Wide Body Avro Atlantic

[kitnut617]

I've found the email that my Avro contact had sent me, the fellows name is Mike Meahan and he told me he was fortunate to be given the job of drawing some of the diagrams in the Brochure.

Re-reading the email he does say that the mid-engined proposal was a 'very early design', here's the email I was sent that had the image of the mid-wing engined Atlantic attached but it is possible that Phil & Tony got the two mixed up  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Robert.
               Thanks for your reply and observations. You've really had me digging now and coming up with some interesting stuff.
                This very early Atlantic proposal from the Avro project office shows some of the variants that were considered. This is more like a Concorde wing of course and note the engines almost mid span. Although this was superseded by the final brochure I sent you earlier perhaps it answers your question of the nose landing gear location. It is indeed further forward and is retracting forwards instead of aft as on the Vulcan. The MLG bogies are only shown here with 4 tyres each. I somehow doubt that would have happened for Vulcan commonality and to not get the tyre diameters too big.
                 I note your comment about the vertical tailplane area. As every Atlantic sketch I've seen shows a dorsal fin fairing much reduced from the Vulcan and the fuselage is longer I agree that an increase in area would be likely. The wing shape to reproduce that very concave leading edge you mentioned would be very difficult as you say.
                 About the possibility of a tanker version. I agree with you entirely but the UK government have never been very bright when it comes to aviation decisions as we know too well from history. They are no better today than 50 years ago when all this was happening and I was starting out on 50 years in the best business in the world to my mind.
                 Good luck with your very interesting project. I'll be very interested to follow its progress. Shout out any time if you need more information.
                  Kind regards.
                  Mike

[kitnut617]

Incidently, the Avro Atlantic was featured in a Neville Shute book ----

The book was called 'In the Wet' and the aircraft was called the Avro Ceres, but the discription of it is exactly like the Atlantic

[kitnut617]

So while I'm waiting for bits to arrive for my DH.101 project, I've been giving this one some thought.

My plan is to upgrade the engines but after studying a cutaway pic of the Vulcan and doing some research, I've discovered that the Olympus 301's used in the Vulcan B.2, just about took up all the space available width wise.  Although there is room for a longer engine I think.

What I want to do is put in some bigger diameter engines that a high bypass engine would have, and I've found that the basic structure of the Vulcan plays right into what I have in mind.  The cutaway drawing reveals that the basic main structure looks like this:



This is the front and rear spar and four ribs, which split into the two engine bays and bomb bay.  These I would say are the primary structrual members that everything else is attached to.

The engine bays though are split into seperate bays with secondry structural members, a sub spar which spans the engine bay and a sub rib going in between the engines. These have a lattice work at the rear end and are not solid plate all through like the others.



So now I can spread apart the engine bay ribs to except bigger engines

[kitnut617]

Here's a pic of how I envision the wide body Atlantic's new center wing section would look like:



This is a rough comparison between the Vulcan center section and the Atlantic center section, the end ribs are the same on both as are the hot exhaust hole in the rear spar:



Not only are the engines bigger in diameter, so is the fuselage, which is twice as big (16 feet as opposed to 8 feet)

[kitnut617]

The object of this exercise is to up-engine the bigger Atlantic. The Atlantic as proposed to the Ministry would have had engines similar in power to the Vulcan B.1 (somewhere around 10,000 lb to 12,000 lb thrust) plus the wing of the B.1.  At the end of it's life the Vulcan was powered by four 20,000 lb thrust Olympus 301's (total of 80,000 lb of thrust) but my thinking for the wide body Atlantic we would need more powerful engines and also have the wing of the Vulcan B.2.  My scenario would have four 25,000 to 30,000 lb thrust engines giving about 100,000 to 120,000 lb of thrust, but what-if we took this a stage further and did this:



Two of a more modern and much more powereful high-bypass engines.  I'm thinking leave the Vulcan wing chord as it is, make the engine bays wider like the previous four engine layout, and feed the air into the engines like a Northrop B.2 (only top and bottom of the wing). Or like the intake of a Harrier is if you think of the cockpit turn sidewards and the cockpit was the front of the wing ---

[GTX]

I like your thinking.

Regards,

Greg

[Green Dragon]

Your last pic, with the two high bypass engines is the way I was thinking of up engineing a Victor, with intakes at top and bottom of the wing. Never got round to building it though! Look forward to seeing your build.

Paul Harrison

[kitnut617]

  guys,

I think I'll try to get two 767 fuselages and do both versions, do one as an Atlantic II C.3K and the other as a K.4 or something like that.  I've got a spare KC-10 flying boom which could go with a backstory that the Canadians used them and to keep conformality with the USAF, converted one of their K.4's for inter-service operations.  What I like about the Vulcan is the simplicity of the airframe, it certainly makes things more plausable

[rickshaw]

The object of this exercise is to up-engine the bigger Atlantic...

Awfully small hole for a high bypass turbo fan to push all that air out of...

[thesolitarycyclist]

A literary whif from 1953

http://www.nevilshute.org/PhotoLine/PLD-1951-1960/pl-1951-1960-02.php

http://www.nevilshute.org/Reviews/inthewet.php

And a link to britmodeller

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t6567.html

[kitnut617]

The object of this exercise is to up-engine the bigger Atlantic...

Awfully small hole for a high bypass turbo fan to push all that air out of...

I suggest you read the text again and the notes on the sketches 

[kitnut617]

A literary whif from 1953

http://www.nevilshute.org/PhotoLine/PLD-1951-1960/pl-1951-1960-02.php

http://www.nevilshute.org/Reviews/inthewet.php

see further up the thread

And a link to britmodeller

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t6567.html

pics of Wooksta's build is here to somewhere, I'm going to be building a 'standard' Atlantic as well, again see further up the thread.

[rickshaw]

The object of this exercise is to up-engine the bigger Atlantic...

Awfully small hole for a high bypass turbo fan to push all that air out of...

I suggest you read the text again and the notes on the sketches 

I did.  Indeed, I just reread it.  I don't see any mention of increasing the size of the exhaust on that one, just on enlarging the intakes.   The airflow would necessitate both being enlarged, wouldn't it? 

[kitnut617]

Why would you increase the size of the hot exhaust  

Also go back to post #35

[rickshaw]

Why would you increase the size of the hot exhaust  

You can only compress the exhaust a certain amount, particularly with turbofans which rely on moving very large volumes of air.  Compare the exhaust of a turbojet:


In this case a JT3 (commercial version of the military J53) with that of a turbofan:


In this case a JT9D.

A turbofan is essentially a turbojet with a great big fan on the front, driven by the turbojet section of the engine.  The fan moves large volumes of air very fast.  Compressing it would be very difficult because of the pressures involved.  Forcing that much air out the tiny hole you've allowed for in your sketches would be hard without blowing the exhaust of the engine off.

Also go back to post #35

Read it.  I cannot see the "channel".  I can see the fan exhausting basically above and below the central engine nacelle - which is not evident in your notes attached to the sketches.  I must admit I missed that threat, concentrating on the sketches. 

This may simply be a misunderstanding, nothing more.  I felt you hadn't taken adequate consideration of the exhaust, that's all.  From your comments you feel you have but I can't find anything in the explanation which indicates that you have.