ICM Gloster Gladiator

[Kagemusha]

Radu makes some applicable goodies.

[esarmstrong]

11 hours ago, Erwin said:

I'm no Gadiator expert.But judging by this picture,the rigging is very thick.

 

Looks more like rods than wires to me 

 

Some rods and some wires, perhaps.  My guess is that those landing and flying wires were probably aerodynamically flattened wires that the RFC/RAF came up with for the first time during WWI.  They appear wider than normal because we are seeing them on their flattened sides.  The crossed items between the wing struts and connecting the flight controls are rods.

[nmayhew]

15 hours ago, mozart said:

Mason also notes that there is absolutely no contemporary evidence  that any of the Gladiators were , at any time in their operations, individually or collectively referenced by the names "Faith", "Hope" and "Charity".  These terms first surfaced in the UK in 1941.

 

So...they were indeed known as Faith, Hope and Charity as the war raged in Malta.

I thought you were going to say this was a post-war moniker.

 

Thank you for the technical specs about the aircraft - these will definitely be what i would like to make.

 

[Chek]

It's helpful to think of RAF flying wires as 'blades' (for cutting through the air) rather than 'wires', which tends to suggest round section twisted wire rope.

Although the latter is certainly commonly used for control cables and some bracing applications.

 

RAF flying wires can be confusing to map on an airframe because from head on to the airstream they look as thin as a twisted wire cable, but from the side show their longer airfoil section. Different airfoil sections can also be in use on the same airframe. The catalogue picture below illustrates a variety of them with various thicknesses and terminations

 

.

 

 

The two views below show the different thicknesses presented by the inter-strut bracing and aileron connectors on a Gladiator depending on the viewer's perspective.

 

 

 

[vince14]

9 hours ago, nmayhew said:

 

So...they were indeed known as Faith, Hope and Charity as the war raged in Malta.

I thought you were going to say this was a post-war moniker.

 

Thank you for the technical specs about the aircraft - these will definitely be what i would like to make.

 

No, Mozart is saying the opposite - they weren’t known as Faith, Hope and Charity during their time in Malta. The names were invented by the British media after the event.

[mozart]

18 minutes ago, vince14 said:

No, Mozart is saying the opposite - they weren’t known as Faith, Hope and Charity during their time in Malta. The names were invented by the British media after the event.

Exactly!  A bit of PR "spin" after the Malta shindig involving the last stand! 

[nmayhew]

Eh?

he says they were known in the UK in 1941 as FHO...

if anything that was only just as things were ‘getting hot’ there.

it certainly wasn’t after the event 

[MikeMaben]

It's tuff to tell , I think some are rods and some are flat.

 

The cross braces look flat here :

 

 

Anybody have access to a real one  ??

 

 

[Tnarg]

There should be a specification from the manufacturer as to the rigging set up. There were a variety of rigging "wires" or "tie rods" that were specified by their thread sizes at the ends of the wires both in American Standard and English specifications. I have seen call outs for the sizes on some plans (Westburg's for example) for US planes (Boeing and Curtiss) as well as some internal specification numbered wires for the Grumman F3F series, but no cross references to standard dimensions for that plane.

 

I found this chart on the web... hope it is OK under "fair use" to post this. This shows the dimensions of the rigging used on British aircraft of the pre-WWII period. American and Metric (mostly German) aircraft had different specifications.

British Standards Part Number Thread Size Nominal Width in Inches Maximum Width in Inches Minimum Thickness in Inches Maximum Thickness in Inches Minimum Cross Sectional Area (Sq. Ins.) Maximum Cross Sectional Area (Sq. Ins.) Minimum B/Load N/A 4 BA 0.192" N/A 0.048" N/A 0.0071 0.0085 1050 lbs N/A 2 BA 0.256" N/A 0.064" N/A 0.0126 0.0142 1900 lbs N/A 7/32" BSF 0.301" N/A 0.075" N/A 0.0174 0.0191 2600 lbs N/A 1/4" BSF 0.348" N/A 0.087" N/A 0.0233 0.0250 3450 lbs N/A 9/32" BSF 0.404" N/A 0.101" N/A 0.0314 0.0338 4650 lbs N/A 5/16" BSF 0.440" N/A 0.110" N/A 0.0372 0.0400 5700 lbs N/A 11/32" BSF 0.496" N/A 0.124" N/A 0.0473 0.0508 7150 lbs

 

Note that this covers full size dimensions, and needs to be reduced by 1/32 etc. for your scale.

 

RB productions made some of these which could work for WWI and interwar subjects: 9/32 and 1/4 BSF and 2BA and 4BA sizes in 1/32 scale. As to which ones were used on the aircraft... I don't have that data.

 

Tnarg

[mozart]

11 hours ago, nmayhew said:

Eh?

he says they were known in the UK in 1941 as FHO...

if anything that was only just as things were ‘getting hot’ there.

it certainly wasn’t after the event 

What Mason is saying is that in Malta the Gladiators were not called or known as Faith, Hope and Charity.....these names were "invented" in the UK by the British Establishment and/or Press presumably to boost flagging public morale. Tales or derring do and all that stuff old chap. 

[PhilB]

As Mozart has said, it was a morale boosting exercise for the public.

They made big things of the relatively limited success against the Italian Air Force (Luftwaffe didn't join the fray until much later) including where one shot down an SM 79 Bis over Grand Harbour in spectacular fashion (shot one of the engines off).

There were around 5 complete aircraft to start with but attrition meant that many were fixed using other spares robbed from other airframes so they were pretty much mongrel aircraft including swapping the 2-stage props off crashed/written off Blenheims onto the Gladiators to improve performance.

By August 1940 more regular supplies of Hurricanes meant that they didn't participate very much although apparently against the CR 42 Falco's they were better than Hurricanes as they could turn tighter.

"Hurricanes over Malta" by Brian Cull and Frederick Galea is a good reference for the early days of the Malta conflict.

Edited December 29, 2018 by PhilB
spelling

[Iain]

One of the Malta Gladiators is a must build for me!

 

Will have to see if I can get a copy of that book Phil...

 

Iain

 

 

 

 

[mozart]

This is a detail from the Gladiator at Duxford that I took a few years ago:

 

PS I have more!!

Edited December 29, 2018 by mozart

[Jan_G]

boxart as posted on britmodeller

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235048551-132-gloster-gladiator-mkiii-by-icm-box-art-release-q4-2019/

jan

 

[Tnarg]

Aviation Megastore lists quite a few 1/32  Gladiator decals. They have one Belgian sheet shared with the CR.42 from Dutch Decal, plus Kora sheets of Gladiators from Latvia, Lithuania, China, Soviet, Luftwaffe and another Belgian sheet. If the kit doesn't have enough options, these should help.

 

Tnarg