1/6 Westland Whirlwind

[Timo Starkloff]

I bought the motors a bit earlier than planned. But with a huge price reduction at a Swiss shop I had to buy them now. They are Scorpion 4020-420. With 1500W they are bigger than needed. My plan is to use a maximum of 1000W for huge loopings or tight manouvers, for normal flying much less should be enough.

I have a slightly bigger one in my 1/4 Glasair and this one is running perfect, so I wanted to stay with Scorpion motors. The 4020s are not too heavy with 288 grams. A bit of oversizing helps to prevent hot conditions in summer. The spinner has a diameter of 125mm, so there is no chance to get a good airflow over the motor. Propeller size should be not too small with those big nacelles and of course, to fly in fighter like style with much upwards power. Finally, I want to use my 6S accumulators on the Whirlwind, and for those there is no big selection available.

[Timo Starkloff]

This week I finished my second book from Harald Penrose, chief test pilot of Westland Aircraft (sitting in the Welkin on the picture below). David lent me "Airymouse" to read and I bought "No echo in the sky" this winter via Internet. His style is different to other books and diffcult to read in the beginning. But once your used to it, it's absolutely great. Poetry for aeroplane enthusiasts

[Timo Starkloff]

And last but not least for this week, I have to make a bit of advertising again for the Whirlwind Fighter Project. They gave me their ok to put their logo in this forum thread. No Whirlwind is left today and it is their goal to rebuild one as original as possible for museum exhibition. I'm really looking forward to that!

http://www.whirlwindfighterproject.org/

At my office desk here in Germany and far away from Somerset, their mug is a great reminder for my own 1/6 Whirlwind project

[Timo Starkloff]

Link of the day

**LINK**

[Timo Starkloff]

Looking not very different than before, but the canopy model now has a smooth surface.

[Timo Starkloff]

I started building the tail. There are some questions about the construction (retractable tail wheel or not?), and I need to know how heavy or light the tail will be. I made an excel calculation for the center of gravity for the first time in my model building life. The results show what I already suspected - everything behind the cog has to as light as possible. The fuselage is long, which helps for good flying characteristics. But the nacelles are short and there is not much space to move the accumulators.

Rudder and elevator will be build in two halfs and mainly from balsa to save weight. From the design below to building start I made some last changes and during building I noticed some further (although minor) things to optimize.

[Timo Starkloff]

And another link to an article about the Whirlwind Fighter Project, with some interesting information about the designer Mr. Petter.

http://www.mybackoffice.ch/modellbau/pdf/whirlwind-on-the-way_aeroplane_02-14.pdf

[eflightray]

I have considered having a go at a fairly big scratch built Whirlwind, but the thing that kept putting me off was the spinner size for an approx 90" span.

I know that may seem strange, basing a scale model on spinner diameter, but I use 3-view drawing as the base to scale from.

Probably why I chose to scratch build the B-25, it didn't have spinners.

Perhaps one day I will just have to make the nacelles slightly smaller, ( or 3D print the spinners), as the Whirlwind is still at the top of my 'next twin' build list.

Good luck with your build.

Ray.

[Timo Starkloff]

Hello Ray, I found a German one man company who makes all sizes and shapes of spinners. For me he reduces the size of a bigger spinner, but he can use an existing mould. The base plate is made from aluminium. So it is still more expensive than a standard one, but payable. Same with the landing gear, although I will get that from another company. But I think the look of many of the few Whirlwind models suffers on too small spinner diameter (same for many other warbirds, Typhoon spinner is even bigger). Same scale and size as my Whirlwind is the Fw 187 and Henschel 129. The 129 would have been the easiest one to build, but more difficult to fly and with less good looks

That was the interesting information in the article above. In these days, designers usually tried to make the fuselage just as close to the engine and other stuff inside as possible (compare the cowling of Bf 109 and Spitfire, for example). So the outcome of the shape was somewhat coincidentally. But Westlands designer Petter used NACA material to develop and calculate an aerodynamic shape for the nacelles. That's the reason why they look different to other planes and have those big spinners. Petter hid some more aerodynamic ideas in the Whirlwind, but more on that later. It will be interesting how efficient his design ideas will be for the rc model.

The vertical tail is nearly finished, actually both halfs are joined together and are drying. So I started making parts for the elevator.

Edited By Timo Starkloff on 21/01/2018 16:20:46

Edited By Timo Starkloff on 21/01/2018 16:22:42

Edited By Timo Starkloff on 21/01/2018 16:23:01

[Timo Starkloff]

Time for the weekly update

Last weekend I started building the elevator, complemented by a good cup of Yorkshire tea (hopefully my reserves last until the next holiday in England). Most parts are made from balsa, except the inner plywood ribs. They have to hold the carbon fibre tube of the detachable elevator.

