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#31
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"WaltBJ" wrote in message om... FWIW I just recently viewed a Hurricane and a Zeke 32 being constructed from "scratch" plus a pile of badly corroded pieces to copy. There wasn't anything I saw there that required much more that could be made in a decently equipped 'job shop'. The two shops didn't have any unique tools either. Just lathes, milling machines, shear, brake, drill press, hand tools, a thousand Clecos and lots of material. The Hurricane surprised me in that the formers for the fuselage were partially constructed of plywood. The aft half looked rather like a 1:1 scale model aircraft. No, I won't tell you where they are - they don't have time to spare for a flood of visitors. So how did they make the merlin engine, browning machine guns and flight instrumentation ? I've seen reconstructions of these aircraft taking place at Duxford. Yes you can make the airframe by hand, of course it takes several years and costs a LOT of money but without an engine its just looks pretty. Keith |
#32
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WaltBJ wrote:
FWIW I just recently viewed a Hurricane and a Zeke 32 being constructed from "scratch" plus a pile of badly corroded pieces to copy. There wasn't anything I saw there that required much more that could be made in a decently equipped 'job shop'. The two shops didn't have any unique tools either. Just lathes, milling machines, shear, brake, drill press, hand tools, a thousand Clecos and lots of material. The Hurricane surprised me in that the formers for the fuselage were partially constructed of plywood. The aft half looked rather like a 1:1 scale model aircraft. No, I won't tell you where they are - they don't have time to spare for a flood of visitors. One wonders just how many skilled person-hours it will take to complete them, and how many years total it will take to produce one of each; mass production it isn't. The Hurricane is interesting, as it was just about the last mass-produced western fighter to be built that didn't use semi-monocoque construction, and also had a large percentage of fabric covering. Structurally the Spitfire was the next generation, and it was quite a shock at first; Jeff Quill described taxiing up to a halt at one RAF base he was visiting with the prototype or one of the early production a/c, and hearing this odd rapping sound as he shut down. He couldn't figure out what it was until he got out and found a large contingent of fitters and riggers gathered around the fuselage, rapping it with their knuckles and making exclamations along the lines of 'cor, it's made of tin': theyd apparently never seen an a/c with a metal-covered fuselage, never mind one using semi-monocoque contruction. Guy |
#33
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