International Harvester Transall______finished Pics Page 3

[63cpe]

Now, after some delay....project is started. Don't have a name for it yet, but that will pop up along the way...

IMG_20161007_095051798_HDR by David Dunnebier, on Flickr
First cutting is done....

IMG_20161007_095125793 by David Dunnebier, on Flickr
Test fitting of the cockpit, does it need mor detail?

IMG_20161007_095140469 by David Dunnebier, on Flickr

IMG_20161007_102844386 by David Dunnebier, on Flickr

[63cpe]

So, in the last days some progress was made:

IMG_20161012_192015361_HDR by David Dunnebier, on Flickr

IMG_20161012_213151440 by David Dunnebier, on Flickr

IMG_20161012_213207135 by David Dunnebier, on Flickr

And as said before a subject came to my mind: an big, early jet powered cropduster from the US in the fifties. But one with a twist!

[PR19_Kit]

 

That looks like a MONSTER version of the PZL M-15 Belphegor.

[Old Wombat]

Crikey! You challenging zenrat, mate? That's getting into HP Henfield territory, that is!

[Captain Canada]

Woah....is that ever neat ! Different for sure ! What is that base kit ?

[Old Wombat]

Looks like a Piasecki YH-16 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piasecki_H-16_Transporter).



Kitted by Revell as the H-16 (a Whif-in-a-Box);

[kerick]

Brilliant!

[zenrat]

Woah! Trigan Empire!
Flippin' amazing.  Makes me want to go mad in the stash with a razor saw...

[Dizzyfugu]

Very cool, I like it a lot (kit basis and concept).
Maybe the front fuselage is a little long, though?

[Rick Lowe]

There should be more Trigan Empire builds...
Don't look at me though, I can't seem to make the imaginative leaps required...

[zenrat]

I have acquired a massive amount of digitised Trigan Empire strips and have been copying any decent vehicle designs into a folder.
A jet biplane has long been knocking about the darker recesses of my head for a long while.

[63cpe]

Thank you all for the comments, very much appreciated.

and yes it does look like a prehistoric ancestor of the Belphegor (...), maybe of Trigan origin (I do like the series, though it never came to mind it does look it could be of Trigan origin).

@Zenrat: hehhehheh, just be carefull with the razorsaw...maybe a machete comes in handy?

@ dizzyfugu: your right but the wings are to be moved slighty more forward and there are canards (or rather forward stabilisers)planned. These should compensate for the weigh shift while the load is release during flight. I think I still have 1/94 Friendship tailplanes somewhere ...

@ Rick Lowe: let me see what I can do....

@ Old wombat: I like your idea, but think i'm challenging Zenrat later in the same style... Imitation is most sincere form of flattery...

@PR19_kit: Yes, it does look sweet. It's only 33 cm length and span is 27 cm so in real life it was about the same size as the Convair 340/440.

David

[kerick]

This is awesome! Any paint ideas yet? Crop duster yellow?
Jut thinking this could make a cool fire bomber

[63cpe]

Well, I came up with the story about the IH Transall:

International Harvester was a producer of usually agricultural machinery like Balers, Combines and Tractors but also made utility vehicles. So why didn't they produce cropdusters? Let's face it; at that time all cropdusters were based on surplus WW2 aircraft like Avengers, Stearman etc. These models were cheap to operate but could spray less per run and where less efficient. The need for a more modern, efficient cropduster was clear as the mass mechanization after the second world war was at it's peak in the early fifties. This was not only the case in the US, but also for Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. IH (International Harvester) were in the midst of the agricultural business, jet power was new and had a great future ahead. So, what if IH did respond to the research of the National Flying farmers association and develop a cropduster, in cooperation with Westinghouse and a former Boeing and Lockheed Aeronautical Engineer?

Enter John W. Thorpe, Aeronautical engineer who just drawn up the FL-23 for Fletcher Aviation. He was asked by IH to design a large jetpowered cropduster to be cheap and efficient in use, able to spray an swath of land 60 meters wide and 15 kilometers long in 15 minutes, Good low-speed flight characteristics, even with a heavy load, calling for a high-lift wing and STOL abilities and easy to maintained by un/low skilled personnel. IH earlier tried to team up with Fred Weick, also aeronautical engineer, but the preferred working for Piper on the Ag-1 predecessor of the Piper Pawnee.

So, Thorpe designed the basic layout consisting off a fully glazed cockpit for pilot and navigator/trimmer in a practical twin boom, low wing and center fuselage pod design with a fixed tricycle undercarriage. The Westinghouse J-34 would be mounted on the pod just like the He-162. It did resemble the Weick W-1A although it had a low wing and was off all aluminium, cantilever construction.

Thorpe was very much involved in Fletcher Aviation and didn't really have the time to work on the IH project and the FL-23 Defender at the same time. So IH took the basic design and formed a project team with former Aeronca (Aeronca stopped building General Aviation planes in Middletown, Ohio in 1951) employees to develop the Thorpe designs into the IH Transall. This revised version had a double-decker, sesquiplane layout with hopper tanks between the upper and lower wings. The wings had an unusually thick (thickness/chord 21%), constant chord wing, fitted with full span slotted flaps and slot-lip ailerons. The twin booms were moved high on the hopper tanks and the fuselage was lengthened to accommodate a larger tank. The tanks could either hold liquid or dry bulk materials. The fuselage tank could also be removed (slid-out) of the fuselage and being used as cargo hold.

The first prototype was built in 1952 at the IH plant at Louisville, KY and made it’s maidenflight in October 1953. Soon the Transall proved to be underpowered with the J34 engine so the bigger J46 was ordered. The prototype was adapted to accept the bigger J46 and was extensively tested during 1954. While the J46 and provided sufficient power it was not as economical to run as expected nor was it easy to maintain. So, major requirements were not met and couldn't be met at that time. Only the prototype was built and tested. To IH it was a big disappointment for such a promising concept and it came at huge costs!

During 1956 the US Chemical Corps contacted IH about the Transall as they were interested in a platform to test new herbicides (later known as the rainbow herbicides). But it never came to testing these herbicides, the CIA had a more urgent need to live test chemical solutions over populated area’s in the vicinity of area 51. In 1955 Area 51 or Groom Lake was chosen as test site for the U-2 (article 341). So the prototype of the IH Transall was taken to Groom Lake and was first used for spraying herbicides over the sagebrush in the vicinity of Groom Lake. When more sophisticated and less harmfull solutions came available during 1959-1960 and these substances were assessed to be suitable for full scale testing the Transall was used to spray different sets off chemical solutions over populated area’s like Alamo, Mercury, Sugar Bunker, Beatty and Goldfield, NV. These solutions later became known as Chem Trails. During the Oxcart and Tagboard programs the Transall was used as a mind control craft as sightings of testplanes were too frequent. CIA rationed: If secrecy had to be maintained these chemical mind control had to be used. Operations continued during the sixties as programs were developed at Groom Lake, but seemed to have been stopped in 1970 most likely caused by changed ethical morale and public opinion. The fate of the IH Transall is yet unknown. Possibly it was destroyed in the early 1970. It might as well still be around as the chemical solutions used could be highly toxic just like the C-123 used to spray Agent Orange in Operation Ranch hand.

[TheChronicOne]

AMBITIOUS!   

This is going to be cooler than a rack of fans on an iceberg.