Handley Page Hampden and Hereford

[GTX]

A waterborne version anyone:



Regards,

Greg

[rickshaw]

You don't think the rear gunner might need a pair of goggles and a snorkel?

[Caveman]

Engines might have to be shifted up a bit too, mounted above the wing perhaps?

[cthulhu77]

You don't think the rear gunner might need a pair of goggles and a snorkel?

Nah, they just got another bloke for every mission.

[Cliffy B]

You don't think the rear gunner might need a pair of goggles and a snorkel?

Nah, they just got another bloke for every mission.

I like the application of Red Air Force style thinking there, remember the rear-seat gunners in the Il-2s?

[GTX]

You don't think the rear gunner might need a pair of goggles and a snorkel?

Nah, they just got another bloke for every mission.

I like the application of Red Air Force style thinking there, remember the rear-seat gunners in the Il-2s?

Please elaborate.

Regards,

Greg

[GTX]

You don't think the rear gunner might need a pair of goggles and a snorkel?

Ventral Gunners were the only aircrew to be awarded Dolphins rather than wings...

Regards,

Greg

[Weaver]

I think you need to place the fins on the ends of the booms but just keep the little wing stubs on the outside and not have the tail plane with such a big span

I agree. I also think the booms need to be the same length as the original fuselage, so they'd need a scratchbuilt "plug" between them and the engines. I hadn't realised when I suggested it that the wing trailing edge joins the fuselage so far back: makes it difficult to neatly terminate the fuselage behind the turrets.....

GTX: thanks for the profiles: I'd probably never have got around to trying it out! 

[Cliffy B]

You don't think the rear gunner might need a pair of goggles and a snorkel?

Nah, they just got another bloke for every mission.

I like the application of Red Air Force style thinking there, remember the rear-seat gunners in the Il-2s?

Please alaborate.

Regards,

Greg

The rear gunners seats in the Il-2s were deathtraps.  I was making a comparison since he said replace the rear gunner on each mission with is basically what the Red Air Force did instead of improving the posistion in the plane.  Guess nobody got it 

[Weaver]

The rear gunners seats in the Il-2s were deathtraps.  I was making a comparison since he said replace the rear gunner on each mission with is basically what the Red Air Force did instead of improving the posistion in the plane.  Guess nobody got it 

Wrong side of the cockpit armour wasn't it?

[van883]

How's this:



This I like!

[Weaver]

My take on it:



The booms have to be lowered a bit to line up with the engine nacelles. Don't take the back end of the pod as a blueprint: it's more an expression of the fact that I don't know what to do with it!

[kitnut617]

That's the way I think too Weaver, but maybe the booms don't need to be that long. I'm thinking that on the standard Hampden the length of the rear fuselage is related to (or dictated by) where the cg of the plane is, so with the added weight of a second boom (more or less a second rear fuselage), it's length could be a bit shorter but not as short as how Greg had it.  Of course that all goes out the window if we put some honking great big engines on the front 

Robert

[redstar72]

The rear gunners seats in the Il-2s were deathtraps.  

Can't agree with this. Yes, the Il-2 gunner was protected rather poorly... but only in comparison to his pilot! His situation wasn't worse than the gunner's of any other aircraft - Ju 87, Kate, Dauntless, etc... And we must remember that it was enforced decision. The course of war didn't allow to slow down Il-2 production by introducing such serious modifications as armored body lengthening. Even not one, but many different Il-2 versions with fully-armored gunner position were designed, but it was no possibility to set them into production...

And to be correct - Il-2 gunner wasn't left without any protection:

[Weaver]

Cheers Apo - something else I thought of after I'd done it is that, particularly from a modelling point of view, you could just put a "radome shape" on the back of the fuselage where the tail boom's cut off. Describe it as an empty laminated plywood fairing purely for aerodynamic tidyness.

On the subject of honking great engines, here's a thought: the Pegasus had the same stroke as the Centaurus, so presumably it was approximately the same diameter? You could, therefore, take the Centaurus cowlings off a pair of cheap Sea Furies and fit them to the Hampden without too much trouble. The back story would be that the Bristol sleeve-valve engines didn't work out, so these are an 18-cylinder "Twin-Pegasus" engine called the Cerberus.

Lastly, we've spotted the potentially, literally fatal flaw in Greg's flying boat version  , but how about putting a Hampden on a pair of thumping great floats? It would be the RAF equivalent of the He-115.....