HMS Ark Royal IV's Airgroup at Vieques to Pink Floyd...

[DaveB]

The intakes on RN Bucc's on that vid are rounder but I'm not sure they're smaller. '66 was an engine change year I think so the Spey may have needed a different shaped intake. There's obviously an answer but I can't think of one at the moment

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Scorpius]

Hi Guys,

Looking at the vids has prompted me to list below the current Royal Navy inventory for fixed wing jet aircraft (carrier borne):




Not bad eh?

[SkippyBing]

The Buccs in the black and White video are S.1s with the Gyron Jr engine and a smaller intake, compare them to the S.2s in the first video. The higher mass flow of the later Speys required a bigger intake.

[Kevin Farnell]

The Buccs in the black and White video are S.1s with the Gyron Jr engine and a smaller intake, compare them to the S.2s in the first video. The higher mass flow of the later Speys required a bigger intake.

Thanks, Skippy

This was something I noticed many years ago, as a kid. I had the Airfix RN Blackburn Buccaneer (with rotating bomb door ) and later the Matchbox RAF Buccaneer (no rotating bomb door :-( ). The difference in the engine intake sizes was quite noticeable.
Now I know they were correct.

Cheers

Kevin

[NigelC]

Likewise, the 'anglicised' F-4K/M with Speys had much larger intakes than the J79-powered models.

N

[SkippyBing]

Interestingly the Navy was ordering S.2s before the S.1 was even in full squadron service, everyone was that sure it was going to be a success.

[Motormouse]

The intakes on RN Bucc's on that vid are rounder but I'm not sure they're smaller. '66 was an engine change year I think so the Spey may have needed a different shaped intake. There's obviously an answer but I can't think of one at the moment

ATB

DaveB :tab:

just chime in here as resident Bucc (q-abc-a, some of you will know what that means) fan,
indeed the S1 model had Rolls-Royce Gyron engines, the S2 has Speys which have got much bigger intakes

Interesting to see the Buccaneer nose wheel off the deck for take off (no lengthened nose wheel used). The catapult attachment point is also very unusual on the Buccaneer. On release, you almost expect to see the nose pitch down until the nose wheel contacts the deck. This obviously doesn't happen, or it would be pointless in lifting the nose wheel in the first place.

Bucc (and Phantom) used a 'holdback' , basically a metal bar shaped to break at a pre-determined load, between a fixture at the back of the plane (just forward of the tail bumper) and carrier deck, this didn't break until after the cat fired, maintaining the nose-up attitude due to good old physics.

Likewise, the 'anglicised' F-4K/M with Speys had much larger intakes than the J79-powered models.

er, not exactly they didn't, actual intake size (wot you see at front) was same,because of the moveable ramp system, it was married to a larger x-section tube,and had a different air by-pass sytem (the clever stuff that allows extra air in at low aircraft forward speeds, and dumps too much air to prevent compressor stall), this meant the centre fuselage was 'fatter', removing some of the area-rule 'coke bottle' effect

ttfn

Pete

[SkippyBing]

Rolls-Royce Gyron

The Gyron was actually a de Havilland engine produced for the Avro Canada Arrow and then in cut down form as the Junior for the Buccaneer and an after-burning version of that used in the Bristol 188 research aircraft. As an aside they could have put Avons in and got better performance, i.e. a power margin when you lost an engine, but the catapults then fitted to the RN's carriers wouldn't have been able to launch it with any meaningful load.

Quick note on the holdback, all carrier aircraft have one somewhere otherwise there'd be nothing to stop them rolling down the deck when they go to full power prior to the cat going off. I know the Scimitar also lifted it's nose wheel off the deck when sitting on the cat, not sure if any other types did.

[Motormouse]

The Gyron was actually a de Havilland engine

oops my bad

on the holdback, all carrier aircraft have one somewhere

of course they do, I was just pointing out that the pre-launch attitude was set by the length of the 'holdback' , the holdback was winched down until the tail bumper was on deck.
Incidentally, one of the guys I used to work with lost a goodly amount of his lower jaw in an altercation with a Bucc 'holdback' fitting retraction spring,he transferred to RAF from RN (as several others did) when Buccs got, er, shore-based, rather than being forced to de-mob as RN had no more use of his services.

ttfn

Pete

[T6flyer]

very interesting to see, as yesterday spent the day at the model show at Yeovilton (only bought three kits) and went on the 'Carrier' which I believe shows footage taken from the Sailor series (I may be wrong, I usually am) and also that I was a hangar rat for Mr. Gilmour's Intrepid Aviation at North Weald from 1990-2001.

Martin