F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
According to a book on engines I have, you were generous to the ABC Dragonfly, especially it's crankshaft vibration! Bill Gunston "World Encyclopaedia of Aero Engines 3rd ed" 1995: "the unhappy result was that this component usually broke after an hour or two". With the torsional vibration *charring the wooden hub* of the prop! S D Heron described it as having "the worst example of air cooling" he had ever seen. I cannot adequately imagine the bravery of the test pilots! Take care of your voice; I love the aircraft histories.
Hey Rex I realy like the format of your videos as well as how you present them! And I was wondering if you could add the DAR-10 to your list of aircraft? Its a Bulgarian design from WW2 and I think its quite neat. Thank you!
Now all pay attention - don't confuse Armstrong, Siddeley Deesley, which is Armstrong Whitworth with Armstrong Siddeley which is not Vickers, Vickers Armstrong with Bristol Siddeley. Remember there is no Vickers Siddeley or Bristol Armstrong. There was eventually a Vickers with Bristol but they called themselves 'British Aircraft Corporation.'
Canadian Siskins performed acrobatic displays between 1930 and 1921. I know the Siskin was good but I would have thought its ability to time travel would have been mentioned more prominently. I thought you would have mentioned the infamous Siskin Face. Apparently despite its many virtues as an aircraft it could be problematic when it came to landing and if you did not get it right it could result in the pilots face hitting the instrument, hence the Siskin Face.
@@wintersbattleofbands1144 I listened to it several times just make sure. I have a feeling he may have meant 1930 to 1931. Just rechecked it and he does say 1930 to 1921. Try listening from 14:08 and see what you think.
I believe that the Waterloo Siskins hockey club established in 1934 was named after the aerobatic team and not the bird. Windsor named their team years later after the Spitfire.
Siskins are still remembered fondly by Canadian aircraft historians as they were reliable, maneuverable and robust. That RCAF😂 aerobatic team you mentioned in Canad ALSO attached theirs together for some shows - but with chains! I am not sure how many shows they did that with. A "one up" to the RAF maybe 😉 "Siskin" is still kept alive as a potential name for future aircraft acquisitions - like Canso, Harvard, Husky etc. They took on Canada's ruggedness and did a lot of good work in service here mapping, SAR, and evac of sick persons in remote communities (the two seater). It was also nice to "one up" the USAAC at any opportunity back then. Thank you Rex for the great video history of this amazing and historic aircraft!
It was the only Canadian fighter aircraft in the interwar era, until the first hurricanes were obtained just before the outbreak of WW2. Canada’s military unpreparedness is a constant, not a fluke.
Back when I was younger (back in the 80s), one of the first Airfix models I ever built was a Siskin. It has held a special place in my heart because of that.
👍You're probably remembering the Matchbox model kit of the Siskin. Most people who were kids at the time remember every model kit as an "Airfix" to the extent that in Britain any plastic model kit was known as an "Airfix" kit. In terms of inter-war RAF biplanes Airfix did a Bristol Bulldog and a Hawker Hart and Demon, but not a Siskin.
@@johndell3642 Yeah, you could be right. It was over 40 years ago and it was at the start of my plastic aircraft kit collecting period. My memory from then is not as clear as it should be, but I do remember that it was definitely a Siskin.
@@javiergilvidal1558I remember being very happy when Matchbox kits became commonly available starting in the late 70s. Until then we had Revell, Monogram, and MPC, with a smattering of Airfix kits. I am still disappointed that I was never able to get a Handley Page 0/400 despite having one on order at three different Chicago-area hobby shops. The first Matchbox kit I built was _HMS Manxman_ in 1/700 IIRC. Not the best in details, but back then you built what you could find.
Why "weird"? It was a pretty standard biplane. Unless you consider biplanes "weird", but they were the opposite of "weird": technology then precluded building aero engines light yet powerful enough to be kept aloft on monoplane lift
In case it's confusing anyone, at the time the term "all-metal" only meant the main structure was made of metal. The wings, tailplane, rudder and most of the fuselage were still covered in fabric. One other point to note about the Siskin, was that most of them were not actually built by Armstrong Whitworth. The Air Ministry had a "drip-feed" policy throughout the 1920s and early 30s to keep as many aircraft companies going as possible while ensuring value for money for the taxpayer. Once an aircraft had been accepted for service and an initial order filled by the company that designed it, orders for more could be put out to tender to the aircraft industry as a whole with the order usually going to the lowest bidder. Thus Blackburn, Bristol, Gloster and Vickers all built Siskins and got valuable experience in building "all-metal" aircraft in the process. Of course, this cut down on the profits that aircraft companies could make. Matters came to a head when additional orders for the Hawker Hart were put out to tender, leading to a loss of profits for Hawkers. This led to Hawker buying out Armstrong Whitworth and Gloster to cut down on the competition and increase profits. The various "Putnam" books on aviation companies fudge this issue. For example, the one on Armstrong Whitworth says that AW was too busy building Atlas army co-op aircraft to produce more Siskins. This is simply not true.
Good point and well made. The Putnam book on Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft was written with the blessing and help of AWA and they may well have influenced the text, and certainly the information given to the author.
I love all your videos, man. Sometimes I miss when they come out, for some reason. But I’m always happy when a new one drops and then I get to go back and see if I missed anything!
You put up some great videos!! I appreciate your diligence in acquiring all the relevant information on the aircraft you showcase. You dive much deeper than most. Thank you.
