The Flying Boat, Seaplane and Amphibian G.B - Discussion thread

[Old Wombat]

OK, I'm at a complete loss as to how this plane;





comes even close to being;

One of the contenders in the 'World's Ugliest Aeroplane' competition, but beaten by the Blackburn Blackburn and a few other Brough based products.

when it has the Blackburn Blackburn;



and the Avro Bison;



in 1st & 2nd places, & a whole bunch of other fuglies wa-ay ahead of it?

[jcf]

A partial explanation as to why those things looked as they did, Avro Aldershot:



The RN aircraft include a navigator's room, thus the picture windows on the Bison, and
the portholes on the Blackburn..

[Weaver]

The RN aircraft include a navigator's room, thus the picture windows on the Bison, and
the portholes on the Blackburn..

One might imagine it having a deep red leather buttoned chair, a pipe rack, an occasional table with a decanter or two on it, a book case within easy reach and possibly a small pipe organ on the back wall. One might also imagine the pilot, in his open cockpit, being a tad miffed about all this... 

[PR19_Kit]

I always think that the designer of the front of the Karas was having a raging argument with the designer of the rear at the time they built it, and they plain didn't talk to each other.

[Rheged]

For ugly, surely the birdcage noses of interwar Amiots score quite highly.

[CANSO]

I always think that the designer of the front of the Karas was having a raging argument with the designer of the rear at the time they built it, and they plain didn't talk to each other.

Karas is a beauty queen compared to another polish airplane - the Zubr.

BTW the later could have floats too, but was never developed for the Navy.

[Old Wombat]

When you consider how quickly & how well the Admiralty came to grips with the concept of aircraft during WW1, I can never get my head around what happened in the inter-war period.

The only conclusion I can come to is that ALL of the air-minded naval staff moved over to the RAF when it was created in 1918 (likewise the British Army), leaving only the dinosaur battleship-wallahs in charge of the Senior Service (& artillerymen in charge of the Army), as an explanation as to why the spec's for their "naval fighter-scouts" were so stupidly impractical.

The creation of the RAF, to my mind, put British naval aviation back 30 years, having to start from scratch in 1939/40 using modified land planes. It also put CAS back a similar timeframe because of the RAF's focus on "strategic" bombers.

Lack of funding, of course, helped no-one.

[NARSES2]

For ugly, surely the birdcage noses of interwar Amiots score quite highly.

Indeed some of them are truly 

I love the way the bombs on that Aldershot are hung tail down. Just seems wrong to me, but I suppose as they are probably nose heavy it would work.

[PR19_Kit]

I love the way the bombs on that Aldershot are hung tail down. Just seems wrong to me, but I suppose as they are probably nose heavy it would work.

Didn't the He-111's bombs hang the same way? I recall seeing a vid of them falling out and turning 180 degrees before heading on down.

[63cpe]

Yep, your correct. Bombs in a He-111 were put in from below and shoved-up with a pole to lock. Got a picture of it somewhere.

David

[kitnut617]

I love the way the bombs on that Aldershot are hung tail down. Just seems wrong to me, but I suppose as they are probably nose heavy it would work.

Didn't the He-111's bombs hang the same way? I recall seeing a vid of them falling out and turning 180 degrees before heading on down.

Yep, I had a good look at the arrangement many years ago when one of those Spanish Merlin engined Casa's came to Calgary. For ten bucks I got to go through it (and a B-17 that came with it) and you had to crawl over the top of the bomb bay to get to the cockpit from the rear of the fuselage. The bomb bay was made up of a bunch of square tubes hanging vertically.

[ChernayaAkula]

<...> A Heller Karas is going to get the floats from an Airfix Ar 196. <...>

That's just inspired.  Now, are you going to put the Karas' landing gear on the Arado?

<...> another polish airplane - the Zubr.

<...>

AFAIK, Zubr translates to "bison". Could you imagine a plane more deserving of that name? Surely there's some beauty in that.

[jcf]

When you consider how quickly & how well the Admiralty came to grips with the concept of aircraft during WW1, I can never get my head around what happened in the inter-war period.

The only conclusion I can come to is that ALL of the air-minded naval staff moved over to the RAF when it was created in 1918 (likewise the British Army), leaving only the dinosaur battleship-wallahs in charge of the Senior Service (& artillerymen in charge of the Army), as an explanation as to why the spec's for their "naval fighter-scouts" were so stupidly impractical.

The creation of the RAF, to my mind, put British naval aviation back 30 years, having to start from scratch in 1939/40 using modified land planes. It also put CAS back a similar timeframe because of the RAF's focus on "strategic" bombers.

Lack of funding, of course, helped no-one.

The FAA was completely under RAF control from it's founding in 1924, made up of RAF units
depoyed on ships,  until 1939. Their Air-ships at the RAF had far more control over specifications
than the Admiralty.

The notion that teh RN was controlled by "dinosaur battle-ship wallahs" is not borne out by the
development of RN aircraft carriers between the war, if the "dinosaurs" were in control, why all
the advances in design?

[Old Wombat]

OK, maybe some of the aviation minded officers remained.

PS: Don't forget the Royal Naval Air Service, formed in 1914.

[zenrat]

I love the way the bombs on that Aldershot are hung tail down. Just seems wrong to me, but I suppose as they are probably nose heavy it would work.

Didn't the He-111's bombs hang the same way? I recall seeing a vid of them falling out and turning 180 degrees before heading on down.

Yep, I had a good look at the arrangement many years ago when one of those Spanish Merlin engined Casa's came to Calgary. For ten bucks I got to go through it (and a B-17 that came with it) and you had to crawl over the top of the bomb bay to get to the cockpit from the rear of the fuselage. The bomb bay was made up of a bunch of square tubes hanging vertically.

The advantage of hanging them that way is if the latching mechanism fails (or someone does a "what does this do?") and one of them drops out when the plane is on the ground then the tail hits the ground rather than the nose and it is less likely to go bang.