Westland Pteradactyle vii

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AirshipsfNflyingboats

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Westland Pteradactyl vii

Being a bit of a fan of flying boats in particular as some of you will find out and strange planes in general Ive always thought someone might like to have a crack at this one.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Village/4082/brit/odd_air.htm

four speed 400s should do it nicely, I know that one other single engined large 1/3 single motor pterodactyl has flown ...follow this link its one you will find in my waterplanes thread http://inter-ex.com/english/iexoverview1.htm to the photos http://inter-ex.com/english/interex13/bild1e.htm

somewhere in this festival of oddities..beware the navigation on this site is multiple cascading layers...you can miss a lot. Translation is available through the first header cascade. I have lost the link to the whole page dedicated to this model.

View attachment 13763

p_vii.jpg
 
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duncan

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I might have known you`d be an Inter-Ex type Clive. I hope to get to one someday, how about you. A few Brits go, including a certain Mr. Webb.
 
wonwinglo

wonwinglo

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I saw a flying model of the Westland Hill Pterodactyl at Old Warden many years ago,it was flying really well,I can see that you like the unusual Clive ! what a refreshing change from conventional machines.

I am not nit picking,note the correct spelling above,a minor point but important for search engines.
 
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AirshipsfNflyingboats

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sorry

Sorry not intended -the gremlins I have been having are stopping me from using my on line spell checker and I don't always see when Ive changed something....looking at a typed screen - till I leave it and come back then it hits me because I see it as is, rather than what my slightly Dyslexics brain assembles in typing.

Its annoying but after a Bsc. pgce. and a few other things I just have to accept the fact that Im always going to be this way and if I did worry about it all the time I wouldnt have done a 1/2 of what Ive done...........im still trying to find out whats going on problems wise so bare with me.

regards Clive
 
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duncan

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Yea Mr. Hill deserves some plaudits. Reckon they got the hull from Sikorski for the Mk.VII version.
 
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wonwinglo

wonwinglo

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***No problems Clive,I understand and thanks for pointing it out,I do apologise.

Sorry not intended -the gremlins I have been having are stopping me from using my on line spell checker and I don't always see when Ive changed something....looking at a typed screen - till I leave it and come back then it hits me because I see it as is, rather than what my slightly Dyslexics brain assembles in typing.Its annoying but after a Bsc. pgce. and a few other things I just have to accept the fact that Im always going to be this way and if I did worry about it all the time I wouldnt have done a 1/2 of what Ive done...........im still trying to find out whats going on problems wise so bare with me.

regards Clive
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AirshipsfNflyingboats

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no worry

http://www.furthermore.org.uk/static/phoenix/penrose/penrose10.htm

in my searches I found this, if the link will work facinating reading but this is the bit that caught my eye

Harald Penrose

10. New Aircraft

by Phil Delnon

By the mid-1930s, things were hotting up. The Depression was easing, and Westland was working on many different aircraft. Penrose found himself on a familiarisation course for the Cierva autogyro. Being the man he was he decided to try diving it, working step by step until he found his safe limit at 120mph. Penrose and his colleagues at Westland decided that the rotor blades must be twisting, and passed on a warning. The Cierva people dismissed this, saying that civilian pilots would not dive the machine. Maybe not, but military ones would: a few months later an RAF autogyro dived from 1000 feet and crashed into the sea.

Meanwhile Westland was persisting with the futuristic swept-wing, tailless Pterodactyl. RAE pilots had not been able to make it spin, so Penrose had a bash. Eventually he managed it, and found the recovery very simple. In 1933 a visitor came to Westland to exchange information on wind-tunnel tests of delta-wing stability and control: it was Alexander Lippisch, whose passion for tailless gliders would lead to his design of the Me-163 rocket fighter.

More immediately significant for Westland was the first enclosed canopy on the DV6, which reduced the slipstream-buffeting for the pilot. Renamed the Wallace, the plane was ordered for the Auxiliary Air Force.

With this security, experiments with the Pterodactyl continued. Always enthusiastic, Penrose found himself directed to an old dark house in deepest Dorset, where a white-bearded old man in a skull-cap was reading the Koran. He showed Penrose what remained of the tailless model gliders he had made and flown before the Wright Brothers flew. The largest of them had an 8ft wingspan and a close resemblance to the Pterodactyl which Penrose could not help but comment on.

Perhaps that's because one of your designers came to see me, was the laconic reply.

Next for testing was a high-winged monoplane with a 60ft wingspan and a wide, fixed undercarriage. Named the P7, Penrose had been involved with its design in some detail, and did not anticipate too many problems when he took it up. Nor were there many; the main one being distortion of the wing when rolling at high speed. The chief designer was unwilling to believe this until taken up for a demonstration...

Penrose was becoming valuable now: not only did he have a parachute, but his insurance was raised to £5,000. He was about to appreciate why. Aeronautical engineers had already realised that mounting the engine in the middle of an aeroplane would make for a much more central centre of gravity and a much better aerobatic performance - important for a fighter. This was to lead to such aircraft as the American Bell P-38 Airacobra, which actually went into service.

