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Fidd · 01-26-20, 12:43 PM

Since I wrote this I had a very interesting day at Brooklands museum here in the UK. The museum houses the only surviving Wellington which saw active-service, and the same aircraft participated in and returned from, the "Battle of the Heligoland Bight" on Dec 18th 1939. This was a formation "armed reconnaissance" of the Frisian Islands/Wilhelmshaven area by 24 Wellingtons in daylight - a test of the then very high-tech hydraulic FN5 gun-turrets v Luftwaffe fighters.

During the engagement, the Luftwaffe soon realised that the Wellington's defense was very weak to the beam, and 12 of the 24 failed to return or crashed in the UK trying to land damaged aircraft. This pretty much put the tin lid on Bomber Command daylight operations, coming as it did on the heels of massacre of Fairey Battles during the Battle of France 7 months earlier.

The museum at Brooklands, who have kindly answered dozens of enquiries from me on the Wellington and FN5 turrets, asked me to bring my still incomplete model turrets to be part of a commemoration event on the 80th anniversary of the raid. Present were relatives of the aircrew involved, on both sides, with a service at Runnymede (Memorial to missing airmen) before returning to the exhibition at Brooklands. It was a real privilege to meet relatives of gunners and to be able to explain and demonstrate how the turrets operated.

To my complete surprise, - which accounts for my rather poor coherence - I got interviewed by the in-house journalist, which was a little nerve-wracking. Not being what you'd describe as a "striking beauty" I normally efface myself from youtube videos, but had little choice here!

At the moment I'm learning how to use silicone for moulding. I have a ABS 3dprinted plastic pattern arriving shortly, which will be submerged in silicone, and then the void filled with resin and sintered alloy to produce a very hard and heat-tolerant replica of the ABS pattern. This can then have hot acrylic sheet vacuum-formed over the shape which describes the shape within the plexiglass of the turret, at scale. The resultant complex-curved acrylic can then be cut up and bolted to the cupola structure.

01-26-20, 12:43 PM	#4
Fidd XO Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 418 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Since I wrote this I had a very interesting day at Brooklands museum here in the UK. The museum houses the only surviving Wellington which saw active-service, and the same aircraft participated in and returned from, the "Battle of the Heligoland Bight" on Dec 18th 1939. This was a formation "armed reconnaissance" of the Frisian Islands/Wilhelmshaven area by 24 Wellingtons in daylight - a test of the then very high-tech hydraulic FN5 gun-turrets v Luftwaffe fighters. During the engagement, the Luftwaffe soon realised that the Wellington's defense was very weak to the beam, and 12 of the 24 failed to return or crashed in the UK trying to land damaged aircraft. This pretty much put the tin lid on Bomber Command daylight operations, coming as it did on the heels of massacre of Fairey Battles during the Battle of France 7 months earlier. The museum at Brooklands, who have kindly answered dozens of enquiries from me on the Wellington and FN5 turrets, asked me to bring my still incomplete model turrets to be part of a commemoration event on the 80th anniversary of the raid. Present were relatives of the aircrew involved, on both sides, with a service at Runnymede (Memorial to missing airmen) before returning to the exhibition at Brooklands. It was a real privilege to meet relatives of gunners and to be able to explain and demonstrate how the turrets operated. To my complete surprise, - which accounts for my rather poor coherence - I got interviewed by the in-house journalist, which was a little nerve-wracking. Not being what you'd describe as a "striking beauty" I normally efface myself from youtube videos, but had little choice here! At the moment I'm learning how to use silicone for moulding. I have a ABS 3dprinted plastic pattern arriving shortly, which will be submerged in silicone, and then the void filled with resin and sintered alloy to produce a very hard and heat-tolerant replica of the ABS pattern. This can then have hot acrylic sheet vacuum-formed over the shape which describes the shape within the plexiglass of the turret, at scale. The resultant complex-curved acrylic can then be cut up and bolted to the cupola structure.