Supermarine Eastfire FXIV

[Librarian]

Do you have any in progress shots available. I'm very interested in how this went together. There are so many opportunities to tricycle tail draggers and good advice is hard to come by .

[SPINNERS]

Outstanding! Joyous!

[sandiego89]

Really well done, nice surgery and paint.  F-80 canopy? 

[kitnut617]

Every now and then, something comes up that really, really piques my interest  --- very well done Andrew 

[Mossie]

Very nice!  Thought the nose was from a P-38 at first, but I guess you've slimmed down a Mossie fuselage?

[andrewj]

Thanks everyone for the positive comments, glad you like it. The canopy is  from a Seafire 47 and yes, the fuselage is slimmed down Mosquito.

Andrew

[Dizzyfugu]

Nice kitbashing. 

Reminds me of a vague idea to create a "simple" aircraft from a P-38.

[NARSES2]

Brilliant 

[perttime]

Excellent!

One technical thing that bothers me a bit, though: does having contraprops have benefits that outweight the complexity - in a twin?
Having "simply" handed gearboxes and 5 blade props would surely please the maintenance crew and be enough to absorb the power of the Griffons? There's no doubt about the coolness of contraprops...

[pyro-manic]

The Shackleton had four! Keeps the prop diameter down too, which is another benefit.

[kitnut617]

Excellent!

One technical thing that bothers me a bit, though: does having contraprops have benefits that outweight the complexity - in a twin?
Having "simply" handed gearboxes and 5 blade props would surely please the maintenance crew and be enough to absorb the power of the Griffons? There's no doubt about the coolness of contraprops...

In the Air-Britain book 'The Hornet File', which is about the De Havilland Hornet, it says that even though the aircraft flew very well when it had both engines working (the props were handed), it was deadly when only one or the other had stopped for what ever the reason.  So much so that quite a few pilots were killed while trying to land on one engine. The RN banned all attempts to land on an aircraft carrier when only one engine was working and the pilots were instructed to head for land if they had enough fuel, or to abandon the aircraft near the carrier if they didn't.  It was just as much a challenge to land the aircraft at the airfield if the pilot got there, most of the fatalities the RAF had was when someone tried to land on a single engine.  The contra-prop eliminates the problem tremendously because it controls the torque of the engine better.

[crudebuteffective]

heres a few picks of an unfinished project on the long range far east fighter theme ( started over a year ago )

The supermarine wildfire

[perttime]

In the Air-Britain book 'The Hornet File', which is about the De Havilland Hornet, it says that even though the aircraft flew very well when it had both engines working (the props were handed), it was deadly when only one or the other had stopped for what ever the reason. 

Because of asymmetric power and drag, I'd hazard a guess. As far as I understand, handed gearboxes and props were/are used on twins to make the yawing forces equal and opposite between the engines, turning towards the fuselage which gives you the best possible handling for engine-out situations. Contraprops might even make it worse, in eliminating torque in the direction where you actually want some torque when the other engine stops.

I believe aircrew feared engine-out situations on some US twin warplanes - until specialists were sent in to show them how to cope with them.

[kitnut617]

In the Air-Britain book 'The Hornet File', which is about the De Havilland Hornet, it says that even though the aircraft flew very well when it had both engines working (the props were handed), it was deadly when only one or the other had stopped for what ever the reason.

Because of asymmetric power and drag, I'd hazard a guess. As far as I understand, handed gearboxes and props were/are used on twins to make the yawing forces equal and opposite between the engines, turning towards the fuselage which gives you the best possible handling for engine-out situations. Contraprops might even make it worse, in eliminating torque in the direction where you actually want some torque when the other engine stops.

I believe aircrew feared engine-out situations on some US twin warplanes - until specialists were sent in to show them how to cope with them.

I wouldn't know --- I'm just repeating what it says in the book.  But I have also read that Mosquitos were also challenging to land with one engine out.  Then again, the twin engined Short Sturgeon had contra-props (it was for the Navy too) so there must be some merits for having the set-up ---

[PR19_Kit]

They also need to ensure the props go the 'right' way round.

When the P-82 Twin Mustang was first tried out it wouldn't lift off in the available runway and they worked out that the props were generating downward flow across the centre section so that bit didn't generate enough lift. So they reversed the engines' rotation and Bingo, it flew!