Finished Entries

[NARSES2]

This will be the place for your finished builds

[NARSES2]

Opened

[Old Wombat]

What? Dizzy hasn't already got a build in here?


Actually, he's slowing down a bit these days, I reckon his time machine's on the fritz!

[Wardukw]

What? Dizzy hasn't already got a build in here?


Actually, he's slowing down a bit these days, I reckon his time machine's on the fritz!

😆 🤣 😂..probably true tho ...

[Rheged]

It seemed like a good idea at the time


When does a stupid concept  become a roaring success?  A wooden, unarmed bomber...............surely not!  But the De Havilland Mosquito became a great success!  Similarly, some adjustments to design and the  dubious Avro Manchester became the remarkably successful Lancaster.  This can, however work the other way. The apparently good idea of a long range heavy bomber resulted in the He177 and the  reasonable requirement for a  cheap ASW aircraft produced the Short Seamew.

The concept of a vertical take-off fleet fighter was proposed by Admiral Alexei Mussorgski in 1954. The central political directorate  of Morskoi-Flot(1) considered this a credible project and allocated funds, the KGB offered intelligence gathered by their operatives working at the  Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough  and  Konstantin Pushkin ( a member of the supreme Soviet and student of English proverbs) encouraged this naval research in addition to traditional aircraft carrier design, remarking that "It is better not to hold all of your eggs in one basket"  .

A design not dissimilar to the Rolls Royce  Thrust (2) measuring rig was constructed with one large Klimov turbojet  exhausting into four downward facing jet pipes. For  centre of gravity reasons the air intake was at the rear of the rig, which due to its intricate pipework became known as zmeinaya svad'ba or ZS (the snakes wedding) . After a short series of tethered  flights inside a huge hangar at a test site in Northern Kazakhstan, the first free flight was conducted outdoors in June 1956. Unfortunately, the dry outdoor environment  resulted in  vast clouds of  the dust of the central Asian steppe being ingested by the engine, which promptly cut out a metre from the ground. The ZS landed heavily and  hurled test pilot Antonin Kasparski to the ground, where he suffered a broken arm, shoulder and thigh.  Supreme Soviet member Pushkin considered that " Making omelettes requires the breaking of eggs"

For the next test flight, the single  engine  was replaced with a pair of back to back Rolls Royce Derwents, the test area was sprayed with water to lay the dust and a rudimentary cabin constructed.  This reminded the ground crew of the Russian folk tale of Baba Yaga; the hut on fowl's legs.(3)  Considerable stability  problems were experienced, with much pilot induced oscillation  caused by throttle lag.  Hard landings and the problems of  a remarkably top-heavy test rig toppling over resulted in several damaged test pilots. Eventually a new design bureau was created in 1961.  Borisov, Prysyl and Kamarov were tasked with building a functional VTOL aircraft capable of deployment on the helicopter carriers Moskva and  Leningrad, which were under construction.

Borisov, Prysyl and Kamarov  (BPK)  were aware of the Hawker P1127, but believed that the vectored thrust engine was a dead end.  The BPK-01 utilised a powerful Lul'yanka main engine with a degree of deflected thrust, and bleed pipes leading to  small stabiliser outlets at the wing tips..  An RB162 based lift engine  was installed in each wing, the design having been "acquired" in France during the design of the Mirage  Balzac V. (4)  Testing at the Kazakhstan development centre improved the design and the BPK-03 looked to the casual observer  like a shortened Mig-21.  Twenty were built as a "hero project"  They were flown conventionally then vertical take-offs and conventional landings were attempted. Three of the airframes were written off before  a transition protocol was developed . The conventional flight to vertical landing procedure was eventually established, with six more write-offs.  A major difficulty was the fuel consumption. Only 14 minutes of flight was possible with either  a vertical take off OR a vertical landing but not both.

