Classic British Flight Sim

Hi Airspeed,

I've had a look at Rob Richardson's MR3 and its a very smart bit of work... but its got the wheels the wrong way round! Proper Shack's have tailwheels.
I've found to get anything near a good growl you need some really good speakers too. I might have to start going through the tutorials and see what I can achieve. We have all the manufacturers drawings for the aircraft, which so far have never been released. There's not very many good references for the Shackleton out there as a result.

Our group is looking at re-releasing a documentary, but I can't say much until the producer says so... but it has been updated as most Shackleton DVD's stop at the end of their service career.

Regards,
Rich

Airspeed wrote: can your group produce DVD versions of that documentary?

It's one of those licencing situations with BBC Worldwide isn't it. The whole series, or individual programmes if they exist would make a wonderful stocking filler for Christmas/or birthday. There were programmes on the Shack of course, the London Route Master bus, the original split screen Mk 1 Morris Minor & the Douglas DC-3 (which I also seem to have a tape of), but other the gray cells can not recall.

Update...looks like the series does exist, & was last on air on BBC Four in 2008.

Bob

Bob, thanks very much for that. My Godfather flew the MR2 from St Mawgan before going on to the Nimrod. Great to see the old girl again, and it seems we might see one aloft again before too long.

richw_82 wrote:Hi Airspeed,

I've had a look at Rob Richardson's MR3 and its a very smart bit of work... but its got the wheels the wrong way round! Proper Shack's have tailwheels.
I've found to get anything near a good growl you need some really good speakers too. I might have to start going through the tutorials and see what I can achieve. We have all the manufacturers drawings for the aircraft, which so far have never been released. There's not very many good references for the Shackleton out there as a result.

Our group is looking at re-releasing a documentary, but I can't say much until the producer says so... but it has been updated as most Shackleton DVD's stop at the end of their service career.

Regards,
Rich

Back again, Rich!
Perhaps in your honest opinion, "proper" ones have tail wheels, but according to Rob's README and my Encyclopedia of world aircraft,[ISBN 1 86309 436 9] the MR3 was given a tricycle undercarriage among other crew comforts. I'm no expert (just ask the others round here), but it seems that the facts are on Rob's side.

Its a bit of a tongue in cheek comment Mike, no one is saying the MR3 didn't have a tricycle undercarriage, just that "proper" Shacks were tail draggers

Half thought that, Ben, hence my "honest opinion" and "proper" wording.

Airspeed wrote:Back again, Rich!
Perhaps in your honest opinion, "proper" ones have tail wheels, but according to Rob's README and my Encyclopedia of world aircraft,[ISBN 1 86309 436 9] the MR3 was given a tricycle undercarriage among other crew comforts. I'm no expert (just ask the others round here), but it seems that the facts are on Rob's side.

Hi Mike,

It was a tongue in cheek reference to the fact the MR3 was a substantial redesign and shares very little with its earlier siblings of the same name. MR1, MR2, AEW2 and T4 were all the Type 696, the MR3 was the Type 716.

The MR3 was an upgrade in many ways - there's not much difference internally by way of crew comforts as the old MR2 got upgraded to Phase 3 to match it, but the tricycle undercarraige was steerable and offered better visibility over the nose - so taxying was less of a challenge. The brakes were also hydraulic (less prone to the 'die off' the pneumatic brakes on the tailwheel Shacks suffer, and it was also equipped with the Maxaret anti lock braking system. Personal preference for me is for the tailwheel variant, as they have the 'DNA' of the Lancaster very evident, but the MR3 is still a Shackleton, and thats good enough.

That and I'm lucky in that I can run one up every now and again. Here's a photo of WR963 this Saturday, posted across on the Flypast magazine forum.

http://forum.keypublishing.com/attachme ... 1380398111

Regards,

Rich

Hi all, I thought I'd add a little update as I know there's a few Shack fans about these parts.

WR963 at Coventry is still alive and kicking, and we've ran her up twice in two weeks. The first time was 25th Jan; where we ran at the same time as SAAF 1722 was running in South Africa - meaning the last two (currently) running Shackletons were both live at once, though half a world apart. The second time was 8th February where on clearing some water ingress problems we've had saw WR963 back on all four engines again.

There's good news on the horizon, we've spent a lot of the winter digging through the 16 tons or so of archive we have, and all of WR963's records - the conclusion being she has 594 flying hours left to use on the lower main spar booms. We just have to try and persuade the powers that be that we can use them safely, so its likely our old Shack will be getting prodded and poked in some unusual places to make sure there's no corrosion or deterioration.

Then its off to a CAA approved company we go and see about getting her in the air...


Regards,

Rich

Excellent news Rich and thanks for the update

ATB
DaveB

Good luck - hope the dream comes true! It'd be so nice to see in the air again a heavy tail-dragger that is similar, but different to a Lancaster.