Alice in Wonderland Duncan or what?
 
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wonwinglo

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Penrose was a man of great vision and bravery,his ability to get the very best from a flying machine is well known,without him Westlands would have been a lot less informed of their enterprising products,testing such aircraft was not without its great risks,the first flight of the Lysander was dramatic as large chunks of fabric decided to strip themselves from the fuselage,but he managed to get her down safely,I remember someone asking him what his favourite aeroplane was ? his reply was, the humble Westland Widgeon parasol machine which he flew himself around in for many years,his books are a joy to read and yes I believe the penned words that you mention Clive.
 
wonwinglo

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***A German engineer built a similar model,it was shown on a TV documentary about man powered flight a few years back,what an unusual subject.

Slight deviation here but have a look at www.pteroworks.com/pteros Pity they didnt do it in scale (pun) colours.
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AirshipsfNflyingboats

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Im wondering about the Purple caterpillar ....sorry the old beaded chap with the model..........thats the one to track!

I will have to go back and read more of this sometime ...RC Forum has a brilliant flying Pterosaur thread http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202963&pp=15 and theres a link in the Inter Ex site if you can find it to the German teams work....nice site Duncan I hadnt found that one.
 
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duncan

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Wonder who the white-haired man was , Lippisch ? or did I read that wrong ? The mention of the Wallace is a bit confusing could that be the Wapiti variant or were they just using up their Ws. Penrose`s own writings are so evocative of the period. A great pilot , no doubt. Paul McCready (of man-powered flight fame) did a prehistoric flying beast for TV too. There is/was a plan in RCM&E s lists too. The German "look-a-like"to the Westland machine was/is called Leonardo or similar if I remember. Shades of the da Vinci Code ! Where did the Inter-ex example get the inspiration and why the name ? Indeed ,"curious and curiouser" said the White Rabbit....eh !
 
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AirshipsfNflyingboats

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Penrose was a man of great vision and bravery' date='his ability to get the very best from a flying machine is well known,without him Westlands would have been a lot less informed of their enterprising products,testing such aircraft was not without its great risks,the first flight of the Lysander was dramatic as large chunks of fabric decided to strip themselves from the fuselage,but he managed to get her down safely,I remember someone asking him what his favourite aeroplane was ? his reply was, the humble Westland Widgeon parasol machine which he flew himself around in for many years,his books are a joy to read and yes I believe the penned words that you mention Clive.[/quote']Strange you mentioned the Lizzy thats where I started this sort of some time ago throwing it down to Tim hooper a man who thrives on oddities........ http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4994437#post4994437 ...........you may like to take a look at this long thread if your into Westlands.

Try this one for http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/vffs_gallery_nov12_03.html vintage indoor

I dont think its Lippisch ..he didnt die till 1976 http://www.todayinsci.com/cgi-bin/indexpage.pl?http://www.todayinsci.com/2/2_11.htm scroll down and click on source. The description is of someone who was building large complex models pre wright brothers ........possible but not a physical match for the time window Duncan.
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wonwinglo

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Interesting high aspect ratio wing shapes there,flying wings lost favour a bit in recent years but making a comeback on the slopes,the ability to mix controls via computer radios has been instrumental in getting rid of those sliding servos on rails we used to put up with,a few degrees of reflex trailing edge and some nice flying machines,if only time was on our side ? there are so many different designs that are there for experimenting with.Very nice Horten model,I recently saw some video footage of a British LMA model turbine powered as well,well beyond my resources.
 
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AirshipsfNflyingboats

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Concluding coments from the Penrose story

http://www.furthermore.org.uk/static/phoenix/penrose/penrose16.htm

The years rolled on. At 62 Penrose was offered an attractive retirement package, which he accepted. His ventures into boat-building proved fruitless, but he was more successful as an author, which was just as well, for inflation ate into his pension. In all he wrote eleven books, of which his British Aviation (five volumes) became a classic.

And so the wheel turned its circle. Eventually Penrose had to give up one of his boats and one of his two biplanes: they were too just expensive to keep. But it was not quite over yet: for the man who had seen the dawn of aviation, who had taken his baptism of the air dangling from a Cody kite, who had flown an Avro 504, who had test-piloted nearly 400 different civil and military aircraft as diverse as the high-altitude PV3 and the low-altitude Wyvern torpedo bomber, the high-speed Whirlwind and the low-speed Lysander, who had seen the flight of Bleriot aircraft and the Space Shuttle, fate had one more card to turn: now in his seventies, Penrose acquired a tailless microlight aircraft with a seat in the open, a tricycle undercarriage, a Henri-Farman-style horizontal elevator in front, a rear-mounted 17hp engine driving a pusher propeller, and a high-mounted swept wing with vertical fins at the wingtips. He named it the Pterodactyl Ascender, and flew it and his other biplane well into his eighties. He died on 31st August 1996, aged 92. Let the last words be his:

A gallon of petrol, and the skies are mine again.

​
 
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wonwinglo

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That is a lovely piece of writing ANFB,about a very special person in aviation who will always be remembered.
 
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