Recent content by YakMan

Hi, I may have asked this before. I am keen to obtain or at least, confirm the existence of, a Parts Book for the Tupolev Tu-2 Aeroplane. Why I say "confirm the existence of" is because I have been told "there are no parts books for wartime Soviet aircraft, there was no real need for it at...

There are a lot of "Yak-3"s out there that are Yak C-11s! The C-11 is mostly a Yak-3 with a low-powered ASh-21 radial engine, two seats and some added bodywork to blend the radial diameter in. If you dismounted the radial and took all the add-on bodywork off (it unbolts!) you would be well on...

The fuel tanks in our Yak C-11 and Yak-52 are rivetted aluminium for lightness. They are pressure tested when first manufactured to test the joints for leaks but only to one or two pounds per square inch. After that the tanks never see any pressure at all being permanently vented to...

In addition to our Yaks, we also run a 1937 Beech 18 (aka Beech twin) fitted with two P&W R985 Wasp Juniors. These have a split sump, the forward part drains the crankcase, the rear section drains the rocker boxes all emptied by the scavenge pump when the engine is running. Inside the oil...

I agree PZL are probably your best bet but there should be quite a lot of used ASh-62IRs around in various states because the Antonov An-2 uses them and there are a few of those about,. No American engine parts will fit, they are all in inches, the Shvetsovs are all metric.

Hiya! Nice job, I maintain a Yak-11 and I can clearly see common parts in your model (the Russians didn't change designs that worked!) The Russians colour-coded all the lines to reduce the risk of bad connections. Fuel is yellow, oil is brown, pressurised air is black, intake air is blue...

1) I would say there would be too many differences between these engines to give a meaningful answer. You have air cooled radials and liquid cooled in-line engines listed here - wildly different in operation. Suffice to say, each aeroplane fitted with a certain engine would have a fixed...

I've often wondered why they didn't retrofit a fillet at the outer wing joint or extended outer wingtips or something just to help out, if fitting into hangars really was a problem they could have made them manually fold down easily! I have read many times in contemporary books how the Stirling...

This is an odd one! I would have said, any radial with a fan on the front is a helicopter engine. Radials get most of their cooling air from the forward motion of the aircraft - very little from the prop hence helicopter engines need a fan to cool them. This engine is very Wright-ish looking...

Great book - thanks!

As a boy in the sixties, when I made my Airfix Swordfish I was already aware of the "stringbag" nickname, it might even have been in the 'potted history' Airfix used to include on the instruction sheet. I always assume it was because of all the bracing wires but it cannot have been that...

The internet says no one knows for sure, it did nothing so probably was a mis drill!

The Yak-11 and Tupolev Tu-2 also had "alternate" air but was cable operated by the landing gear going down, closing one and opening another air intake on top of the engine cowling to avoid sucking in debris from the landing strip.

The critical thing with warm up is achieving oil temperature rather than cylinder head temperatures. I work with radials and have no experience with liquid cooled aero engines but I would hazard it is oil temperature you need with them over coolant temperature. With our radials the cylinders...

Hi, I used to live right next to Upper Heyford in the late 70s early 80s and loved it. There was the resident 20th TFW F-111Es (UH tailcode) plus a steady stream of interesting visitors including the odd LN visitor. We even had detatchments of B-52s there for a while. The little village I...