Thread: Making an aeroplane in Australia 1941

Originally Posted by morrisman

Bristol Beaufort Bomber in Australia - 1941 WW2 Documentary - WDTVLIVE42 - YouTube


Lots of manual labour eg the hand bending of the tubing ... Mike

BTW the narrator is hinting that the engines were manufactured here ..but I think they were imported ?

I think 30,000 of those individual components might have been rivets

The Beaufighter was a much better plane than this rather ordinary unit.

Quite funny really that they played Wagners flight of the Valkyries in the background, which is exactly the same theme that the Nazis used for their propaganda. The main difference being that Wagner was regarded as an icon of German supremacy. Ironic.

War propaganda at it's best.

Rob

I knew we made the wasp here(Wirraway), so I figured the twin wasp wouldnt have been much of a stretch

Bristol Beaufort - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Taurus engines, aircraft components and the associated equipment were shipped out to be joined, in October 1939, by the eighth production Beaufort L4448. With the outbreak of war the possibility that supplies of the Taurus engines could be disrupted or halted was considered even before the British government placed an embargo on exporting war materials with the Blitzkrieg on France, the Netherlands and Belgium in May 1940. It was proposed that a change of powerplant could be made to the Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp, which was already in use on RAAF Lockheed Hudsons.^[19] Orders for the engine were placed and a factory was set up at Lidcombe, New South Wales and run by General Motors-Holden Ltd. The locally built engines were coded S3C4-G, while those imported from America were coded S1C3-4.^[21]

Stuart

I like the bit where they entrust the hardness testing to "a woman".

Wow. And they even gave them a file and a hack saw.

Talk about sexism.

Thank gawd those days have gone.

Rob

Intrestingly i have the same model hardness tester and it has "DAP" (department of aircraft production) markings on it

the buildings were the Beaufighter components were made here at Islington were only recently demolished and a Bunnings built on the site

While we are on the subject of aircraft, here's a little story that may interest you.

An Uncle of mine served in the Pacific in the navy and when he passed away I had the job of sorting out his affairs. I used to drop in and see him on the way home from work and we had a beer and he told me a few stories about what went on in those war time days.

In the corner of his lounge room he had the control column (joy stick) from a Mitsubishi Zero fighter leaning against the wall, and a few other Japanese trophies.

When he died it was all unwanted by the rellies so I kept the joystick in my shed for many years. Finally I sold it on Ebay to a collector in Tokyo Japan.

He asked for photo's of the stick to confirm it was genuine and had the Imperial Airforce markings stamped into it. I supplied these and mentioned to him that on the top of the control column some Japanese Kanji script had been scratched and could he tell me what it said.

Below are some photos of the script and the joy stick.

IMG_0713.jpgmacro.jpg

He sent me a reply.

It was quite sobering really. It says - "Must win'.

Cheers

Rob

Yep the aircraft engine factory was in Lidcombe, polished timber floors.

The beaufighter airframes were assembled at chullora railway workshops I think. Great plane, " the whispering death"

oh the skills in that video, what a waste?

what about that molten metal in the pipes ? Same theory as sand bending without the work?

thanks for posting.

Originally Posted by Stustoys

I knew we made the wasp here(Wirraway), so I figured the twin wasp wouldnt have been much of a stretch

Orders for the engine were placed and a factory was set up at Lidcombe, New South Wales and run by General Motors-Holden Ltd. The locally built engines were coded S3C4-G, while those imported from America were coded S1C3-4.^[21]

Stuart

Hi

That is curious because I have of a copy of the GMH "WAR RECORD" - a book published by GMH themselves just after WW2. The book details all of their many projects - but no mention of GMH building Wasp engines is made The book details the manufacture of the Gypsy Major engine for the tiger moth and many other aircraft components eg for the Beaufort , but no Wasp engine manufacture . Mike

Well I cant vouch for the Wikki, but as I recall wasn't the whole point of the Wirraway that it was locally built. Now it only had a Wasp, not a double wasp. I'll see if I can dig anything up tomorrow.

Stuart

How ironical that this would be posted today.

I have just returned home from visiting my uncle in a nursing come at Nowra today.

He was a radio operator and gunner on these planes in New Guinea and wrote a book about his squadron. He did his training at the Nowra base.

Originally Posted by achjimmy

what about that molten metal in the pipes ? Same theory as sand bending without the work?

thanks for posting.

Yes that is the theory - the metal (think Cerrobend) goes in to stop the tubing collapsing during the bending, and then the tubing is heated afterwards and the filler metal flows out.

Those filler metals are collectively known as fields metal, or woods metal - based on the alloying metal used (Bismuth, or Ismuth, etc) - with the explosion of LCD based electronics (touch screens, etc) the price on those alloying metals has climbed dramatically - making it more expensive to find large quantities of the cerrobend metals.

If anyone has a cheap source in Oz, please let me know since I have a couple of jobs where I need around 2-3 Kg of it.

Thanks,
Des

I'm surprised no-one has commented on the OH&S sign featured in the video... I'm tempted to paint one up for my workshop with the same text....

CARELESSNESS.
NOT FATE.
CAUSES
ACCIDENTS.

Originally Posted by morrisman

Bristol Beaufort Bomber in Australia - 1941 WW2 Documentary - WDTVLIVE42 - YouTube


Lots of manual labour eg the hand bending of the tubing ... Mike

BTW the narrator is hinting that the engines were manufactured here ..but I think they were imported ?

Thanks for sharing Mike. I really enjoyed watching this. I had no idea that we manufactured the Bristol Beaufort here. We need more of these old manufacturing videos!

Hi Mike Seems you were right about Wikki and GM

Aero Engine Production - The Lidcombe Engine Plant

Turns out there is Beaufort being restored as we speak(well I think its still going)

A9-141 Restoration Photographs

Stuart

Hi Gents, in relation to the Beaufort,some snippets.Bristol engines [radial] were sleeve valve. these engines are a work of art with an intensive gear train to drive the sleeve valving.The Beaufighter was a derivative of the bomber and it had Bristol Hercules engines[sleeve valve] it was aptly named the''Whispering Death because of its relatively silent engine noise.
Pratt and Whitney engines were made under llcence at CAC Comm aircraft Corp Fishermans Bend Melb. as the aircraft assembled there.
The state railways Vic and NSW made air frame components and assemblies.
Beaufort bombers were a problem and lots of lives were lost due to mystery crashes.There is a memorial at Sale or Bairnsdale commemorating lives lost in training mainly Beaufort crashes.Nearly 200 names I believe.
In W A there was an Operational Training Unit during the war,one of the pilots there was a man by the name of Learmonth.,from western Victoria.
One day he was flying a Beaufort and was coming in to land. and realised he had lost control.being technically smart he was able to relay exactly by radio what was happening The trim tab on the elevators was not responding and it is practice to zero set them to allow an smooth control surface.apparently there was a fault with the cable operation and this was the problem for those unexplained fatal crashes. as most of them burned and were completely destroyed the evidence to the fault was consumed by the fire, and no one alive to tell what had happened usually too low to the ground on a final landing.
Learmonth crashed fatally i think crew too perished but it was his rapid reactions to pin point the serious failings.
RAAF Learmonth in WA is named after him.
After this crash there was an immediate grounding of all Beauforts to inspect the elevator trim tab control mechanism.It was modified and the unexpected crashes stopped.Just 0.02 cents worth Cheers.