And I have another link, this time to a small story of a young boy who was watching the Whirlwind the first time:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/01/a2786501.shtml

[Timo Starkloff]

A bit further with the elevator. I make a long sheet of 1.5mm balsa,, the width is identical to the elevator. Then I cut the 8 parts with the elevator shape. On this way, nearly all the balsa is used and only a little bit left.

Seems I have to order the carbon tubes for the elevator. My local kite dealer has reduced the available materials due to the fact, that not many people make their own kites anymore.

[Timo Starkloff]

This week I got the spinners for the Whirlwind! Not cheap, but looking very good and made from carbon and aluminium. Although they have a screw in the middle, the shape looks nice. And after the long search with zero results, I'm lucky to get nearly perfect ones. If someone else wants to build a Whirlwind, the spinner will be available by Peter Schestag:

http://www.ps-modelltechnik.de/index.html

[Timo Starkloff]

It was a small odyssee to get the carbon tubes for the elevator and wing, but finally I've got them and made glassfibre tubes from them. I got some good tips from a friend who is very experienced on everything concerning epoxy, glass and carbon fibre

Hand lotion is applied on the carbon tubes, thin plastic kitchen foil wrapped around in four layers (to get a certain gap between both tubes later), and glassfibre with epoxy is applied at last. This is easily detachable when dried, the kitchen foil is removed.

[Timo Starkloff]

A quick test gave a short glance on the outcome. I also compared the Whirlwind tail to that of my Arado 96. With two instead of one and also more powerful engines, the one of the Whirlwind is much bigger than the Arado, although the fuselage length will be nearly the same.

Edited By Timo Starkloff on 15/03/2018 21:37:23

Edited By Timo Starkloff on 15/03/2018 21:38:08

[Timo Starkloff]

Last week I received the oleo legs. Unfortunately the delivered wheels are wrong, I need the smooth ballon type with no grooves. Wheel size is 130mm, so a bumpy airfield should be no problem

[Timo Starkloff]

Beneath making canopies for small 1/12 models, I made also a small part for the Whirlwind canopy. I made a vaccum part of the mirror which I filled again with fluid ceramic (kind of gypsum, but finer). In this solid model I will make thin grooves as an outline for the mirror. When vaccum forming the mirror from the ceramic model, the grooves will be visible as thin lines and cutting the final mirror piece will be quiet easy.

[Timo Starkloff]

No news about the model build due to better flying conditions for the existing models and the 109 intermezzo, but here’s a funny link about a “whatif” (or “whynotte” ) version of the Whirlwind

http://www.flyingacesclub.com/issue234.pdf

**LINK**

Edited By Timo Starkloff on 07/05/2018 18:31:15

Edited By Timo Starkloff on 07/05/2018 18:34:48

[Timo Starkloff]

It’s been quiet a while since my last post due to paperwork on the TK4 and holiday. But next week I‘m on a glider airfield with 35 others for pleasure model flying and I want to start building the fuselage. Today and just in time I fetched the plans from the copyshop.

Timo

[Timo Starkloff]

Once again only little progress. Some little aircombat models made from EPP took some time for building and repairing during the model flying week. And once at home other jobs were waiting. But fuselage assembly is coming nearer, at least all the plywood parts are finished and I have a bunch of balsa strips. And I put all the drawings for reference and motivation on the workshop door, as I have seen this at another topic in this forum

[Timo Starkloff]

A little update was necessary for the fuselage parts. Holes for the servo cable tubes were missing. Small difference, but it has to be added to a lot of parts!

[Timo Starkloff]

Every time I need plenty balsa strips, my Kavan balsa cutter is missing... So I had to use the normal knife and ruler. I prefer light balsa for most parts of a plane. In that case, softer balsa is easier to bend and doesn't warp the fuselage halves after removing them from the work bench.

Edited By Timo Starkloff on 03/11/2018 20:01:25

Edited By Timo Starkloff on 03/11/2018 20:01:41

[Timo Starkloff]

The outline is made from 5x5mm balsa strips. the fuselage frames are then glued on them.

[Timo Starkloff]

After drying over the night I applied the other balsa strips. The ones of the front are moistened to be easier to bend along the sharper radius.

[Timo Starkloff]

After another day I glued both halves together, a bit like those small plastic models.

[Timo Starkloff]

A second sheet of plywood as reinforcement is attached for the wing joint and tailwheel.