Tuesday, August 7, 2018
A whaleboat is a type of open boat that is relatively narrow and pointed at both ends, enabling it to move either forwards or backwards equally well. It was originally developed for whaling, and later became popular for work along beaches, since it does not need to be turned around for beaching or refloating. The term "whaleboat" may be used informally of larger whalers, or of a boat used for whale watching.
Today whaleboats are used as safety vessels aboard marine vessels. The United States Coast Guard has been using them since 1791. Their simple open structure allows for easy access and personnel loading in the event of an emergency. These whaleboats are now considered very important, and highly regimented safety vessels. Boats must include a hatchet, lifeboat compass, lifeboat sea anchor, emergency signal mirror, emergency drinking water, lifeboat first aid kit, jack knife with can opener, lifeboat bilge pump,and emergency provisions. On modern warships, a relatively light and seaworthy boat for transport of ship's crew may be referred to as a whaleboat or whaler. It may also refer to a type of vessel designed as a lifeboat or "monomoy" used for recreational and competitive rowing in the San Francisco Bay Area and coastal Massachusetts.
Whaleboats were also extensively used in warfare. Colonel Benjamin Church is credited with first pioneering their use for amphibious combat operations against Abenaki and Mi'kmaq tribes in what is today Maine and Acadia . His troops, New England colonial forces and Native allies from southern New England, used them as early as 1696 (during King William's War). Others in the Northeastern borderlands followed suit and they were utilized throughout the imperial conflicts of the early 18th century, and extensively used by both British and colonial troops during the French and Indian war. Units that made extensive use of whaleboats were the 7th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment at the siege of Louisburg in 1745, often referred to as "the whaleboat regiment," and Gorham's Rangers, formed in 1744, initially a company of Indians mainly from Cape Cod, many of whom were employed as whalers, and which later evolved into a British Army ranger company in the 1750s and 1760s. John Bradstreet's Bateaux and Transport service, a corps of armed boatmen tasked with moving supplies on inland waterways during the French and Indian War also used whaleboats extensively. In 1772, American colonials used whaleboats to attack and destroy HMS Gaspée in Narragansett Bay. During the American Revolutionary War, there were many whaleboat raids, including one with 230 men led by Return J. Meigs, Sr. to sack Sag Harbor on Long Island in 1777. On December 7, 1782, two fleets of whaleboats fought a bloody battle on Long Island Sound known as the Boats Fight. During the desperate hand-to-hand conflict, every man involved was either killed or injured.
The whaleboat's design takes after those the Vikings used during the 11th century, around the time Beowulf was written and Leif Erickson came to America briefly, before the Vikings really made their mark on English culture. As a whaling vessel, it fulfilled its purposes for what it went through and its “superior handling characteristics soon made it a popular general-purpose ship’s boat”. The whaleboat generally is outfitted with a dismountable sail post for sailing across seas, but in close proximity, they can use oars for rapid rowing to nearby areas with a large rowing crew. The basics of the whaleboat consists of a rudder, main sail, and occasionally a jib. Without the rudder, the boat would have no steering capabilities, and without the sails, the vessel would have no propulsion, assuming there were no oars or a sizable rowing crew to compensate for the lack of propulsion. After 1850 most were fitted with a centreboard that would keep the boat from swaying too far to one side or another, located in the center of the boat. The main sail would catch the wind, which would in turn push the sail, pushing the boat in the process, and the rudder, depending on the direction the person manning it pointed it at, would push the stern of the boat in a certain direction, steering the whaleboat essentially. The rudder consists of basically two parts: the part that sticks in the water in order to give thrust, and the part the coxswain, or the person steering, holds onto in order to push or pull the first part. The jib sail is a significantly smaller sail that serves to help steer and propel the boat forward as well. By catching the wind at a specific angle, the sail can either double as a second main sail catching the wind, or help by adding “better close-hauled sailing and of setting extra sail with comparatively little labor demand”
Whaleboats became prevalent in ancient Inuit and Yupik culture when trade and other forms of nutrition were sparse. Whaleboats gave them a means of travelling to distant places in order to obtain resources. Natives had to gather sustenance, generally large fish such as whales, when at all possible, from the sea. Whaleboats were not always taken out to sea to hunt whales, but they could also be used to transport dead whales that they had scavenged from the shallow waters. Whaleboats used in whaling had a stout post mounted on the aft deck, around which the steersman would cinch the rope once the whale had been harpooned, and by which the whale would drag the boat until it was killed. Large baleen and bow heads whales became their main export to Europe and the Americas, which in turn would help in revitalizing the trade in their region, an area that ranged from the Bering-Chukchi Sea to eastern Arctic.
