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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0513.PDF
19 April 1957 515 (31) Ram-air turbine and pump. (32) Hydraulic reservoir and accumu- lator. (33) Forged aluminium-alloy frames. (34) Engine intake casing. (35) Front engine mount and access. (36) Saddle oil tank. (37) Low-pressure compressor. (38) High-pressure compressor. (39) Blow-off valves and flush vents (2). (40) Anti-icing air to intake. (41) Can-annular combustion section. (42) Turbine (1 h.-p. stage plus 2 l-p.). (43) Afterburner fuel gallery. (44) Nozzle actuator jacks (8). (45) Packaged accessories section. (46) Sundstrand-driven alternator. (47) Dimpled titanium shroud. (48) Speed brakes, duplicated actua- tion. (49) Honeycomb-filled rudder. \ /wave-guide, para- (50) Fence aerial Ijsitic, omni-range, (51) Dielectric tip/11.F.F. and U.H.F. / I aerials. (52) Area-rule blisters. (53) Elevon streamline index. (54) Inner-elevon actuator access. (55) Out (56) Anti-erosion fin leading edge. (57) Wing front steady. (58) Bolted front wing pick-up. (59) Attachment of 8ft forged spar. (60) Attachment of 10ft forged spar. (61) Attachment of 13ft 9in forged spar. (62) Titanium elevon spar root. (63) Heavy chordwise member. (64) Heavy root rib. (65) Ribs: angle flanges, sheet webs. (66) Machined leading-edge member. (67) Honeycomb-stabilized fences. (68) Honeycomb-filled wing tips. (69) Up-and-down navigation light. (70) Honeycomb-filled trailing edge. (71) Conical camber out to point 71 A. (72) No. 1 fuel tank, machined skin. (73) No. 2 tank, integrally sealed. (74) Access to float and relief valves. (75) Fuel-system vent. (76) Fuel-system access panels. (77) Menasco main undercarriage. (78) Breaker strut. (79) Hydraulic retraction jack. (80) Door, actuated by leg. (81) Wheel-well doors on fuselage. (82) Slinging points. (83) Braking parachute strop and canopy (not to scale). (84) Main production breaks (stations 217, 300,405, 443, 481 and 643). faced with the task of altering much of the tooling to conform tothe new configuration. Some of the early tooling had been farmed out to the sister factory at Fort Worth and elsewhere, but by 1953the entire production responsibility for the 102 had been vested in Plant 2 at San Diego, a vast rectangular block erected in 1941to make B-24s. Sold to a non-aeronautical firm after World War 2, it had been acquired by the Air Force in 1952 and turnedover to Convair. The Air Force also supplied the bulk of the machine tools and much other equipment. Convair moved into Plant 2 in earnest during 1953, and theempty acres were rapidly turned into a production floor as effi- cient as any in the world. The manager of the plant, Air. A. P.Higgins (former chief tool engineer at Fort Worth), was admittedly fortunate in being able to plan well ahead, with a prospect of steadyproduction of a very large number of aircraft. The redesigned airframe was broken down into sections—forward fuselage, centrefuselage, rear fuselage and wing, each sub-divided into left-hand and right-hand portions. Such sub-division eased jigging andhandling problems, yet left portions large enough to allow the optimum concentration of manpower to be applied to each. These major airframe parts are made in 89 stations distributedover the Plant 2 floor. Except for certain government-furnished or particularly costly items, all the components are made in batchesof 150 and sent to line-stock bins at the appropriate stations. Sub- sequent manufacture of the airframe is worthy of description. Each half wing has a semi-span of 15ft 9|in, a root chord of29ft 9 in and a leading-edge sweep of fractionally over 60 deg. From front to rear the wing comprises a conical-camber leading-edge, a forward tank bay, an undercarriage bay, a rear tank bay and an elevon. The forward and rear tank bays are made inseparate jigs. Each comprises a single machined skin above and below, together with spars forged as single units from the rootto the junction with the leading-edge and ribs built up from plate and vertical stiffeners. Aluminium alloy is used throughout, exceptfor Rem-Cru titanium alloys in the leading-edge ribs and localized use of stainless steel in the leading edge and elsewhere. The wing skins start as thick sheets of Alcoa 2024-T86, a rela-tively new alloy cold-rolled after solution heat-treatment and artificial ageing to give a yield-strength greater than 67,000 lb/sqin at temperatures as high as 200 deg F. The sheets are con- tinuous over each tank bay, those for the rear tank measuring noless than 96in by 250in. The sheets are sculptured in auto- matically controlled millers, drilled in template jigs and thenattached to the appropriate ribs in an ad hoc fixture. In view of the fact that the whole of each box is an integraltank, quality control is especially rigorous. All interior surfaces are smeared with a sealant and joints are made with Scotchweld,a thermosetting adhesive applied in sheet form. The rivets used are of the Straylor pattern (patented by two Consolidatedemployees in 1929) in which a pure aluminium shim is placed as a gasket under die flat underside of the rivet head, the latterbeing hand-driven in its precision counterbore and finally milled flush with the skin. Each complete tank bay is baked at 320 deg F THIS drawing by "Flight" artist Arthur Bowbeer, depicts a recent production F-102A, with vertical tail and speed brakes of increased area, and separator plates added ahead of the engine intakes to reduce "buzz" in the forward fuselage. The heavy forged elements in the airframe are clearly shown.
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