**** DONE: GB-60 1/48 Avro Anson Mk.I - Zombie Build

[Airframes]

Interesting stuff Andy.
Although not that clear in the posted illustration, I think the tip-up seat would be very similar to the one posted in Grant's pics.
That is, back rest folds forward, seat tips up outboard, seat frame exposed to pilot.
Looking closely, there appear to be three "layers" to the seat shown in your illustration, which I presume would be, bottom to top, the seat frame, seat squab and seat back, with the seat back folded forward in the illustration.
I have a pic of a similar arrangement with another seat, aft of the cockpit and main spar, and it looks virtually identical.

 

[LownSlow]

Thanks for those pictures Grant nuuumannn and for the production details. I was not able to locate that info so good to know. From what I gather on the folding seat, this would probably have been installed for the dual control mod noted on my RCAF record card above. Prior to that, it looks like there was a simpler folding seat, like what is depicted in the kit, for use by an observer. The below excerpt is from the 1937 manual available on our site:

View attachment 758153

The seat there shows no back rest nor those brace frames on the sides and so seems to be different form the one you show. The only issue might be that I've shown the seat incorrectly folded so that the cushion faces into the cabin. If it's a "tip up seat" as noted in the above pic, then I'm thinking the cushion would have folded up revealing the underside of the seat to the pilot. I might go and change that before gluing the canopy on.

I'll stick with no nav light in the port wing. Other things I'm in the process of checking/doing:

- starter crank holes in nacelles - just need to verify that these were mirrored and on the OUTBOARD face of each nacelle for the Cheetah-engined versions. The port nacelle has it on the outboard side for sure.
- Glazed circles on the underside of the nose - how many? It least one for drift sight
- confirm details of sliding panel that covers bomb sight glass and replicate (I shaved these off with seam work)
- add air thermometer (large cylinder at port side of nose, not included in kit)
- upward lamp on canopy roof?
- ejector chute opening for the Browning gun.

I continue to plod....

Starter crank: the holes for the starter crank were on the port side of both nacelles, i.e outboard side on the port engine, inboard side on the starboard engine. Not exactly the safest arrangement as it meant on the starboard side, once the engine was started the only way for the erk who had performed that task to get out was to get down on his hands and knees and crawl out under the wing!

Glazed circles: there are two on the lower starboard side of the nose, plus a flare port with a flap door ahead of them. None on the starboard side.
Bomb aimers sliding panel: I assume you mean the two tracks on either side of the clear panel. Here's a photo that shows the sliding panel and the two lower side windows, plus the thermometer on the side of the nose:

Upward lamp on canopy roof - not sure which you are referring to, there is an interior cabin lamp on the cabin roof just aft of the cockpit and the upper identification light between the two windows on the cabin roof. Note also that there are three downward facing ID lamps under the gun turret:

Ejector chute for the machine gun: I believe the spent casings were just dumped into the belly pan under the cockpit. There was a round port just under the gun position that housed an outward facing pressure gauge for the service tech filling the air pressure tank that was just in front of the pilot:

cheers
Scott

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Thanks for those pictures Grant nuuumannn and for the production details. I was not able to locate that info so good to know. From what I gather on the folding seat, this would probably have been installed for the dual control mod noted on my RCAF record card above. Prior to that, it looks like there was a simpler folding seat, like what is depicted in the kit, for use by an observer. The below excerpt is from the 1937 manual available on our site:

View attachment 758153

The seat there shows no back rest nor those brace frames on the sides and so seems to be different form the one you show. The only issue might be that I've shown the seat incorrectly folded so that the cushion faces into the cabin. If it's a "tip up seat" as noted in the above pic, then I'm thinking the cushion would have folded up revealing the underside of the seat to the pilot. I might go and change that before gluing the canopy on.

I'll stick with no nav light in the port wing. Other things I'm in the process of checking/doing:

- starter crank holes in nacelles - just need to verify that these were mirrored and on the OUTBOARD face of each nacelle for the Cheetah-engined versions. The port nacelle has it on the outboard side for sure.
- Glazed circles on the underside of the nose - how many? It least one for drift sight
- confirm details of sliding panel that covers bomb sight glass and replicate (I shaved these off with seam work)
- add air thermometer (large cylinder at port side of nose, not included in kit)
- upward lamp on canopy roof?
- ejector chute opening for the Browning gun.

I continue to plod....

So much going on here, I hear the crunching on the gravel.