Norwegians began to dominate whaling when they turned it into a full-blown industry in 1904. They were more skilled and had better techniques than other civilizations around this same time period. The Norwegians had very efficient gunners, men who fired the weapons, the technology of the Sven Foyn gun and the grenade harpoon, and they utilized the powered whale catcher. Although all these factors were effective and sped trade, the demand of oil was its own issue. Whales were mainly used for their fat that was melted to oilmaybe talk about this process. The Norwegians had a systemtalk about the system in place and partnered with the British to profit. The simple whale boat received a number of modifications throughout this periodexpand on the modifications. What was once a simple single hull, open boat became a body of new technologies to make whaling more efficient. Changes like the use of radar and radio instead of a lookout and new handling tools.
A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized ship, designed for whaling, the catching and/or processing of whales. The former includes the whale catcher – a steam or diesel-driven vessel with a harpoon gun mounted at its bow. The latter includes such vessels as the sail or steam-driven whaleship of the 16th to early 20th century and the floating factory or factory ship of the modern era. There have also been vessels which combined the two activities, such as the bottlenose whalers of the late 19th and early 20th century, and catcher/factory ships of the modern era.
Whaleships had two or more whaleboats, open rowing boats used in the capture of whales. Whaleboats brought the captured whales to the whaleships to be flensed or cut up. Here the blubber was rendered into oil using two or three try-pots set in a brick furnace called the tryworks.
At first, whale catchers either brought the whales they killed to a whaling station or factory ship anchored in a sheltered bay or inlet. Later, with the development of the slipway at the ship's stern, whale catchers were able to transfer their catch to factory ships operating in the open sea.
Here is a Henschel 123 in 1/48. It is the old Esci kit reboxed as Amtech and includes a full resin interior, newer plastic wheel parts, and a nice decal sheet. It didn't fit well at all probably because of the kit's age. I built it out of the box and I used Tamiya colors to finish it.
Saturday, August 4, 2018
The C model's use of the longer DB 603 engine required more extensive changes to the airframe. As the weight was distributed further forward, the tail of the aircraft had to be lengthened in order to maintain the desired center of gravity. To test these changes, several examples of otherwise standard 190 As were re-engined with a supercharged DB 603 to experiment with this engine fit, V13 (W.Nr. 0036) with the 1,750 PS 603A, the similar V15 and V16, a 1,800 DB 603 E being fitted to the latter after a time. With this engine, the V16 was able to reach 725 km/h (450 mph) at 6,800 m (22,310 ft), a considerable improvement over the 650 km/h (400 mph) at 5,200 m (17,060 ft) of the basic A models. V18 followed, the first to feature the full high-altitude suite of features, including the pressurized cockpit, longer wings, a 603G engine driving a new four-blade propeller, and a Hirth 9-2281 turbocharger. Unlike the experimental B models, V18 had a cleaner turbocharger installation, running the required piping along the wing root, partially buried in the fillet, and installing both the turbocharger air intake and intercooler in a substantially sized teardrop shaped fairing under the cockpit. This "pouch" led to the "Känguruh" (Kangaroo) nickname for these models. V18 was later modified to the V18/U1, with a "downgraded" 603A engine, but a new DVL turbocharger that improved power to 1,600 PS at an altitude of 10,700 m (35,105 ft). Four additional prototypes based on the V18/U1 followed: V29, V30, V32 and V33.
Like the C models, the early examples of the D models were built primarily to test fit the Jumo 213 engine to the existing airframe, as the D-0, with plans to move on to definitive high-altitude models later, the D-1 and D-2. The first D-0 prototype was completed in October 1942, consisting of an A-5 airframe with the Jumo 213A engine. Further examples followed, but like the C models the development was stretched out.
Thursday, August 2, 2018
Here is a Spitfire "what if" scenario. This is an MK. 14 painted in a standard early war Med. pattern. This is not meant to be simply a captured aircraft but representative of one in service. The kit is 1/48 from Minicraft and the colors were Tamiya and Vallejo. I put some Luftwaffe equipment in the aircraft such as harness and radios. The decals were Aeromaster.
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
The Supermarine Spitfire was developed in the mid-1930s as a short-range, high-performance interceptor aircraft by chief designer R. J. Mitchell.
Only one prototype was made, receiving the military serial K5054. Following its first flight on 5 March 1936, pilot "Mutt" Summers made his famous but oft-misunderstood remark, "I don't want anything touched!" Its outstanding looks and performance caused a significant stir wherever it appeared. The aircraft underwent progressive modifications throughout its life, eventually being converted to near-production standard. It crash-landed several times, eventually crashing fatally and being written off, just as World War II was breaking out.
