Subject: Re: ARC contribution: Bell X-1
From: "Steve Bamford ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "Simon ARC" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 20:37:12 -0700

Hi Simon,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks for sending it in.   

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com
 
Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Simon ARC 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 5:26 AM
  Subject: ARC contribution: Bell X-1

  Welcome back to ARC Steve. We've missed you! I've only taken one photo of this as the model is not super great or anything, but I was interested to write a few things about sound barrier development and though people may be interested too. - Simon.

  Gallery Template #03

  1/48 Eduard Bell X-1

  by Simon Wallis
  --------------------

        Steve Bamford will insert full sized version of photo 01.jpg here 

       

  Inspired by Tom Wolfe's book and the movie "The Right Stuff" I set about building the Mach 1 record breaking X-1. As I learned about the X-1 I also started finding out about the race to break the sound barrier being fought out in post war Britain.

  It really sticks in my gut that Britain wasn't the first to break the sound barrier. (Alright, alright I know - sore looser). We had two potential sound breaking designs. There was the Miles M.52 (pictured on the right hand-side just below): this was the most brilliant engineering design of the age. It was modeled on the Lee Enfield rifle bullet - the fastest man made object that its designers could think of, but the design innovations only started there. The M.52 was powered by a fan assisted gas turbine (no uncouth rocket motors here, thank-you very much). Most significantly were breakthroughs on the aircraft's control surfaces. Its design team understood that compressibility at the sound barrier would render traditional tail flaps ineffective. Their solution was to make the entire tail fin rotate - a feature adopted by almost every fast jet today. This was the real key to the sound barrier. There was also the graceful but flawed De Havilland DH-108 Swallow (pictured on the left hand-side below), which basically lacked the control surface refinements of the M.52, and therefore in my opinion has a long way to go: more money - and maybe more lives claimed in its development before it stood a fair chance at a Mach 1+ flight and safe landing: Sir Geoffry De Havilland's life was claimed following a prototype flight just below the barrier.

  In the end the damned bean counters at the Treasury put paid to the Miles M.52 and development was halted. The design team was gradually absorbed by the rest of the British aircraft industry. Many went to work for Bristol which became part of Rolls Royce. We were so close. But, I guess, close doesn't count. Shucks! Miles Aircraft ended up hosting a team of US engineers and passed on their M.52 blueprints to their US colleagues. Bell copied the bullet fuselage shape - which they may have well chosen anyways, but crucially also the control surfaces, only later realizing their full significance. In the final analysis German, British and American engineers were all responsible for the innovations that enabled man to break through the sound barrier. But you've got to hand it to those test pilot jockeys - whether they be toffs (no insult intended) like Sir Geoffry, or cowboys like Yeager. Hats off!!!

        Click on images below to see larger images
       
         Steve Bamford will insert a click-able smaller version of photo 02.jpg here.  Clicking on that photo will bring up the full sized version of photo 02.jpg 

        Steve Bamford will insert a click-able smaller version of photo 03.jpg here.  Clicking on that photo will bring up the full sized version of photo 03.jpg 

       

  My model is the 1/48 Eduard Profil Pack Lockheed X-1, built out of the box. The kit's instructions aren't the clearest but all in all there is good detail and things go together well. Floquil Reefer Orange is harder to find that the Holy Grail ('Ni'!) in the UK. Or a Shrubbery for that matter. [Okay, enough Monty Python references]. So I made do with Xtracolour X-104. The X-1's Reaction Motors rocket engines drunk ethyl alcohol/liquid oxygen that caused big frozen patches around the outside of the fuel tanks. I would love to see someone try to model that. Maybe that spray on zimmermit that armor modelers use would look effective?

  Photos and text © 2004 by Simon Wallis