 

[nuuumannn]

- starter crank holes in nacelles - just need to verify that these were mirrored and on the OUTBOARD face of each nacelle for the Cheetah-engined versions. The port nacelle has it on the outboard side for sure.
- Glazed circles on the underside of the nose - how many? It least one for drift sight
- confirm details of sliding panel that covers bomb sight glass and replicate (I shaved these off with seam work)
- add air thermometer (large cylinder at port side of nose, not included in kit)
- upward lamp on canopy roof?
- ejector chute opening for the Browning gun.

Great stuff Andy, I hope the below information helps, although it looks like Scott has provided some good stuff as well, the IWM Anson I at Duxford pictured in his post. I do agree with Terry about the seat though, that image you provided isn't very clear. I have a copy of the Anson I pilot's notes, (AP1525A-PN) which shows the identical seat in the cabin of a single pilot aircraft (oddly, the lack of forward landing light in the nose can be clearly seen in the picture), so it doesn't really make sense that the seat would be changed, unless it got changed in Canada.

As for the crank handles, they are on the left side of each nacelle, not outboard on each. They are port outboard, starboard inboard. The ejector chute opening for the nose gun is also circled.

_ADP2240

This is inboard of the stbd nacelle.

RHIB nacelle

More detail hidden behind panels.

Starter controls

The drift sight exits aft of the nose glazing behind a sliding panel on this aircraft, which, it appears is only opened on the ground...

Drift sight

K6183

I don't know if it is worth replicating the sliding cover for the nose glazing, but this should give some detailed information.

Nose glazing

OAT probe.

Thermometer

Upward lamp on canopy roof? Not sure what you are referring to... Note also that Bill has retrofitted the early sharper sloped windshield as fitted to the first production Ansons.

Cabin close up

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Great stuff gents, thanks.

Airframes Terry, that possibility occurred to me as well but, to my eye, the combined thickness of the folded seat and back cushion in Grant's pics looks much thicker than what I see in the (unfortunately poor quality) manual photo and the clincher for me was that I don't see the sloped side rails on both sides of the seat that are clearly there in Grant's pic. I'm not going to replicate that contraption in any case as I need to move on and get the canopy closed.

EDIT: As I was flipping through the manual to investigate Scott's answers, I came across this:

Fig 67 shows the seat in Grant's pics.

L LownSlow Scott, thank-you for the excellent pics. Regarding your individual points:

- Starboard crank hole location. Your description of the danger to the erk is exactly why I wanted to check on this. Thanks for confirming. Apprentice erk got the starboard side I'm sure.
- Glazed circles - great that your pic confirms the installation. The model instructions reflect what you show.
- Sliding panel - yes, the tracks I'm aware of but I couldn't figure out what the "sliding" part was until now. I thought that maybe there was a movable metal panel that covered the glazing but , studying the pic closely now, I see that it's the piece of perspex itself that slides, leaving a full opening to the outside air. It seems that when the aperture is open, the small trapezoidal protruding window at the very front of the aperture is deflected downward to deflect the air. This from the 1937 manual:

- Air thermometer - great pic. Airfoil shaped, not cylindrical as I had first thought.
- Upward Lamp - that plan view from the manual is exactly what lead to my question. I meant the circle on the roof centered between the two square windows and that is called out as "Upward Lamp". On the kit, that's where the D/F Loop goes so I guess there's no lamp.
- Ejector chute - the manual shows a box that collects the spent cartridges and links with a door on the bottom. The operation is not described.
- Port for pressure gauge - thinking that's a Canadian mod too. Need to look at more pics to see if this is there on others.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Good pics and info.

 

[Crimea_River]

nuuumannn Grant, thanks so much. You posted that while I was writing the above response that took me forever. Note what I wrote about the seat - there were two types.

The drift sight detail you show replaces the three openings we discussed above. I'll go with the 2 windows and flare cover.

 

[nuuumannn]

Note what I wrote about the seat - there were two types.

The drift sight detail you show replaces the three openings we discussed above. I'll go with the 2 windows and flare cover.

Yup, I have just read what you wrote, disregard what I wrote about the seat then! On another issue I'm working on at the moment, the Lockheed Hudson also had a removable seat when it had a single pilot configured flight deck. I checked with a guy restoring one here as I wanted to find out about nose access. Looks like the removable seat is the go. The AP shows the folded seat as per Bill's aircraft though.

Regarding the three openings, yup, I was aware there were two configurations, looks like Bill's being the maritime recon aircraft needed only the one. The nose glazing function can be made out by looking at the image I supplied also. As for the cartridges, as I posted, they were ejected out the wee slot in the lower nose after collection, it would seem.