I know I'm a month late on this video, But a crazy day at work, the heat outside..... These few minutes, it's therapeutic, rejuvenating, calming..... A few minutes, to chill put the feet up , regroup, focus.....get ready for the nephew's football game....🤟👍🤙...
I'm grinning imaging flying the original at night, being the first aircraft to provide running lights in the form of its glowing red hot cylinder heads.
@@owen368 He didn't lose his legs. He knew where they were, it's just that unfortunately that wasn't where they were supposed to be. I knew an ex RAF groundcrew chap from my village who was an armourer in 19 squadron from 1938 and through the Battle of Britain and so of course knew Douglas Bader. He, like the entire ground crew and almost everyone else on the squadron hated Bader with a passion. Arrogant is not enough of a word. Not in any way shape or form a nice person at all. They had a private celebration when he got shot down.
Nice summary on one of the many lesser known aircraft. One note - at 8:30 you mention that entry into service was 1934. I suspect you meant 1924, but that should be obvious to most anyway.
Copper cooling of engines in aviation hasn't served the auto industry well either. In the 1920s Chevrolet introduced copper cooled (air cooled ) engines for its cars. It was a huge failure, with the cars recalled and the engines destroyed. Consequently only a very few engines still exist in museums. Thank you for another well -researched and informative video.
Had the science of ducting airflow been known and applied as it was later e.g. to those huge radial 'corncob" aero engines....air cooling would have worked.... I mean look at the VW Beetle... The Sherman tank engine... and the Franklin?
Pilots who made a forced landing were often 'rewarded' with an injury known as a 'Siskin nose'. Their high ceiling enabled the a/c to operate MET flights.
An aerobatic team that traveled around between 1930 and 1921? I think even nowadays time travel would be considered a quite spectacular watch at an airshow :P
Very smiliar aircrafts the Boeing P-12 and F4B fighters (and their predecesor the F2B and F3B), would be nice to see some content about them too. :) Or the Curtiss P-6 Hawk and F6C maybe.
I always thought that the A.W Siskin IIIa was quite a good looking aircraft. I have an Airfix 1/72 scale model of it in a box in the loft. I'm not 100% sure, but I seem to remember reading that a couple of them were still serving in a secondary role at the outbreak of WW2.
I remember reading about them being used by a meteorology flight based at Duxford, where efforts were made to fly every day irrespective of the weather itself. It might have been in biography about the RAF ace Stanford Tuck. I seem to recall reference to particular pilot injury called "Siskin Nose" in the book as well.
"Siskin Nose" was probably the aircraft's most enduring legacy, since in a forced landing the pilot was usually flung forward to smash the bridge of his nose on the cockpit coaming. You're probably thinking of Jeffrey Quill, who suffered that injury, and also served with the Met. Flight, winning his Air Force Cross for setting a record of thirteen months without missing a flight. He states in his autobiography that the Met. Flight were the last operators of the Siskin in the RAF so nobody was much fussed if they wrote the odd one off by flying in impossible weather.
Granville Bradshaw was an absolute charlatan of an engine designer. Apparently a German engineering concern copied his motorcycle engine but had to completely redesign it. They were called the Bavarian Motor Works in English. I wonder what happened to this concern?
Hello, Thanks for your videos, it's always interesting and never disappointing. As a frenchman, may I suggest you two forgotten aircrafts ? Both built by the SNCASE: the SE.1010 (kind of a Republic XF-12), and the SE.2010 Armagnac (kind of a DC-7). Cheers
A very interesting episode on a very capable aircraft built during very difficult times for the aircraft industry in Britain. Take care of your voice - Rex's Hangar is a welcome relief from some of the AI commentaries!
My hair are standing on end again. ABC Dragonfly, number built 1147, actually flown: hold my beer, 9. Nine. As such they clocked in a grand total of, again, my beer, 35 hours. Britain at its very best, again.
6:06 What in the world is that ground equipment? And, what is that handle that guy is turning accomplishing? Some sort of fishing rod device used to catch passing biplanes?
On some of the aircraft shown in this excellent video, there is a long device installed above the centre section of the upper wing. It *might* be a machine gun, but it doesn't look like a Lewis Gun, and there seem to be no references to any armament other than the two synchronised Vickers (and some smol bombs). Could someone identify the object, please?
I don't usually notice too many mistakes, but I'm pretty sure a range of 80 miles does not equal 450 kilometers. Now, if that's just an oversight of editing and it's supposed to be a 280-mile range, that would be roughly equal to 450 kilometers
What's the point of a plane that can fly at 27,000 ft . but has no oxygen for the pilot ? " At 25,000 feet the average EPT is 3 to 5 minutes. After about 20 minutes without supplemental oxygen, you will be pronounced dead. " Just curious lol .
I too remember the matchbox kit from the early 80s. The siskin was rather ugly, looking like it was designed by a guy with a straight ruler who hated curves. Perhaps a companion video on its even uglier royal navy conterpart, the fairey flycatcher?
Dropping all your defenses the same minute as the armistice is agreed on is such a stupid British classic cock up. Back then, I think everybody knew that the Germans will be back, just as I think today, that the Germans might come back again in the future. They really are a fighty nation.
How interesting, my friend Tim’s father flew these and crashed one, giving what Tim said is called a Siskin nose because everyone that crashed one broke there nose in the same place Tim had a lovely picture of his dad I think just pre war you could see his nose had taken a bump. His dad had left the RAF in the early 30’s and become the flying instructor for the Midland back I seam the remember re jointing in 1938 and carrying on as a basic flying instructor at Hatfield, I seam to remember he went on to delivering Wellingtons to North Africa
