Sunday, May 16, 2021

Jump in and yell, "Contact!"

 


9 comments:

  1. The Maple instrument panel is quite Baroque Revival chic.

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  2. S.E.5? S.E.5a?

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  3. What's with.....the r.p.m. gage being canted like it is? Some installer too lazy to undo a mistake? Noted that on other replicated dash panels, as well.

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    1. I cannot verify what I'm about to discuss; maybe someone else can. The tach may have been a standard instrument, used in many different types of machine.
      Knowing that an aircraft has standardized RPMs for various phases of flight (cruise, never-exceed, etc.) it may be that the tach was mounted so that whatever RPM is significant for that craft, that number is at the top of the instrument - and thus, in the heat of combat or when the plane's vibration is blurring everything, a vertical needle would be all the indication the pilot would need. (Nowadays, the face of an instrument has color-coded zones or tic marks at various important numbers.)
      It seems to me I've read that this clocking was sometimes done in racing cars, too.
      In my early training I was solo in a Cessna 150 on a bright and clear day over plowed Illinois fields. The updrafts and turbulence made for an extremely rough ride - like riding over potholes in something with no suspension. (It was actually a little scary. I'd never flown in conditions like that and I wasn't sure what the airplane could stand.) It was impossible to get a fine reading on any instrument.
      BTW, this is one of the reasons that it's often better for a plane intended for routine instrument flight to be heavy. It's more stable and penetrates better.

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    2. I'm not a pilot or an expert but could there be a reason the gauge is canted, like the optimum rpm when the needle is straight up and readable at a glance. Anybody know?

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    3. Clearly WWI vintage, or a replica. Rondel appears to be British, with a thin white rim around blue - no idea of the center's color. Compass bears a London address on its label. Clearly an armed A/C given the optical sight and the "iron sight" to the left. Two different gun installations? (Fuselage-mounted and over-wing?) Electrical instrument lighting. I too thought it might be an S.E. 5, but there are quite a few differences between this photo and other images of S.E. 5. On the other hand, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Aircraft_Factory_S.E.5. The Wiki article reports an amazing amount of customization that some S.E. 5 pilots made to their personal aircraft. This image traced to "Richard Bloom Photography"

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  4. Canted gauges may be due to an original instrument panel whose screw holes dictated the mounting of modern instruments. To preserve the original condition of the panel the owner or restorer may have avoided drilling fresh mounting/screw holes, and thus mounted modern gauges on a tilt.

    It might also have been that one or more obstructions behind the instrument panel dictated the orientation of the modern instruments whose behind-the-panel bodies interfered with behind-the-panel obstructions.

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  5. High performance/racing vehicles often have analog gauges oriented to put an important number in a certain position for quick recognition. Along with that, sometimes the lower numbers of the scale, that are not important, are taped/covered to lessen the distraction/optical overload.

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