 

[LownSlow]

...
L LownSlow Scott, thank-you for the excellent pics. Regarding your individual points:
...
- Upward Lamp - that plan view from the manual is exactly what lead to my question. I meant the circle on the roof centered between the two square windows and that is called out as "Upward Lamp". On the kit, that's where the D/F Loop goes so I guess there's no lamp.
- Ejector chute - the manual shows a box that collects the spent cartridges and links with a door on the bottom. The operation is not described.
- Port for pressure gauge - thinking that's a Canadian mod too. Need to look at more pics to see if this is there on others.You can see the upper ID lamp just at the bottom of the opening in the direction finding loop in the bottom pic of

You can just see the upper ID lamp at the very bottom of the opening in the DF loop in the last photo on Nuuumannn's post 104. Here's little clearer shot:

It's the little bump slightly off centre to the right and ahead of the white circle (where the antenna lead enters the fuselage). This description is from the RAF electrics manual:

If you want the down ID lamps, they looked like this:

The up lamp usually had a clear lens but there was a red or green option. The down lamps were clear,red and green (one of each - sorry don't know what order)

Ejector chute - interesting - I will have to go out to our storage container and see if the belly pan on our Anson has that slot - never noticed one but then I never really looked.

Port for the pressure gauge: pretty sure they all had it as standard equipment, that pressure tank was used for operating the brakes (and the machine gun if present) - a fairly critical requirement.
cheers
Scott

 

[Wayne Little]

Most interesting stuff.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Wayne, Wojtek and Scott L LownSlow . We have several of those downward ID lamps for our Mosquito. If you have the 1937 AP 1525 Vol I, the chute is shown in Fig. 93. Unfortunately there is nothing that I saw that mentions how the box is emptied.

BTW, for those interested, some good pics of Ansons in Canada can be found here: Canadian Warplanes 3: Avro Anson

 

[Airframes]

Here's that pic I mentioned showing the "auxilliary" seat (arrowed) aft of the spar, and another pic showing the cockpit without a folding seat. The latter may be awaiting fitting ?
Note how "thin" the folded sections of the seat look.
(no idea where the pics came from !)

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Terry. That's a good shot of the simpler seat. I will use that to modify what I did - or take the lazy way out and just show the seat down again but supported from the side frame instead if the spar.

 

[Ralph Haus]

Bookmarking this build for future reference!! I have the Airfix 1:48 kit of this one and the amount of detail being posted will make research so much easier. Build complexity not so much, so many details to capture!!

 

[LownSlow]

Thanks Wayne, Wojtek and Scott L LownSlow . We have several of those downward ID lamps for our Mosquito. If you have the 1937 AP 1525 Vol I, the chute is shown in Fig. 93. Unfortunately there is nothing that I saw that mentions how the box is emptied.

View attachment 758347

BTW, for those interested, some good pics of Ansons in Canada can be found here: Canadian Warplanes 3: Avro Anson

Thanks Andy, that section seems to be missing from my copy of AP 1525 (later version?). I did find this description in Section 4 though:

I read this as the spent cartridges and links get dumped into the collector box, which is attached to the removable panel on the port side of the cockpit. The used shells and links would be stored in the collector until a service tech removed the panel and dumped it out. This would mean there was no ejector slot on the Anson (as delivered - later modifications possible).
Our Anson still has the gun mount and the S shaped part of the T3 ammunition belt feed conduit, but not the Ammo box, Link chute or Collector box. Likely removed when the gun was taken out, as it was on most BCATP training Ansons.
cheers
Scott

 

[LownSlow]

Here's that pic I mentioned showing the "auxilliary" seat (arrowed) aft of the spar, and another pic showing the cockpit without a folding seat. The latter may be awaiting fitting ?
Note how "thin" the folded sections of the seat look.
(no idea where the pics came from !)


View attachment 758351View attachment 758352

Hmmm - be careful with that bottom photo - looks like an aircraft undergoing restoration? There appears to be quite a few things missing from the cockpit - all those holes behind and beside the pilot's seat should have things like the hydraulic pump (for flaps), the landing gear crank, the fuel crossover selector, etc. There's a hole for the second pilot's control column but not the cover plate that should be there if the column is not in use. The bomb selector switch panels are missing from the right side of the cockpit and a number of items from the right side. If this is a work in progress or an incomplete restoration I would be cautious about using it as an example of what is or is not in an Anson cockpit.
cheers
Scott

 

[Airframes]

I agree, and I vaguely recall the photo came from a restoration in progress, so yes, an incomplete example.
The photo was posted just to show the cockpit without some of the "standard" fittings.