Cockpit ID

And now for something completely different. Any ideas what this might be...? (No prizes offered)

DCN

Spirit of St Louis

Supermarine S6B.

Gosh! The instrumentation seems awfully sparse for even the most primitive of aircraft. It's also built like a brick outhouse... which also tends to say it isn't some fragile wood and fabric heavier than air machine. Is the glass tube in the copper housing some kind of level/bank indicator?

Then there's the joystick in the foreground.

Methinks this beastie's domain may be the water.

In other words, I'm stumped!

It is an "Ican'tsee plane"

The instruments seem very early for the enclosed canopy. Some sort of racer? I think DJH has it.

Edited by Catalina Park, 26 October 2011 - 06:20.

DJH definitely has it - confirmation here:

http://www.britmodel...p...st&p=300013

I have to admit to being a life long admirer of R.J. Mitchell's designs, so I recognised the cockpit immediately. It cerainly is pretty spartan in there, built just for pure speed. The ASI double row of knots is interesting.

The colour is intriguing. The S6B was blue so I would have expected the interior to also be blue. Is this a picture of a replica?

And now for something completely different. Any ideas what this might be...? (No prizes offered)

DCN

Supermarine S.6A aka N248 at Solent Sky Museum (formerly Southampton Hall of Aviation)



And here, pictured at Goodwood:
http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1312703/

DJH got it, apart from the nit-pickery that it's actually the surviving S6A, not S6B - while Rocky absolutely nailed it. Supermarine S6A N248 photographed on Monday back in the Schneider Hangar at Calshot Spit, from which it operated in 1929-31 as one of the RAF High Speed Flight aircraft. The minimalist cockpit is not only incredibly spartan - it is incredibly confined, with the rolled-in upper edges encroaching above the pilot's shoulders.



With the three-quarter-length canopy folded open here's the forward view, dominated most by the skin-panel bulges providing Rolls-Royce R-Type cam-box clearance.



And here is the extremely important British racing machine in Calshot's 1915 hangar, reputedly the very one in which the Schneider Trophy and World Air Speed Record-breaking S6s were prepared 1929-31, though if it is the same building they must mean in the sense of it retaining its original framing and roof truss structure, completely reskinned with modern materials. Not only old racing cars get restored. While N248 survives pretty much as R.J.M. and his colleagues created her...



DCN

One of those machines, whether it be designed for air, land or water, that looks fast just standing still.

Neil

I kept quiet on that one as I have been allowed to sit in that very aircraft!

As Doug says, incredibly tight fit and with the "lid" down, not much in the way of vision. For the actual Trophy laps (they didn't physically race anther 'plane) a black line was painted on the wing running from the cockpit to the end, leading edge of the wing. When this lined up with the course pylon, the pilot knew it was time to bank!

I can't recall the name of the pilot off hand, but on a very bad landing he cartwheeled a S6 into the water. The wreck was recovered, but after a while, no body washed up on the coast. It was only then that someone looked down inside the fuselage toward the tail, where the poor pilot was wedged, at the very tail of the aircraft. Brave men one and all

The cam covers for the R type are none original, as when an engine is fitted, the bodywork of the aircraft was screw to a rebate on the actual cam box, this aided streamlining, cooling and a tiny bit of wieght!

Edited by f1steveuk, 27 October 2011 - 07:57.

One of those machines, whether it be designed for air, land or water, that looks fast just standing still.

Neil

Not to mention completely functional - almost to a fault...

That pilot was Naval Lt Gerry Brinton. Attempting a take-off first time out in the S6 it began to porpoise as it accelerated. Ultimately it bounced about 40 feet into the air as the pilot was caught between staying on full throttle to continue the run, or to keep it airborne, and shutting the throttle to abandon the run. He appears to have shut the throttle, the aircraft stalled, and dived straight into the water. Another High Speed Flight pilot, Sam Kinkead, had previously lost his life in a crash with one of these uncompromisingly functional speed machines.

DCN

I can't recall the name of the pilot off hand, but on a very bad landing he cartwheeled a S6 into the water. The wreck was recovered, but after a while, no body washed up on the coast. It was only then that someone looked down inside the fuselage toward the tail, where the poor pilot was wedged, at the very tail of the aircraft. Brave men one and all

The pilot who crashed an S6 (on take-off not landing) with fatal results was Lieut. G.L. "Gerry" Brinton RN In August 1931. The report of the accident in "Flight" magazine indicated that his body was still in the cockpit but could not be released until the plane was recovered.

I think the story of the "body in the tail" refers to the earlier accident to Flight Lieut. S.M. Kinkead DSO DSC DFC who was killed in an attempt on the World's Speed Record in a Supermarine S5 on March 12 1928 at Calshot.




Brave men all.

Tony

Edited by taylov, 27 October 2011 - 08:37.

Brave men all.

I'm just trying to imagine the noise, the heat and the drama of flying one of these nervous devices straight and level, never mind against the clock around quite a tight course. Engine and airframe both at the 'bleeding edge' of what was possible, occasionally slightly too ambitious. Just as well no Elfin Safety in those days, otherwise we'd probably be communicating in German.

