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 16/05/2008, 12:26 PM
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keith gerrard
 
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
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I do not think you could call a hydraulically operated valve system desmodromic Equitator.
Desmodromic is cam opening and closing and there are no cams on the projected hydraulic systems.
You are right I think, when you say that desmodromics has peaked.
Future development might benefit from better and lighter components, perhaps carbon composites but the costs would be high.
The saddest thing of all is the effect cost has on developments today.
Because the technology from decades ago was brought to a very good level of reliability, it is accepted as the only workable technology for current vehicle use. The only experimental work is confined to fine tuning this established technology and the use of new materials.
In my field of transmissions, the layshaft gearbox (albeit with electronic control now), is still the first choice of vehicle manufacturers.
This technology goes back to before the First World War.
Technology in motorcycles is even more ancient in concept and further restricted in development by vested interest by use of the macho hairy MC image so loved by enthusiasts. Why else is the Harley Davidson V twin agricultural engine still thought of as state of the art?
Building ancient Motorcycles as current technology is hardly a way forward but then look at American cars but then maybe not.
Marketing is ALL today, they care not one jot about the technology.
England used to have the best engineering base in the World.
I blame it on education and the work of International greed.
Dream on keithgerrard@gerrard24.freeserve.co.uk
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16/05/2008, 2:36 PM
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Scaramouche
Joined on 02/04/2006
obscure
Posts 909
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This is a charming and undoubtedly beneficial dialogue Keith.
Equitator is learning a lot of nice new words, and you are learning how to spell.
It's a win-win situation!
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16/05/2008, 2:44 PM
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keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
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Oh thats alright Scary, I am sure my spelling will slip back to its usual level.
It is all about being bothered innit.
I lost interest in this countries niceties years ago.
Pointless in this age of weeds.
Dream on keithgerrard@gerrard24.freeserve.co.uk
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16/05/2008, 2:53 PM
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Baconsdozen
Joined on 02/09/2003
Lowestoft
Posts 1,066
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"England used to have the best engineering base in the World".
Sadly from my experience of trying to buy in goods of certifiable English manufacture to resell,it now probably has one of the smallest.
Baconsdozen
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16/05/2008, 3:01 PM
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keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
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16/05/2008, 6:59 PM
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keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
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Yea thank you snuggles.
If you use the multi tab functions in browsers, it is easy to copy from one site on one tab and paste onto the edp forum site on another.
Just did it.
This picture might interest people, it is an SE5 fighter that crash landed on Newmarket Race Course in 1917.
The RAF had a base there I think.
Dream on keithgerrard@gerrard24.freeserve.co.uk
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16/05/2008, 7:12 PM
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keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
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This one is Norfolk circa 1916, very rare.
Sopwith Camel air launched from R28
Thats right we had aircraft carriers in the air in 1916.
We are not that advanced today are we!
Dream on keithgerrard@gerrard24.freeserve.co.uk
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17/05/2008, 12:05 AM
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Scaramouche
Joined on 02/04/2006
obscure
Posts 909
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Not really Keith.
Air launch from Zeps or Brit airships was never that effective, and if that from Engedine had been successful, Jutland (the first true naval armagedon) would have ended the Great War before the end of 1916.
Ranking innovations is an art. I don't criticise you for not mastering it.
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17/05/2008, 1:03 AM
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keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
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I am not ranking innovations.
The concept of airship launched fixed wing aircraft was never proven one way or the other.
WW1 versions had many problems associated with the technology then available.
The American Akron, Macron and Shenandoah from the years before WW2 were much more successful.
Based on German designs, they launched and recovered aircraft with few operational problems.
Exercises over the Pacific, Hawaii and Midway were common in the pre war years.
Special aircraft with no undercarriages were even developed to increase range and combat agility.
Unfortunately all three American airships were destroyed because of the poor weather monitoring science available at the time and a lack of expertise comparable to that of the Germans or the British. The German Graf Zeppelin 2 and the British R100 fully proved the reliability and performance potential of the later airships. These and the Hindenburg were in a different class to the American WW1 Zeppelin copies. Britain did not develop military airships because of the monopoly of the German ships and the flying boats we used through out the Empire. The lack of available Helium prevented ongoing airship development here, especially after the crash of the R101 in France that killed our air minister. The crash was the governments fault and not any basic fault in airships. The design was rushed as a government project and modified because it produced insufficient lift, it should never have flown.
Airships and this kind of innovation were both killed off by the military methods used with fixed wing aircraft during WW2.
Barnes Wallis had ideas for extreme high altitude airships for bombing and aircraft launch that could have written a totally different story if built in the late 1930's.