Several replicas have been built, including one as a memorial to Mitchell.
Supermarine began development of the Type 300 in 1934, as a private venture following the unsuccessful Type 224 prototype. Chief designer R. J. Mitchell and his team took the Type 224 as their starting point and continued to draw on their experience with the Schneider Trophy seaplanes. The Type 300 was considerably cleaned-up, with progressive refinements including retractable undercarriage, an enclosed cockpit, oxygen-breathing apparatus, and smaller and thinner wings. The distinctive elliptical wing was developed during this phase, enabling it to accommodate the armament and undercarriage in the thinnest possible cross-section, and thus helping the aircraft achieve a high maximum speed. The newly-developed Rolls-Royce PV-XII V-12 engine, soon to become known as the Merlin, was adopted from the outset.
In November 1934, Mitchell started detailed design work. On 1 December the Air Ministry issued contract AM 361140/34, providing £10,000 for the construction of a single prototype.
In April 1935, the armament requirement was changed from two 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers machine guns in each wing to four 0.303 in (7.7 mm) M1919 Browning machine guns, following a recommendation by Squadron Leader Ralph Sorley of the Operational Requirements section at the Air Ministry. The outer wing section was too thin to fully enclose the additional guns, so small underside blister fairings would be added to production machines to make room for the mechanism. Meanwhile the PV-XII had changed its coolant from water to ethylene glycol, allowing the clumsy evaporative cooling system to be abandoned and replaced by a ducted radiator which actually provided a small amount of jet thrust and had recently been developed by Frederick Meredith at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough. By August of 1935 both changes had been incorporated into the design.
Construction on K5054 started in December 1934, although the design continued to evolve during the early stages of build, with the prototype gaining an oval rear fuselage, slightly reduced wing span and rear vision cockpit glazing behind the sliding canopy. Like many prototypes of mass-production designs, the first Type 300 had to be largely hand-built and although its general structure followed that of the proposed production design, it details differed in many ways.
Although the basic wing plan was to stay the same for most production Spitfires, the prototype had integral tips and the alclad skinning was hand-cut to fit the double-curvature of the elliptical wing, the upper skinning being laid out in spanwise strips and the underside in chordwise strips. Similarly, the fuselage and tail was a single integrated assembly, with many small cowling panels to the engine.
Other initial design features which would later be changed included a fixed-pitch propeller, a stubby and partially-recessed engine air intake, a diagonal edge to the tail fin tip balance (which matched the edges of the tail plane tip balances) and a tail skid. Underneath the port wing the radiator duct intake ran flush with the starboard undercarriage leg bay, its opening conforming to the angle of the bay. Farther out towards the wingtip a long pitot tube projected from the leading edge.
The Merlin engine was still under development when the airframe was finished. The engine fitted for initial trials was a prototype Merlin C 990 hp (738 kW), with six stub exhaust ports just protruding from each side, driving an Aero-Products "Watts" two-bladed, wooden fixed-pitch propeller.
The prototype was allocated RAF serial number K5054. When first rolled out for ground tests in February 1936, no armament was installed and the undercarriage doors were also missing. Its RAF markings were applied direct onto the unpainted airframe.
Mitchell wanted his Type 300, now named the Spitfire, to be as fast and sleek as possible. After its first flights (see below), K5054 was given a high-grade paint finish closer to that on a Rolls-Royce car than a typical aeroplane. Workmen experienced on the car applied a coat of filler to cover all the rivets, panel joints and other surface blemishes, and rubbed it down to a smooth finish. They then applied several coats of paint to achieve a high gloss. The colour used has been the subject of debate. It has been variously described as "French Grey", "blue-grey", "pale blue" or "cerulean blue". When a replica was being built, a desktop model of K5054 was found, and the paint used in its light blue-green finish was said to have been left over from the original. The laborious finish proved fragile under flight conditions and also added excessively to the aircraft weight. It was not applied to any other Spitfire.
For its maiden flight the prototype Type 300 was fitted with a fine-pitch propeller to aid in takeoff and the undercarriage locked down for safety. On 5 March 1936, Captain Joseph "Mutt" Summers, chief test pilot for Vickers, took it off from Eastleigh Aerodrome (now Southampton Airport). The flight lasted eight minutes. On landing, Summers immediately told the ground crew that, "I don't want anything touched!" This is often misunderstood to mean that the Spitfire was flawless, but in fact Summers just wanted to talk the flight over with Mitchell and the design team before anything, especially the control settings, was altered.