Thanks for posting these, Doug - fascinating stuff.

Thanks for the reminders! I believe he was nicknamed, "Monty Brinton"?

I'm not currently at home, but when I get there I have a vast pile of S6 and S6B pictures that I aquired many years ago. Stunning aircraft!

To reduce aerodynamic drag the S6s featured surface cooling and were effectively flying radiators. Engine coolant was circulated through the double-skinned wing surfaces, cooled not only by the external airstream but also via internal galleries through which air fed from intake louvres below the wing tips to exit louvres on the upper surface of the wing roots. Meanwhile engine oil was cooled by radiation from the pipework corrugations along the sides of the fuselage, with the tail fin serving as the dry-sump header tank... The floats doubled as fuel tanks, the lighter specific gravity of fuel compared to sea water helping to maintain adequate buoyancy. To combat float burial under take-off power (due to engine torque reaction) one float carried more fuel than the other, and so became a counter-weight. These were ingenious machines. I have always been entranced by them.

DCN

Shades of Brabham BT46

The colour is intriguing. The S6B was blue so I would have expected the interior to also be blue. Is this a picture of a replica?

The interiors on an awful lot of aluminium aircraft are pale green, no idea why. Some sort of corrosion resistant primer perhaps? I remember when I was a kid in St Albans in the 80s the BAE146s on test were always painted in pale green primer.

80 years on it is hard to understand the impact that the Schneider races had on the public. Just a small example from the Jersey Festival of Flowers c1930.

Tony.

The interiors on an awful lot of aluminium aircraft are pale green, no idea why. Some sort of corrosion resistant primer perhaps? I remember when I was a kid in St Albans in the 80s the BAE146s on test were always painted in pale green primer.

Chromate-rich primer (more yellow than green to my eye) was much used on aluminium-alloy aeroplanes. "Evans the treatments" at Hatfield had a diagram of the various coatings that were applied when unlike metals were joined and I'm sure that the integrity was ensured by the final paint layer. What I never remembered to ask him was how we were able to send them out on test without having the weather sealed out by the gloss paint that would eventually be applied.

Edited by Allan Lupton, 27 October 2011 - 15:46.

Chromate-rich primer (more yellow than green to my eye) was much used on aluminium-alloy aeroplanes. "Evans the treatments" at Hatfield had a diagram of the various coatings that were applied when unlike metals were joined and I'm sure that the integrity was ensured by the final paint layer. What I never remembered to ask him was how we were able to send them out on test without having the weather sealed out by the gloss paint that would eventually be applied.

For modellers, there was (is?) a Humbrol shade called 'Cockpit green', implying it was a fairly standard colour, at least on service aircraft.

One of the finest programme covers ever (from the non-race of 1931).

Tony.

Back cover




Front cover

Here are some pics of a model of the S.6B I put together some years ago.

I Inspected the Gentlemen on Post 15 ,and gave First Equal to Flight/Lt HOPE and
Squadron Leader ORLEBAR for the best Trouser Creases..!! Congratulations..

That pilot was Naval Lt Gerry Brinton. Attempting a take-off first time out in the S6 it began to porpoise as it accelerated. Ultimately it bounced about 40 feet into the air as the pilot was caught between staying on full throttle to continue the run, or to keep it airborne, and shutting the throttle to abandon the run. He appears to have shut the throttle, the aircraft stalled, and dived straight into the water. Another High Speed Flight pilot, Sam Kinkead, had previously lost his life in a crash with one of these uncompromisingly functional speed machines.

DCN

I've just borrowed a copy of one of my own books, in which I did a chapter on the Rolls-Royce R Type, the Trophy and the S6 and S6Bs,, and I should have known better regarding the accident involving Brinton.

The story of the R type would make a fascinating documentry, but as yet I haven't got a channel to bite. Again as Doug alludes, the S6 and S6B were pared to the bone, being simply flying radiators with fuel, oil tanks and wings attached, the clearance between the bottom of the engine and the fuselage was measured in thou'. The warm up procedures were complex as was the development of the fuels used, British engineering at it's very best.

The pilot who crashed an S6 (on take-off not landing) with fatal results was Lieut. G.L. "Gerry" Brinton RN In August 1931. The report of the accident in "Flight" magazine indicated that his body was still in the cockpit but could not be released until the plane was recovered.

I think the story of the "body in the tail" refers to the earlier accident to Flight Lieut. S.M. Kinkead DSO DSC DFC who was killed in an attempt on the World's Speed Record in a Supermarine S5 on March 12 1928 at Calshot.




Brave men all.

Tony

Can anybody see a motoring connection AND a Supersonic connection here?

http://www.weymouth-...e/pic_swv02.htm

I'd quite like a copy of this at home!

Can anybody see a motoring connection AND a Supersonic connection here?

The Orlebar cousins - Nigel of Rabelro and Orlebar-Schneider fame, and Christopher the Concorde pilot and historian.

The Orlebar cousins - Nigel of Rabelro and Orlebar-Schneider fame, and Christopher the Concorde pilot and historian.

I should have included Spitfire connection , as Nigel's brother, Rupert, commanded a Spitfire Squadron and raced at Crystal Palace.