By April 1964, the Soviet  Maritime Experimental Directorate demanded a demonstration  of the BPK-03 at Moscow Domodedovo airport to emphasise the superiority of Soviet aerospace design. The aircraft were flown in several very short stages to Moscow, where a mass vertical take-off  was rehearsed from a taxiway. The aircraft then flew to another airfield 5 minutes flying time away and immediately landed. Aircraft ID details were deliberately  randomised to suggest that  they were in squadron service whilst only a single Hawker Siddeley Kestrel had flown. Western diplomats and military attaches were invited to view this demonstration , but from a distance. The long grass beside the taxiway attracted the displeasure of  senior officers, and ordered it to be mown short the evening before the event to create a better impression . The great and the good assembled to watch the  mass take off by 8 BPK-03 aircraft .  Engines started and as they began to leave the ground, masses of grass clippings were ingested by all of the engines and so Western diplomats and  Members of the Supreme Soviet were spectators at a mass hard landing event.

Some development continued, but the BPK-05 ( known to its ground crew as Bol'shaya Prygayushchaya Kucha  and best translated as the great leaping heap) never made squadron service although they were seen ranged but immobile on Moskva and Leningrad flight decks...................and the Kestrel with its vectored thrust Pegasus engine which  Borisov, Prysyl and Kamarov dismissed as a dead end  evolved into the superlative Harrier.

The design team was disbanded and its members relegated to junior positions in the Soviet aerospace industry. Konstantin Pushkin was "retired" from his position on the Supreme  Soviet and was last reported as Commissar for  Staff Management in Verkhoyansk .

As an aside, most of this material has been extracted from MI5 files, recently declassified under the 50 year rule.  Reports from the Kazakhstan test  centre mainly emanated from a senior sanitary operative responsible for the cleanliness of senior officer and test pilot toilets.  Agent IZAL was able to hear unguarded conversations whilst officers were using the toilet facilities.

(1)   Russian Admiralty
(2)   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Thrust_Measuring_Rig
(3) https://geoffmead.blog/2012/06/19/why-baba-yaga-lives-in-the-forest/
(4)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Balzac_V

[RAFF-35]

The Rikugun Ki-328 was one of the most audacious yet deeply flawed aircraft projects undertaken by Japan during the final years of the Second World War. Despite the theoretical advantages of rapid interception and reusability, the Ki-328 was plagued by significant operational dangers, technological limitations, and practical constraints.

A link to the build with full back-story can be found here;

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53753.15

[McColm]

The Austin FX4 Fire Response Vehicle was based on the London Black Taxi during the 1957 midlife update. The change from the indicators been fitted to the roof line moved down in the rear tail lamp cluster. Other changes included the removal of the front passenger door. The passenger side windows were originally painted over on the prototype  2372 kept  its  licence displayed on the front windscreen. These  would be removed on the second one and replaced as a panel van.
Trials were carried out by the London Fire Brigade to navigate the narrow streets of the city with Hampshire and the County of Cornwall taking an interest, unfortunately this didn't lead to any orders being placed. All of the prototypes ended up at various sites of SJMcColm Engineering Ltd to be used by their own fire services. However there was a small demand for the Austin FX4 Panel Van which led to 350 taxis being converted for commercial use

[PR19_Kit]

BA's 'retro' HP42, dug out from a museum and refurbished to flying condition after extensive 'updates' demanded by the CAA and others. These included the deletion of the rigging wires on the tail assembly, replacement of the very un-environmental petrol burning Bristol Jupiter radial engines by much cleaner Lycoming 502 turbofans and the replacement of the multiple centre section struts by one GIANT mono-strut to hold the upper wing on (with a 14 times increase in power it needed a stronger strut, believe me!)

The HP42J only made one flight in the new configuration, and that was from Duxford, where the upgrades were fitted, to Heathrow, and after that it spent the rest of its life in a BA hangar there. This was not because it wasn't capable of flying any more, or that the CAA refused it a permit to fly, it was just that there wasn't a single pilot in the entire country who wanted to go anywhere near it after reading the Pilot's Notes produced by its crew after that first and only flight! 

[Steel Penguin]

looks wonderful Kit   and does give the impression of the retro / heritage idea taken a step or two  too fat   

[kerick]

I want to see an Airbus in silver with giant black lettering as a Slightly Better Idea!

Wonderful job!

[Wardukw]

Turned out superb Kit 👌 👏
Weirdly it looks like it always looked like that   

[PR19_Kit]

I want to see an Airbus in silver with giant black lettering as a Slightly Better Idea!

Yeah, I could do that too. I only have maybe 8-9 Airbus kits in The Loft.