Avro Achilles PR2

[Aircav]

  Nice 

[GTX]

Keep those pics coming!!!

Regards,

Greg

[lancer]

Damm, that looks good!! Nice work Nev..

[nev]

The last days of WW2 in Europe saw a race between the major powers to capture as many of Germanys leading scientists as possible.  At the same time, there was a race within Germany as those leading scientists, so highly sought, tried to desperately escape the advancing Russian army and let themselves be captured by the British and Americans - all the while trying to evade the SS & Gestapo, who, drunk on the Nazi martyrdom complex were eagerly hanging anyone who they suspected of defeatist behaviour.



Amongst these prized Scientists were the designers and engineers of the Arado company.  Luckily for them, they managed to find themselves in the posession of the British at wars end and were spirited off to Blighty where the UK government hoped to take advantage of their expertise. 



Perhaps the most tantalising work that they revealed to the British was a design known internally as project E.555, a giant jet-powered gull-winged delta, intended to strike mainland America.  Cancelled by the RLM in 1944, Arado had appealled directly to Hitler, aware of his love of "super-weapons" which he believed would turn the war back in Germanys favour.  Hitler, naturally, gave them permisssion to carry on.



Although by Wars end the aircraft had not flown, Arado had done extensive wind tunnel testing, and flown several small scale models to investigate the design.  All this knowledge was handed to the British on a plate.  The Arado team were sent to Avro company, where Roy Chadwick was fascinated by their work.  Instructed by the British government to bring the Arado design to fruition, initially for scientific purposes, the ambition and quality of the design - much more advanced aerodynamically than the Canberra that was just entering service - soon led to plans for the aircraft to be put into production, with the initial mark being the B.1 bomber variant.



Given the name "Achilles" the aircraft was stripped of the defensive armament of the original German design, relying on its speed and ceiling for protection from enemy fighters.  The aircraft was always meant to be replaced by the V-Bombers in the Nuclear Detterent role, but the RAF did not want to see the high-speed, high-altitude Achilles go to waste, so they were converted to the Recon role under the designation PR2, seeing service into the early 60s.



The model is the Revell 1/72 Arado E.555, kindly supplied by Aircav a few years ago.  Decals are from the MA Canberra sheets.  Serials are kindly via Howard of Effingham



Avro Achilles PR2, "C" Flight, 231 OCU, RAF Bassingbourne, 1958

[Ed S]

Beautiful.

Nice looking model.

Ed

[Aircav]

Very nice Nev, now can I have me model back 
She looks great 

[Weaver]

That looks great nev, and the back story's credible too.

Just one small point of order though: A.V.Roe wasn't at AVRO to be fascinated by this project in 1945, because he'd sold his share in the company to Hawker Group in the early 1930s and gone off to form Saunders Roe with Sam Saunders. It would have been Roy Chadwick, designer of the Lancaster, who assessed this design, and given his enthusiasm for deltas, I'm sure he'd have bitten. Of course, you could always whiff the history differently......

[GTX]

Damn fine result!

Regards,

Greg

[Mossie]

Looks great Nev!

That looks great nev, and the back story's credible too.

Just one small point of order though: A.V.Roe wasn't at AVRO to be fascinated by this project in 1945, because he'd sold his share in the company to Hawker Group in the early 1930s and gone off to form Saunders Roe with Sam Saunders. It would have been Roy Chadwick, designer of the Lancaster, who assessed this design, and given his enthusiasm for deltas, I'm sure he'd have bitten. Of course, you could always whiff the history differently......

Weaver, there's was an interesting story I saw on a DVD about Roy Chadwick & the design of the delta wing on the Vulcan.  Initially, he wasn't keen at all.  He'd been off work for some weeks with a nasty case of shingles.  When he left, the Vulcan design was going strongly in a conventional manner.  In his absence, his designers realised the delta would be very suitable for the Vulcan & pressed ahead with that.

Chadwick returned on a Friday, to see that his designers had completley deviated from the conventional path.  Suprised & still not feeling great, he went completely off his head!  He had a raging argument with his head designer & told him in no uncertain terms that he was to return to the previous designs & that weeks had been wasted.

Over the weekend, he had a look over the delta designs & had a good think about it as well as a chance to calm down.  By return to work on Monday, he'd had complete change of heart, called his head designer in to apologise & to tell him that the delta design had merit.  So it makes you wonder, if Roy Chadwick hadn't felt ill, would the design of the Vulcan have carried on down a more conventional path?

[Weaver]

Looks great Nev!

That looks great nev, and the back story's credible too.

Just one small point of order though: A.V.Roe wasn't at AVRO to be fascinated by this project in 1945, because he'd sold his share in the company to Hawker Group in the early 1930s and gone off to form Saunders Roe with Sam Saunders. It would have been Roy Chadwick, designer of the Lancaster, who assessed this design, and given his enthusiasm for deltas, I'm sure he'd have bitten. Of course, you could always whiff the history differently......

Weaver, there's was an interesting story I saw on a DVD about Roy Chadwick & the design of the delta wing on the Vulcan.  Initially, he wasn't keen at all.  He'd been off work for some weeks with a nasty case of shingles.  When he left, the Vulcan design was going strongly in a conventional manner.  In his absence, his designers realised the delta would be very suitable for the Vulcan & pressed ahead with that.

Chadwick returned on a Friday, to see that his designers had completley deviated from the conventional path.  Suprised & still not feeling great, he went completely off his head!  He had a raging argument with his head designer & told him in no uncertain terms that he was to return to the previous designs & that weeks had been wasted.

Over the weekend, he had a look over the delta designs & had a good think about it as well as a chance to calm down.  By return to work on Monday, he'd had complete change of heart, called his head designer in to apologise & to tell him that the delta design had merit.  So it makes you wonder, if Roy Chadwick hadn't felt ill, would the design of the Vulcan have carried on down a more conventional path?

Great story Mossie  - no I hadn't heard that: thought-provoking indeed......

[Captain Canada]

Beautiful work, Nevster ! The decals look superb against that finnish. Great stuff. Love the story as well.