Vimy Flight

The four replica Nieport XI biplanes of the Vimy Flight visited Halifax over the weekend. Originally due to arrive on Friday, weather kept them at Greenwood until Saturday, arriving in time for a flypast over Citadel Hill around 11:30 am. 

When we first spotted them, the middle two were popping some smoke.

After their flypast, all four headed over to CFB Shearwater to land, and two of the aircraft were walked backwards down the hill to the Shearwater Aviation Museum (they apparently weigh in the range of 550 lbs each). To move the aircraft, one pilot lifts the tail while another pushes from the front.

The pilot of this plane is Allan Snowie, author of "The Bonnie - HMCS BONAVENTURE". 

Here is one of the aircraft with two re-enactors from the Citadel in period uniform.

The aircraft are apparently built at 7/8 scale as compared to the original planes. I don't know the reason behind the size discrepancy, although it may have something to do with the requirement to fit four of these into a CC-177 Globemaster III for the trip to France and back so that they could fly over the memorial at Vimy for the centennial.

Lots of bright colours!

The engines were originally rotary engines, apparently - I'm not sure what they are using here. I suspect the red battery inside isn't accurate either.

The arrow actually serves a purpose, though you don't have to use an arrow. The original aircraft were fitted with splitters to prevent the cables from rubbing together, and someone started using an arrow for this purpose and it caught on.I'm guessing the plastic wire ties holding them on are not historically accurate.

The planes are all built of wood, reinforced with wire cable, and are covered with fabric, as were the originals. There are a few modern touches, however, especially when on looks into the cockpit.

I generally don't take selfies, but apparently I did here - can you spot me?

There are a few modern touches in the cockpit, including radios and instrumentation that would not have been available during the First World War. I'm assuming they also carry GPS.

One of the two aircraft is fitted with a Lewis gun mounted on the top wing, just over the cockpit.

The Lewis gun was an automatic machine gun perfected during the First World War. On aircraft, it was fitted without the cooling shroud seen on land-based weapons, presumably to save weight.

I strongly suspect the original aircraft didn't have an iPhone charging cable.

A close-up of the Lewis gun mounted on the upper wing.

This aircraft carries multiple dedications.

All four aircraft took off again on Saturday afternoon, and headed north to a small airfield outside Windsor, NS. They have a schedule on their website, which they do not seem to be following all that closely.

The cross-Canada tour began in Nova Scotia around May 6, and will continue west from here, apparently skipping Newfoundland & Labrador.

For lack of anywhere else to mention them, and also aircraft related, I will also show an interesting sight that flew overhead while I was cutting some wood outside just before sunset last night.

A flight of what I assume are three airliners headed from New York to London, all flying in a line. I had to choose between having trees or power lines in my shot. I chose the trees.

I liked how the contrail was petering out behind the last aircraft.

I'm assuming the third and final aircraft was a Boeing 747, but I am only going by the four engines and rough shape of the fuselage.

Brunel's S.S. Great Britain

Occasionally my interests in engineering and my maritime history hobby intersect, as they did when I visited Bristol in 2006, home to two monuments to the genius of Civil and Mechanical engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. One is the Clifton Suspension Bridge, of which I have previously shown some photos here. The other is the S.S. Great Britain, which is preserved at a museum there.

The 3,400 ton S.S. Great Britain viewed from the port stern. My lens at the time wasn't the widest, so I couldn't fit her all in.

Here is a picture of a model in the museum to give an idea of her size. Not sure why I am getting the evil eye through the glass case.

Built in 1845, she was the first ocean-going vessel to combine an iron hull with steam propulsion driving a screw propeller, and at the time was the longest ship in the world. She was also provided with auxiliary sail power, and indeed was converted entirely to sail later in her career. After reaching the end of her operational lifetime, she then spent around 86 years laid up in the Falklands, and was scuttled in 1937, before being returned on a barge to Bristol after 1970 where she was restored and remains to this day.

Looking aft along the port side.

The S.S. Great Britain is actually on display in the graving dock within which she was built.

Great Britain looks out over a portion of Bristol Harbour from her graving dock.

Looking out over the bow.

The ship's wheel.

Looking forward along the deck.

Looking aft.

Spending so many years in a salt water environment has taken its toll on the ship's hull. Even after the graving dock was drained, the moisture in the air of the graving dock allowed corrosion to continue, and it was determined (as I recall) that salt had bound to the iron in the ship's hull. Conservation measures, in the form of a glass roof over the graving dock interior and de-humification equipment both in the dock and within the ship's hull, were installed to preserve the ship.

The caisson that seals off the end of the graving dock from the harbour outside.

Looking aft from the ship's bow. Part of the de-humidification system's ductwork runs along either side of the keel.

Looking forward along the port bow.

A close-up of the ship's plating.

Another plating close-up, this time showing some of the holes in the hull.

In many locations, you can actually stick your finger through the hull, as this man is doing.

Approaching the stern.

A replica of the ship's original screw propeller. It was deemed unsatisfactory, and was replaced by a 4-bladed model.

The rudder and propeller.

Rudder and propeller.

Later in the ship's life, possibly when put on the run to Australia, Great Britain was operated primarily under sail for economy, only resorting to her machinery when the wind died. Propellers create considerable drag when a ship is under sail, so the propeller was mounted on a lifting frame that allowed the propeller to be raised when the ship was under sail, and lowered and re-coupled to the propeller shaft when it was necessary to run the engines.

A working version of the lifting frame, with what looks like an original rudder, is housed in one of the nearby museum buildings.

The ship was originally built as a liner, and as such the interior would have been nicely finished, some of which has been recreated in the restored ship. Later refits increased the passenger capacity, presumably at the expense of passenger comfort.

The skylight above can be seen in the photo of the ship's wheel earlier in this post.

The ship's machinery is recreated within, and was designed especially for the ship by Brunel himself.

Great Britain's machinery.

Pistons from the crank shaft down to the steam pistons.

The large wheel on the top, installed on the ship's crankshaft, drives the series of chains that in turn drive the ship's propeller shaft at the bottom of the photo. The chain drive arrangement was replaced in later years.

Ship's interior looking forward.

I found the ship and museum to be very interesting, and well worth the visit if you are ever in Bristol.

As a final note, another ship (also worth a visit) moored nearby when I was in Bristol was the Matthew, a replica of John Cabot's vessel from his 1497 voyage from Bristol to Newfoundland, probably Bonavista or St. John's.

A replica of John Cabot's Matthew.

This same vessel actually sailed the Atlantic in 1997, and as I recall I visited her that summer in Shelburne, NS. While working a summer work term for the Canadian Hydrographic Service at BIO, we got to sign a nautical chart that was to be given to the crew. In addition to this ship, there is a second replica of the Matthew in Bonavista itself.