Bang Seat Test Rig

[tc2324]

In the real world they use water hydraulics.

The sled has a couple of long tapered probes, one on each side, and when they reach the end the probes puncture some long cylindrical water tanks with membranes on the ends. The probes displace the water all over everywhere and the whole shebang comes to a halt. The only problem with modelling that is that the tanks are about 3-4 times as long as your sledge!

They can change the shape of the probes to increase or decrease the G level of the deceleration, but it's pretty darn spectacular whatever level they go for.  

Cheers for that info Kit, although I`m just making a snapshot of the ejection process about a second after the seat fires. I don`t think SWMBO would want a straight bit of track running from the front to the back of the house.... 

btw, anyone got any ideas for `smoke`. Cotton wool is the obvious, but is there something else out there?

[PR19_Kit]

Aha, even better! So the guy, or dummy, will be modelled in mid-air on a stream of smoke Should look VERY good! 

[Modelling_Mushi]

This looks good, love it.

btw, anyone got any ideas for `smoke`. Cotton wool is the obvious, but is there something else out there?

I saw one smoke trail done on a Mig 21 kit using clear cellophane and Tamiya smoke which looked OK. If you wanted extra tricky I guess a small block of dry ice under the seat at photography time would be perfect - I think you could pick up a bit from BOC a coupla years ago.

Ciao

[tc2324]

This looks good, love it.

btw, anyone got any ideas for `smoke`. Cotton wool is the obvious, but is there something else out there?

I saw one smoke trail done on a Mig 21 kit using clear cellophane and Tamiya smoke which looked OK. If you wanted extra tricky I guess a small block of dry ice under the seat at photography time would be perfect - I think you could pick up a bit from BOC a coupla years ago.

Ciao

Cheers for that, I`ll look into it        Not sure I could go with the dry ice bit though, the missus would probably put me on ice if it went everywhere.... 

Managed to get a few decals on the cockpit section while I await the results of how my `JATO` turned out.



Obviously these are all fictional and I`ve a couple more to attach.

[Captain Canada]

This is awesome....what a neat idea. Look forward to seeing the end product !

[Nick]

Nice idea! It's a great way to use a spare part like a cockpit.

There's some good video on the Martin Baker website of ejection seat testing for the F-35 including the oldest British jet still in regular use, the Gloster Meteor!
http://www.martin-baker.com/products/ejection-seats/mk16/f35#prettyPhoto

[tc2324]

Cheers guys. 

Ok, I seem to have come on leaps and bounds with this today. I even got round to experimenting with the smoke effect, but thats a little way off yet.

Still WIP, but this is the rocket sledge pretty much complete......,



Put in the ejection seat rail and gave the fuselage a decent wash.....,



......., and to finish off, a couple of pictures of both sledges with the other bits and pieces I`ve added.

[Captain Canada]

Wow is he ever coming together ! Nice work on the weathering as well....

[PR19_Kit]

An awesome and wholly unique model, I love it! 

[lancer]

Damm, tghat is looking really spectacular....

[sandiego89]

Wow, really well done.  I like the weathering and improvised appearance- very realistic for a test rig, which were seldom pretty/factory fresh.  Great job.

[Gondor]

Maybe a few quartered Black/White circles to help with camera tracking and such?

Gondor

[zenrat]

Cool.  Nice scratchbuilding.
A working version would be even cooler.  Small amounts of explosives would do the trick but you might only get one go at running it

As an ex employee of the company formally known as British Rail I offer you the following observations.
The track would IRL definitely be rusty on the sides and probably also on the top unless they had a very heavy test schedule and ran enough trolleys down it to clear the rust.
I suggest you go and have a sniff around your local railway sidings.
Sleepers look about right.  IIRC they were a hardwood (Jarrah rings a bell) treated with creosote.
Ballast (if you are going to add any) would have been cleaner than on an operating railway line as it wouldn't have had oil etc dropped onto it from passing trains.  A light greyish bluestone sort of colour would be correct.

[martinbayer]

As an ex employee of the company formally known as British Rail I offer you the following observations.
The track would IRL definitely be rusty on the sides and probably also on the top unless they had a very heavy test schedule and ran enough trolleys down it to clear the rust.

My guess would be that the tracks would be deliberately kept clean by dedicated trolleys travelling along the test track to remove any rust (or even for example potential dead birds, for that matter) before each actual test run.

The one thing that might be worth adding are spoilers a la Formula One racecars to generate sufficient downforce to ensure the trolleys stay on the track at high speeds, given the propulsive and aerodynamic forces involved.

One thing to keep in mind is that the conventional wheel on rail combination is currently limited to about 350 mph, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_speed_record_for_rail_vehicles. For higher test speeds, the wheels would probably have to be replaced by slippers - ironically, according to a message in http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,239803, this could mean that the rail could have been rusty and would have stayed that way even after test runs .

All in all a truly creative build though!

Martin

[PR19_Kit]

The Pendine test track in S Wales uses wheels on its trollies, at least they did when BR tested the APT-E nose shape there in the early 70s. But that was 'only' at around 180 mph maximum and I imagine the ejection seat tests would run at a considerably faster speed.