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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1836.PDF
926 As this drawing indicates, the Vulcan B.I airfrome is relatively straightforward and follows traditional constructional principles. Clearly the concept of the subsonic delta wing has been taken to its extreme, and used to provide sufficient interior volume for the powerplants and their ducting, the bogie main under- carriages and almost all the fuel. The wing skins are so far apart that the tensile and compressive stresses must be relatively low, although numerous ribs are needed to preserve the profile over the huge chorda] space between the spars. FLIGHT, 13 December 195" 1 Refuelling probe 2 Radome 3 Radar access 4 Pressure bulkhead 5 Eteccion seats 4 Entry hatch 7 Flat pressure bulkhead 8 Instrument console 9 Three non-ejecting scats 10 Twin vertical stiffeners 11 Fuselage tank 12 Boundary-layer bleed 13 Front spar 14 Air brakes 15 Skin applied in strips 16 Ctose stringer spacing 17 Corrugated inner skin 18 Close rib spacing 19 Cambered leading edge 20 High-speed pitot 21 Rear spar 22 Duplicated elevators 23 Duplicated ailerons 24 Electronics 25 Bristol Olympus engine 26 Outer wing tankage27 Vortex generators 28 Periscope 29 Main root engine-rib 30 Typical wing-stringer sections 31 Front-Spar joint forging 32 Weapons bay 33 Irvin braking-parachute box 34 Cabin-air intake BUILDING THE VULCAN . . . shape with large tongues projecting along the axes of the frontspar, outer-wing spar and engine rib. The rear part of the inner wing is built up on the rear spar, which is similarly a single sheetacross the centre section with strong peripheral circles around the low-slung jet pipes.Owing to their great size and unusual form, the intakes are assembled in vertical jigs, with the port and starboard portionscorrectly located relative to each other so that dieir inboard ends appear to reach up into the roof. Staging is provided at frequentintervals enabling personnel to work on all parts of the structure. Itis here that the circular-section fuselage begins toemerge, the lowerpart housing the nose undercarriage and the upper section being occu- pied by tankage. At the forward end of this portion is a transverseplate frame which forms the rear pressure bulkhead of the crew compartment. To the lower part of this bulkhead is attached thenose undercarriage (like the main gear, a product of Dowty Equip- ment, Ltd.) the loads from the main pivots being taken out throughmassive vertical beams running the full depth of the fuselage. In consequence, the rear pressure bulkhead is flat. The crew com-partment itself is of circular section and is in most respects con- ventional, terminating at a slightly concave front pressure bulkheadwith eight radial stiffeners. Forward of this point the fuselage consists solely of a cantilevered upper portion carrying the FlightRefuelling probe and from which is suspended the radar bombing gear and numerous other components. All the rest of the nose is The airframe is broken down into major sections for final assembly at Woodford (later aircraft will also be split along the vertical centre-line). Shaded areas show portions not made at Chadderton (see text). A Nose section. B Forward fuselage. C Intakes and centre fuse- lage. D Leading edges. E Outer wings. F Centre section. G Trailing edge and rear fuselage. H Ailerons. J Elevators. formed from the immense Avro-manufactured radome, one of thelargest glass-fibre mouldings to be put into production anywhere. Wing leading edges are manufactured with envelope tooling,of the type pioneered by Fairey. This gives the requisite degree of manufacturing accuracy and results in an admirably finishedpart, notwithstanding its irregular profile with a kinked plan- form and varying camber. As a photograph on page 925 indicates,a double skin is fitted inside the leading edge proper, providing chordwise passages roughly O.125in deep for de-icing air. This completes the work done at Chadderton. All portions ofthe airframe are then taken by road to the assembly plant at Woodford, some ten miles south of Manchester. Much the largestportion is the centre section and it is this which gives rise to the curious sight of numerous hinged lamp-posts on the ring roadaround Manchester and through Stockport. In order to ease trans- port problems later Vulcans will be split down the vertical centre-line into port and starboard halves, but aircraft so far manufac- tured are continuous between the root ribs of the wings. When the centre sections arrive at Woodford they are liftedby a travelling crane and placed on one of four large concrete jigs fixed rigidly to the floor and provided with numerous locatingpoints to ensure that complete airframe interchangeability is main- tained. These jigs hold the centre section at the correct angle andheight above the floor for a considerable amount of additional manufacturing and installational work to take place. At the sametime the main triangular inter-spar portion of each wing is assembled in one of a quartet of horizontal jigs. These inter-sparareas are built up principally from a great number of sheet ribs spaced as closely as one foot apart. The ribs are not notched, span-wise stringers (which have sections indicated by an inset in the cut-away drawing above) being mounted on the ribs by small angleattachments and leaving a peripheral space between the rib and the skin. Riveted angles are also used to attach the ribs to thewebs of the spars. When the whole box has been put together it is skinned with strips roughly 15in wide and extending from rootto tip parallel to the front spar. Each strip has several stringers, assembly being assisted by men working inside the wing. At the appropriate stage the travelling crane picks up the centresection and places it on a large trolley which, although not mounted on rails, can roll in the direction in which the aircraft is facing-The wings are brought up on separate trolleys and located correctly on the root ribs by means of hand jack-screws. Finally the bigDowty main legs and eight-wheel bogies are hung from their pivots and the nose gear is put on, permitting the aircraft to be movedforward on its own wheels. Installation of the powerplants, con- trol surfaces, operational gear and equipment then proceeds nor-mally, after which the aircraft js subjected to extensive systems- testing and pre-flight checking. It is then taken out on to theairfield and flown, still wearing its green undercoat of standard
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