Whats this then

Thats a bundy for you ozfarm.

The geartrain operates the sleeve valve setup on a 7 cylinder Bristol Hercules radial engine.
Bloke that designed this lot had way to much time on his hands. Clever fella though.

Basil

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/B...les_east-fortune.jpg

Great link Monty.

So have you studied it and worked out what this sleeve valve business is all about. Willys Knight had a similar setup and is a little easier to grasp the concept.

Basil

Quite a rare engine these days. I think most survivors are from Handley Page Hastings transports etc but there's a Bristol Freighter in NZ that has just been brought back to running condition: and . Their most famous use was in the Bristol Beaufighter during WWII - an awesome aircraft if ever there was one.

Yes Andy, if you remember back to one of our recent fact finding missions my relative Keith spent some of his WW11 time in a Bristol Beaufighter annoying the other team at night.

Basil

Did he, Baz? I don't remember that at all, I'm afraid (nothing new there). I remember one of your relatives serving on Lancasters as a nav but nothing about Beaus. Where? Europe, North Africa, Burma or SW Pacific/Australia.

Andy,

Sorry my mistake. Wrong plane, wrong place.
The relative you helped me find info on was Keith Freason. Navi on Halifax, Wellington, Liberator and Lancaster bombers. 1943 - 1944.
Recieved the DFC medal.
Uncle Butch was a pilot in Syria 1943. He flew Bristol Beaufighter and Spitfires.
His Spitfire was named "Thelma" after a firey redhead he met in London during the war. He later married her.
Picture is Uncle Butch sitting on the ground in black hat in front of "Thelma"
There are some pictures in the family of him with a Beaufighter. I will try and get them copied for your plane picture collection.
Have alot of Kingsford Smith also if your interested.

Basil

Cheers Baz. Yes please on Smithy too.

Spit looks like a Mk V with a tropical chin radiator and follows common practice of that theatre in only having the individual aircraft letter as opposed to also having the two-letter squadron code.

Great stuff Basil very interesting, alot of engineering going on there. You guys probably allready know about this site, maybe some others dont, www.naa.gov.au/collection/recordsearch/index.aspx
Its the national archives records, I found my grandfathers service records from WW1, there must be alot of people out there that would like to know about their family members war service history. I knew some but found out more from the site, my grandfather served in France in the AIF, Lance corpral and promoted to truck driver. I will have to research some more on the make and model of truck he would have most likely driven.

Kevin

Cheers Kevin. We're bloody lucky here as the various Australian authorities are leading the world in online accessibility of service records- well ahead of the US and miles ahead of the Poms.