Imagine a 30,000ft plus altitude airship with HA Spitfires in 1940 over the Channel or even over Berlin.
Or a 50,000ft altitude airship bomber in 1944.
After the war airship technology had not progressed for over five years and of course fixed wing vested interest sealed their fate commercially.
Here is the R26 in Norfolk 1917, notice the other innovation developed in Norfolk being used as a mooring mast, a mk 1 Tank.
Much later the R34 in Norfolk mid 30,s
Dream on keithgerrard@gerrard24.freeserve.co.uk
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17/05/2008, 1:43 AM
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keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
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Well you mentioned Jutland Scary.
I doubt you would have seen this before.
The German fleet that fought at Jutland assembling at Scapa Flow after the surrender.
Still there aren't they?
Dream on keithgerrard@gerrard24.freeserve.co.uk
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19/05/2008, 3:19 AM
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Equitator
Joined on 04/11/2003
Posts 925
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Only the Germans perfected the methodology for airship operation. They had operated scheduled passenger services since before WWI without mishap until the Hindenburg in 1936. They did have shed disasters (Arlhorn?) during the war but that was with military vessels under wartime exigencies. As for the Hindenburg, a case was made for sabotage; another case has been made that the conflagration was attributable to flammable dope on the envelope gores rather than the hydrogen reservoir.
It must also be remembered that Luftschiffbau Zeppelin were not averse to building conventional bomber aircraft at a facility (Starken?) away from Ludwigshafen during the war.
After the Shenandoah disaster some elements in the LTA detachments agitated for a return to a hydrogen regime “so that that ships could be flown properly”. As Keith implies, the inter-war airships were under-powered and under-informed as to weather.
The Americans added hull design refinements with Akron/Macon; deep ring construction and internally mounted engines with vectoring propellers. Also ground handling methodologies such as the riding out car and the docking stern beam. They also had an experimental tankship with a mooring mast for laying to and refuelling at sea.
The U.S.Navy in general was not entirely enamoured of the LTA detachments at the time; the expression “lighter than air and thicker than mud” was bandied about.
In the 1960s such luminaries as Max Rynish of Manchester Liners and Dr Edwin Mowforth advocated cargo carrying vessels. Rynish’s proposed system was highly imaginative, Mowforth’s schematic for a jobbing heavy lift craft was the more feasible. Nothing came of either system. Even with present day technologies operating airships in the volatile and unpredictable troposphere must be an uncertain business. Any future would probably be with high altitude craft in military applications such as observational (AWACS) or as outlying gun platforms. Of course such units would be the first to be targeted but then, as they used to say, the balloon would go up anyway!
Today airship operations seem confined to non-rigids for joy riding and aerial advertising.
All this – and desmodromics too – from memory. The resident termagant, he/she/it of the stripey bloomers, will have to Google like mad to come up with a half way to intelligent riposte!
Equitator
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19/05/2008, 8:21 AM
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Dek
Joined on 15/08/2003
Norwich
Posts 1,027
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Quite alot of cut and paste on this thread ! I will say that someone has got a bloody good bookself. I recall seing ( at a very tender age ) the R101 making its farewell flight over Norwich . Dek.
Laugh, and the wife laughs with you. Snore and you`ll sleep alone.
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19/05/2008, 10:15 AM
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keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
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Top picture is the imprint of a crew member from L32 who fell from the ship when it was shot down over Britain.
Second is of a shot down Gotha near Margate, similar to the Zeppelin long range bomber and I believe some were built by Zeppelin.
Non of my posts are cut and paste I promise you Dek, all from my own archives and memory.
Which explains the spelling mistakes and some date inaccuracies etc, I have not the time to fine tune things for the forum.
I recently visited a reunion of Vickers Wellington aircrew on the site of the R100 manufacturing sheds, now a golf course.
I spent the evening in the company of the late Sir Barnes Wallis' family, his granddaughter is named Vicky.
Probably because he worked for most of his life for Vickers.
The Wellington designed by Sir Barnes used the same light weight and very strong construction method as the R100. It had a lozenge pattern that equalized the torsion and tension over the entire construction similar to triangulation used in early racing car chassis' like the birdcage Maserati. Perhaps Equitator can give us the scientific name for this construction?
Another big word for his jousting with Scary.
Dream on keithgerrard@gerrard24.freeserve.co.uk
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19/05/2008, 10:51 AM
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Equitator
Joined on 04/11/2003
Posts 925
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Geodesic - or was it geodetic?
The R100 framing was innovative but not actually geo-whatever.
I seem to recall it was all run over by a steam roller and sold for scrap.
No doubt the forum termagant will be along shortly to put us to rights on that and other matters...
Equitator
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EDP24 Forums » EDP24 General » News » Photos etc
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