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Description
Here is the other airplane I made up, the Saunders Roe Westminster. The story behind it is not so rosey
In the late 40's, saunders-Roe Aircraft Ltd. began work on the Princess class flying boat. It was the largest pressurised commercial airliner ever built in that time. Unfortunately, delays with materials shortage from the war, as well as a market for seaplanes which rapidly dried up, the Princess was scrapped by 1954. saunders Roe had already began work on the Imperial, a landplane equipped with two Bristol-Siddley Coupled Proteus turboprops, driving counter-rotating propellers. the Imperial entered airline service in 1955, in which by that time, the groundwork for the westminster was already in place. Using a planiform, identical to the princess, Saro squeezed four Coupled Proteuses as well as two conventional proteus engines into the leading edge of the wing. The engines being buried in the centre spar and driving the propellers through extended shafts. Improvements over the Imperial were vast. conventional boosted flying controls, replacing the cumbersome electro-hydromechanical flight controls used on the Imperial. Wing skin and spars would be machined from solid aluminium on tape controlled milling machines and titanium finding extensive use in the airframe, mainly around the engine bays. saro completed its first prototype and rolled it out in december of 1958. The first flight was performed in March of 1959, on a flight from Saro's plant in Cowes on the Isle of Wight to London's Gatwick Airport, followed by taxi tests and a flight back to Cowes. The Westminsters first major setback occured just one month later when the first prototype crashed during a landing at Cowes, destroying the aircraft and killing the test pilot and seven other crew members and test engineers. The fault was eventually traced to a broken elevator push rod, which snapped and jammed the elevator in a nose down position. Delays ensued while new elevator rods were designed and manufactured. A second prototype flew in November of 1959. Airline orders remained limited to BEA, BOAC and a couple ordered by DAN Air of London. The first prooduction airframe was rolled out in May of 1960 and was delivered to BEA the following month. In 1961 another major setback occured when a BOAC Westminster, flying at altitude over Northern Ireland, on its way to Chicago, suddenly lost contact and was found broken up in Londonderry North ireland and major bits found in the Atlantic Ocean. An investigation was started and the planes Certificate of Airwothiness withdrawn while the Ministry of Transport oversaw the investigation. the problem was uncovered as a thrown experimental glass-fibre propeller blade puncturing the pressurised fuselage and causing a flat spin in which there was little hope of recovery. the airplane breaking up as it nosed over and exceeded structural speed. Another year would pass, while the propellers were remanufactured, laminated wood and experimental glass-fibre blades being peplaced with forged hollow steel blades. other problems which were oncovered during the investigations were addressed and rectified including wing spar fatigue cracking, "whirl mode" oscillations of the propellers and propeller gearboxes, and unacceptable amounts of fuel leakage into the engine bays. The airplane reentered service in late 1962, but this was short lived as another airplane, a BOAC machine crashed during takeoff at Romes Michaelangelo Airport. This was traced to an expanded vinyl foam balance block, moulded into the propeller tips breaking loose causing uncontrollable vibrations, eventually wrenching the number three engine -gearbox assembly off the wing and breaking off the leading edge of the left elevator as well. the airplane began rolling left and crashed into a field, killing 65 of the 80 passengers and crew on board. Again the C of A was withdrawn and propellers and engine mounts re- designed. Again the Westminster re-entered service in May of 1963. By this point ,however, Saunders-Roe had become a member of Hawker-Siddley and one of its maritime partners, British Hovercraft Corporation was utilising the Cowes facility for manufacturing the SR.N4 and SeaSpeed ferry hovercrafts. HS had also approved manufacture of the Hawker Siddley (formerly the DeHavilland) Trident, and Saro would be contracted to build complete tailplane units and engine nacelles.All occupied factory space would be required. HS immediately axed any further production of the Westminster, the last complete airframe was delivered in May of 1964 to BEA, and two more incomplete airframes were unglamorously parked outside of the factory, to be scrapped a few months later. In service the westminster would be riddled with many technical troubles and eventually proved to much of a maintenance hog for any further use. