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j ferguson

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  1. the 2 inch venturis i'm familiar with don't have the cone in front and the tube is contained in the mount.
  2. OK guys, the small ones are called 2 inch venturi's because they draw 2 inches of mercury (suction) the bigger one which was on Kobuyashi's plane is probably a 4 inch one. Remember the larger cone goes aft. google 2 inch venturi to see if this was the alternative.
  3. Hi Alain, The photos I saw of the installation of the larger venturi did not start with one of what was there before the project began. If the plane started out with only the turn and bank indicator vacuum (suction) powered, a smaller venturi would have been adequate. My Cessna 120 was so equipped. I had to install the larger venturi to develop sufficient suction to drive the artificial horizon and heading indicator. Kobuyashi and company may have been doing what I did, except in my case I bought an electric turn and bank because at the 100 mph cruise speed on my plane the bigger venturi was only sufficient for the two instruments referred to above. If the Japanese artificial horizon and heading indicators were similar to ours from that period, less vacuum was required and they might have been able to run all three instruments with the one you typically see on ki-61s. You sometimes see these venturi's on the noses of pre-war DC-3's. When you do there are usually two of them - the better to get the instruments operating at lower air-speeds. I'll look around and see if I can find a good photo of the smaller venuturi. IIRC they were about an inch in diameter and maybe 7 to 8 inches long with the mounting point about an inch behind the forward part and a shallow horn extending aft. I suppose it's not surprising that these are sometimes installed backwards by modelers who hadn't looked closely at the instructions.
  4. Hi Alain, Watch out for the chance that kobuyashi's was the only plane with the venturi. Some years ago someone found photos of kobuyashi and a couple of comrades adding a venturi to a ki-61. He had been been flying twin-engine planes earlier in his career and may have wanted an artificial horizon which he'd come to like in the twins and which may not have been standard with the ki-61 at the time. Assuming that the ki-61 either didn't have any vacuum instruments, turn and bank or gyro compass, it wouldn't have had a suction pump either and so the need for a venturi. It's also possible that he was installing a gyro driven gunsight which would also have needed a suction source. You may be able to find a discussion of this along with the photos at j-aircraft.com. It looked like the installation photos were taken of just his plane, but of course that doesn't mean that his colleagues didn't copy what he'd done. Of course it could have been an official field modification and to more than just his aircraft. good luck with what is sure to be an interesting build. If this doesn't make any sense to you, ask and I'll expand on it a bit.
  5. That looks like a Bosch starter magneto on the lower starboard panel. Is it?
  6. Ayovan, Is it an Iphone and are they HEIC images? Isn't Apple just woderful?
  7. I apologize for this OT, but the name of your project reminded me of two 46 Foot Sport Fishing Boats berthed next to each other I saw years ago in Key West. Misbehaving and Ain't Misbehaving. You may remember the song Ain't Misbehaving
  8. "accident with some alcohol"?? Internal or external?
  9. Springs wrote a book about marketing in the '30s which is hilarious. He was an amazing guy.
  10. Is this Elliot Springs of Springmaid Sheets Fame?
  11. In 1980, I was enroute from Chicago to International Falls in a C-210 when an equipment failure suggested a landing "real soon now. I put in at the airport near Grand Marais, Minnesota, 'cannot remember what it was called at the time. The part required would arrive the next day, so I was left with a lot of time, which I used to talk with the airport manager. He had flown the P-63 as a practice target near the end of the war. I can't remember everything he said about it other than it was very dangerous. They actually shot "frangible" bullets at the P-63s which caused lights on the plane to flash when hit. Wiki reports that these were used to train B-17 and B-29 gunners, but my memory was that he told me that he flew in Texas and Arizona and was "attacked" by guys in fighters. This plane would have been a great candidate for this Group Build, don't you think?
  12. In St Louis in 1971, I worked with a guy who had flown these during the war. Guys in the office were going through a spate of model building including a couple of airfix (IIRC) 1/72 H111s. A series of booklets was then available including one on the H111 which included a review by Eric Brown. I think his review alerted us to the sometimes open cockpit. We asked Ruprect abut this. I think he told us visibility from the cockpit on the ground wasn't great and driving into another aircraft was discouraged. I also think he told us that the perspex could be fogged up first thing in the morning, hence taking off with head through the roof. (I'm not entirely sure about this, it was a long time ago and I may have this confused with another source. Chrish, i have a question. If you wanted to set up the seat and controls for open air operations, did it look like this was possible with the AM kit you used?
  13. I'm not up to it, but if the base kit could be found in 1/32, a P-63 Flying Pinball Machine would be unique. PS: it looks as thought HpH made a resin kit of the P-63
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