Avro Tudor

[McColm]

I tried adding the Avro Tudor to the Lancaster topic but I see this is blocked.
From the information that I have read the Avro Tudor was a pressurised DC-4 but didn't sell in the large numbers as the DC-4.
There seems to me to be a flaw in the design but I don't have the technical knowledge to what that is.
The British Ministry of Transport threw large sums of cash to get the problems solved, could this be to little to late to boost the export sales and yet the DC-4 North Star was fitted with the same Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.
There were different engines fitted and even a jet version, so what went wrong?

[Hobbes]

No, the Tudor's design has no relation to the DC-4. It was a descendant of the Lincoln. The Wikipedia article indicates customers viewed it as 'a pressurized DC-4' (i.e. they didn't see many advantages over the DC-4). The Wiki article gives a decent overview of what went wrong: initial version was too small to be competitive with the DC-4 and Constellation. The Tudor 2 was larger, but lacked performance for 'hot and high' operations. Tudor 4 crashes were probably caused by the pressurization system (perhaps similar metal fatigue failures as seen on the Comet?).

Lack of money for development probably played a role too.

[McColm]

Thanks for your help.

[The Wooksta!]

One of the aviation magazines on sale now has a decent feature on the Tudor, with a whole load of photos and drawings.

Some guy on Britmodeller was scratchbodging one from a Heller DC6 but the photos are lost due to the Photobucket nonsense.

[PR19_Kit]

It's this month's 'Aeroplane' mag, with a 2-seater Me-109 on the cover. I got it today and it tells all about the Tudor.

[McColm]

Thanks Guys,
It's the November edition. Issue 535, Vol 45, No 11.