering which main wheels to use.  I could go with the Vulcan set-up, but then in one of the three views I've posted it shows Avro were considering a four wheel truck with larger wheels.

So now I've got to decide which way I'm going to proceed.  In the pic below, it shows a pair of Vulcan wheels next to the landing gear leg, the next pair to it are Nimrod main wheels and then the largest ones are 737 main wheels. Both of the larger wheels will mean some modification to the gear leg so that the axle centers are spaced further apart and also I will have to modify the u/c bay, but which set to use  -------   :icon_crap: it will either be the eight Vulcan wheels or four each of the other ones

Offline taiidantomcat

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #45 on: January 06, 2015, 09:16:19 PM »
Still dropping my jaw. Don't worry about the last few weeks being slow, they are slow for everyone around this time  :)
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Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #46 on: January 06, 2015, 10:44:50 PM »
Thanks tc --

So watching a Vulcan u/c gear retraction test sequence on YouTube, I see that going with the bigger wheels means a lot more thinking is required. In the sequence, it shows that the rear set of wheels end up at the front end of the wheel bay when retracted. Because of the orientation of the u/c leg which attaches directly to the front axle and the rear axle trails behind, just making the trailing axle beam longer to except the bigger wheels won't work. That's because the front end wall of the wheel bay is also the main spar of the wing so I can't increase the wheel bay in that direction.  If I go with either 4-wheel truck, I'll have to come up with another retraction sequence, probably something similar to how a Britannia u/c gear works. This means that the rear axle track has to be wider than the front axle because the rear wheels when retracted will be to the rear of the wheel bay and straddle the u/c leg to either side.  I think there's enough width to the wheel bay for this to happen but I'll have to make the wheel bay just one big rectangular hole instead of how the Vulcan set-up is.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2015, 10:50:27 PM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #47 on: January 11, 2015, 08:01:09 AM »
I think I've figured out what to do with the u/c, and it's not much.  After doing some match-up of parts, I decided to go with the Nimrod wheels, at least there's a De Havilland connection with them (De Havilland Comet/Nimrod).

After working out some parts which would end up a bit complicated, the solution turned out very simple.  When the aircraft gets into the air, the wheel truck extends to it's fullest, that's both the oleo and the large hydraulic cylinder which dampens the rear axle, then the oleo is retracted to it's most shortest point while the large cylinder stays at it's most extended. This sort of makes the truck stand vertical so the rear axle is at the bottom and the front axle is at the top. The u/c leg is then rotated forward which makes what was the bottom of the wheel (where it touches the ground), into the top of the wheel up against the underside of the wheel bay top.

All I have to do is move the front axle forward of the oleo about 3mm and everything works the same way, except once the u/c is retracted, the front axle & wheels sit higher in the wheel bay.  But I do have to move the u/c leg hinge point back a bit to maintain the load carrying center of the truck.  Looking at a Cut-Away drawing, this doesn't pose a problem to move the rear of the wheel bay back a bit in real life and this will create a bit of extra distance between the front of the wheel bay and the edge of the tire which is needed because of the different wheel diameters

So that's another problem out of the way ---

Here's a link to the retraction sequence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31ypGN0iREE
« Last Edit: January 11, 2015, 08:06:50 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #48 on: January 15, 2015, 02:48:27 AM »
A bit of progress ---

Top pic here shows what I've come up with as regarding the modified wheel bays, I moved the rear of the bay backwards 5mm.
Next pics show where I've cut out the kit tail-pipes and glued in the Freightdog Olympus 202 tail-pipes, only in this project they'll be Orenda Iroquois tail-pipes (but without after-burners).

The pics graphically show how much of a difference in size the Vulcan B.1 wing is to the B.2 wing

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Atlantic (or De Havilland Ceres)
« Reply #49 on: January 15, 2015, 02:54:51 AM »
In the top pic here it shows some parts I want to use in my build only I didn't want to rob the kits they came from of them, so I made some copies. The cockpit tub and seats come from a Welsh Models 1/72 scale 737, and the engine fronts come from an Aircraft in Miniature Vickers Valiant.
Next pic is of the mould I made and the last pic is of the result. The cockpit part I was worried I'd have problems with but it turned out quite well, but a couple of the fan fronts didn't come out to well so I'll have to do them again.