(Continuing ...)
Whif: The Arsenal VG 32 was Constructed in Canada?
To head the effort to build VG 32 fighters in Canada, representatives of the Anglo-French Purchasing Board sought out experienced British engineer Wilfrid Reid. [1] Reid was to become head designer at CABMA - the Compagnie d'avions en bois moulé d'Acadie (or Moulded Wooden Aircraft Company of Acadia). With production space at a premium around Montréal-area airfields, the Moncton area in Acadia - the French-speaking region of New Brunswick - was chose as the location for VG 32 production in Canada. [2]
Top: A view of what the unarmed Arsenal VG 32C1 N°1 might have looked like had it been completed. (This image is based upon a Arsenal VG 30 profile by Ed Jackson.) No main undercarriage fairings are shown (as none seemed ever to be fitted to production VG 33 airframes).
To aid Canadian production, Reid has contracted the services of US-based Aircraft Research Corp. to help redesign the VG 33's complicated, double-skinned fuselage structure for Gene Vidal's technique of using heat-activated phenol formaldehyde (PF) resins to bond wooden aircraft skins and stiffeners at the same time. [3] For its part, Arsenal de l'aéronautique provided a sample airframe - the engineless VG 33 N°03 - along with drawing for the planned Allison installation in the VG 32C1.
Meanwhile, a new manufacturing facility with its own airstrip was being created a few miles to the east of Moncton in Scoudouc, NB. Besides offices, this plant was comprised of two woodworking shops, a dedicated fuselage moulding facility, and an assembly hall. As the moulding hall was completed, work had already begun on wing components. These wings were based directly on the sample airframe. But this presented a problem - the resulting wings held only 4 x machine guns.
Once informed that insufficient HS 404 cannons were available to arm Canadian made VG 32s, CABMA began devising an alternative armament (with W. T. Reid calculating stressing). Upper cowl guns were rejected as, even in the absense of a cannon breech, there was inadequate space directly in front of the cockpit. The CABMA drawing office's solution was to mount a pair of synchronised guns in the lower cowling. To approximate the HS 404's weight of fire, twin 13.2 mm FN Browning guns were recommended.
Bottom The prototype 'Vidal-Arsenal' fighter - CABMA's VG 32 N°02. Removed cowling sections reveal the Allison V-1710-C15 engine and portside 0.50-inch Browning heavy machine gun (standing in for the planned 13.2 mm FN gun) with its spent casing collector box to the rear. Note also revised tail fin, refined tail cone, and great clearance provided by the new tailwheel.
The revised Vidal-Weldwood fuselage featured a structural join in the transverse plane. This approach greatly simplified fuselage construction but the fasteners joining the upper and lower segments (which connected level with the horizontal tail) reduced the overall weight savings of the Vidal-Weldwood Process.
(To be continued ...)
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[1] In 1928, Wilfred Reid had left his chief aircraft designer's position at Canadian Vickers to form W T Reid Aircraft Co. in Montréal. By 1931, that firm had, in part, been acquired by the US-based Curtiss Company - becoming Curtiss-Reid. When the Depression killed Curtiss-Reid, W. T. Reid had turned his attention to diesel engines.
[2] Locating CABMA near Moncton also provided easy access to New Brunswick timbers - including aircraft-quality red spruce. However, some wood components required the use of sitka spruce which was shipped east from British Columbia.
[3] Anticipating, a need for wooden aircraft structures in wartime, W. T. Reid had licensed the Vidal-Weldwood Process from Aircraft Research Corp. in late 1938. Reid's initial plans to design a new, wooden training aircraft for the RCAF would be eclipsed by the French VG 32 contract. Similarly, CABMA absorbed a recently reformed W T Reid Aircraft Co. Ltd.
