Developmental
History
The De Havilland “Swallow”
aircraft were evolved to study investigate the transonic region near the sound
barrier with tailless aircraft. Three prototypes were built although the
aircraft was originally conceived as a half scale model of the proposed DH-106
airliner.
The first two aircraft built were low
speed airframes but the third was built with a longer nose and the pilot's seat
was lowered for the fitting of a low-drag canopy. This increased the overall
length to 26 ft. 9˝ in. (8.165 m). The aircraft designated VW120 was powered by
a DH Goblin 4 engine of 3,750 lb. thrust (1700 kgp), did not fly until 24th July
1947.
On April 12, 1948, the aircraft set a
new 100 km (62.1 mile) closed circuit speed record of 605.23 mph (974 km/h),
flown by John Derry, and it was certain that it could better the top speed of
the preceding low speed airframes. On September 6, 1948, again flown by John
Derry, the aircraft reached Mach 1.0 in a dive between 40,000 and 30,000 ft.
(12192 m to 9144 m) without any buffeting or instability, only some tightening
of controls. It became the first British aircraft to break the sound barrier and
the first turbo-jet aircraft in history to exceed the sound barrier. Fifteen
weeks later, a Russian Lavochkin La-176 broke Mach 1.0 to join the ranks of
supersonic turbo-jets. The sound barrier had previously been exceeded by both
the rocket-powered Bell X-1 (Mach 1.46) and the mixed power Douglas Skyrocket.
The third DH.108 ended its career on
February 15th, 1950, in a fatal crash near Birkhill, Bucks.
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The Kit
Alan Ranger and Bill Anderson (ARBA) produce these limited run kits in the
Bigglewade, Bedfordshire area of the United Kingdom. Although they are not big
producers of kits they are consistently putting out a trickle of high quality
resin products and can still be found on the Hannants stand at the Duxford
Airshows. This particular item is a multi-media resin kit that includes white
metal landing gear, two vacuformed canopies, 15 resin pieces and no decals –
this is the norm for an ARBA kit. The vacuformed canopies have a very rough
texture to them and will require a lot of polishing to clean up. Fortunately
there are two of them provided so if you screw up one you have a second chance
or if you want to display the model with an open canopy you have lots of pieces
you can hack up. The framing on the canopies is very light and will require some
careful study when masking.
The white metal landing gear are
nicely cast and show good detail. I was very happy to see that the gear were of
metal as this will be a very heavy model when completed and resin gear would
definitely sag with time.
The resin parts are quite
interesting. The main fuselage is a solid cast part and all pieces show finely
engraved panel lines. The pour stubs have been sawn off fairly close to the
bodies but will still require a good bit of sanding. The oddest thing on the
large pieces is that they appear to have been poured in two stages. The first
stage being nearly 90% and then a second pour on top of that giving a weird
definition line that is only visible to the eye and not detectable by touch.
As I examine the parts I cannot find
any defects such as micro holes other than one corner of the main fuselage right
by the cockpit where it appears a single air bubble had been trapped in the
mold. Not a serious problem and one that will easily be repaired. Compared to
Czech Master Resin kits this would rate superior. The interior parts look good
on a casual inspection but on close inspection the dash is not cast very well
with lots of distortion in the instruments. I don’t really see this as being a
big problem unless you plan on building the kit with the canopy open and even
then you would have to be a member of the flashlight brigade to take notice of
it.
The
instructions consist of a single page (front and back) of typed directions and a
multi-view drawing showing marking placement. Remember – there are no decals
included with this kit so you must either paint the markings or provide them
from alternative sources such as the spares box. Odd thing about the directions
is that they speak quite a bit about the low speed airframes and picture the
taller canopy for the craft but the kit does not include that canopy or the
anti-spin parachute fairing illustrated on the sheet. Considering that there was
a size difference between the two craft and the lack of these parts the modeler
is pretty much confined to building the high-speed version only. They do include
a brief history of the “Swallow” and gives the modeler a fairly good idea of
the proper order of assembly.
Conclusion
This is an unusual aircraft, there
can be no question of that and it represents an important branch in the history
of the race to break the sound barrier. The overall quality of the kit parts is
very high and it appears to be a fairly easy model to build. The biggest problem
facing the modeler is simply finding one to build.
Matt
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