Its thursday so its Ito san Day!

[Trev Clark]

.....And its a Westland Whirlwind Mk 1 at 'all nodes ' now. It has a fictional dark blue VC too :roll:

[T6flyer]

Umm wondered when this was going to be uploaded. I'm afraid to say most of the historical detail came from my files. Haven't had the chance to try her out yet, but will check up on the blue VC. Am sure thinking about it (steady now), that an early prototype was blue. Will have to check to see if this was right.

Martin

[Trev Clark]

I think he can be forgiven the blue, but it's possible he is correct Martin. I assumed that all WW2 RAF cockpits were black and that light green colour. For a freeware Whirlwind it looks OK, there has only been a payware one available before.

[RAF_Quantum]

Hi Martin,

Seeing as you have comms with ITO, he's asking a question in the readme about leading edge slats and were they definately fitted. A reference book I have which includes details on the Whirlwind 1 says 'Handley-Page anti-stall slots fitted to the leading edge of the outer wing panels', if you could pass it on. Oh and just noticed he has aileron trim tab on both ailerons but was fitted just to starboard acc to reference book

Rgds

John

[T6flyer]

I was surprised that he wanted to build it and told him that there had been one before. But he likes to build aeroplanes that interest him and the Whirlwind is one of those. It was down from a short list of three and well its the first. I supplied information out of Putnams, AofTFP, MacDonalds Fighters Series and wonderful articles in Aeroplane Monthly and AE. Wasnt unsure about the leading edge slats, but it appears that the prototype did have them. They werent included on production machines.

Martin

[T6flyer]

Hi Martin,

Oh and just noticed he has aileron trim tab on both ailerons but was fitted just to starboard acc to reference book

Rgds

John

Just looked through what I sent him and there are tabs on both wings in a number of photos and illustrations. Can always send you the files if you are interested. Makes a good read.

Martin

[steve p]

The Whirlwind was originally fitted with leading edge slats but pretty early on there were a few accidents where a slat detached in flight. Subsequently, all existing Whirlwinds had them locked shut. Later aircraft did not have them fitted at all. The loss of the slats lengthened the landing run, leading to their being based only at airfields with long (by Fighter Command standards) runways.

The first prototype was silver rather than blue and had handed engines. AFAIK, the cockpit interiors were painted as Trev said.

Best wishes
Steve P

[T6flyer]

Me again.....just read through the article in AE and it states that:

'service use found that the automatically operated wing outer flaps were un-necessary and were locked down. A decision to do so was after they deployed under load during a tight turn by P7008 on April 30 1941 which broke off its tail and port wing. Another outer slat failure forced a temporary ban on aerobatics from May 25 except in 'exception circumstances'. Generally the aircraft proved more pleasant to fly at the speeds at which the slats had previously been open'.

Will send this on to Kazunori in due course. I suppose I was too busy scanning to notice this text!!

Martin

The prototype (L6844) was dark grey in colour (must be going colour blind) at the time of its maiden flight. The second prototype (L6845) was silver. P7048 was retained by Westlands as a hack and this was as shown in the photos I have painted in an overall something colour. It was scrapped in May 1947.

[Garry Russell]

Mr. Ito does in his package mention that he has doubts over the slats and shows a 3 view and a cut away showing them

There are two aileron trims on those.

So perhaps they are early drawings and he has followed those with some aprehension.

He certainly gave it some thought and concern as to whether it was right or not.


Garry

[dswanson]

Hi,

Never mind the technical details - I've found some serious flaws with Mr Ito's creation - see my post in the Gallery section ..... :o