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
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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?
Simon
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