For its next flight K5054 was fitted with a new, coarser-pitch high-speed propeller and its undercarriage unlocked. From now on, the undercarriage would be retracted during flight. Summers made three more flights from 10 March 1936. An updated engine was then fitted and from 24 March Summers left the test-flying to his assistants, Jeffrey Quill and George Pickering. They soon discovered that the Spitfire was a very good aircraft, but not perfect. The rudder was oversensitive, and the top speed was just 330 miles per hour (530 km/h), little faster than Sydney Camm's new Merlin-powered Hurricane.
Ground resonance testing of the aircraft at Farnborough took place in April. Excessive wing flutter was identified and a speed limit of 380 miles per hour (610 km/h) imposed. Returning to Eastleigh, the rudder balance, air intake and engine cowlings were modified, the aircraft given the blue paint scheme described above and the undercarriage doors fitted. These included a second door, hinged off the main one, to close over the outer half of the wheel when in flight.
On 11 May testing resumed. Handling had improved but the maximum speed was still only 335 miles per hour (539 km/h). A new propeller was designed and made, on 15 May taking the top speed to 348 miles per hour (560 km/h), at last visibly outclassing the Hurricane and earning it the reputation as the fastest military aircraft in the world.
The prototype was delivered on 26 May to RAF Martlesham Heath for service evaluation by the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE). The RAF were so keen to get their hands on it that they broke with tradition and Flight Lieutenant Humphrey Edwardes-Jones took it up again on the same day. The staff were well used to new aircraft arriving, but the Spitfire created exceptional interest and even the cooks came out, still in their white hats, to watch. Edwardes-Jones gave a positive report of the aircraft, asking only that the Spitfire be equipped with an undercarriage position indicator because he himself had nearly forgotten to lower it for landing.
As the trials continued, the Air Ministry did not wait for the full evaluation and report, but placed its first production order on 3 June. Specification F.16/36, issued to accompany the order, incorporated so many improvements that a full new set of design drawings were needed for the production version.
On 16 June the prototype was ferried back to Eastleigh in readiness for a press day two days later, losing oil during the flight. Jeffrey Quill took it up anyway on the day, amid a crowd of determined press photographers, and the oil pressure dropped to zero while still on his takeoff run. By then committed to the takeoff, he completed a quick circuit and landed uneventfully. An oil pipe had come loose but despite this the engine had performed perfectly throughout.
Following further trials, Edwardes-Jones gave a flying display in K5054, in front of huge crowds at the Hendon RAF display on Saturday 27 June 1936. A couple of days later Summers took it to Hatfield for the SBAC show where it was the star exhibit, giving a display of aerobatics and attracting intense interest from media and industry alike.
Back again at Martlesham Heath, speed tests proved the troublesome secondary undercarriage doors to be unnecessary and they were removed. A standard set of eight .303" Browning machine-gun armament was fitted with the wings, already designed to accommodate them, being modified accordingly. The engine was also changed for an uprated Merlin F. Trials continued with split peas glued onto the airframe to simulate dome-headed rivets, which were less costly and time-consuming, but also caused greater drag, than flush countersunk ones. The results were used to determine the areas for each type of rivet on the production machines. A radio and aerial were fitted, and the tailskid replaced with a twin tailwheel assembly. This last was quickly replaced by a single tailwheel, due to a tendency to clog with mud.
Following an engine failure due to low oil pressure and consequent wheels-up forced landing at the hands of Sam McKenna on 22 March 1937, a prototype triple ejector exhaust was fitted. Developed for the Merlin by Rolls-Royce, it would become characteristic of all the early production Merlins. Besides number of other small improvements, the aircraft was repainted in the standard RAF scheme of Dark Earth/Dark Green camouflage on the upper surfaces with a silver dope finish underneath. On 19 September, it was found that the new exhausts developed 70 pounds of thrust, equivalent to about 70 hp at 300 mph and pushing the maximum speed up to 360 miles per hour (580 km/h).
Development work continued, especially on the engine exhausts and gun heating system, with the occasional landing mishap, until in July 1938 K5054 was sent back to Farnborough. A planned attempt on the world speed record was shelved and the machine was instead used for continuing development work on the Merlin.
The day after Britain declared war on Germany and three days after Hitler's invasion of Poland had marked the start of hostilities, on 4 September 1939 an awkward landing at the hands of Flt. Lt. G. S. "Spinner" White led to the machine tipping over nose-first onto its back. The fuselage broke up and White suffered fatal neck injuries from the anchor point to the Sutton safety harness, dying four days later. The accident led to the system being redesigned. Parts of the wreck were later used for reconnaissance camera installation trials, but it was never rebuilt.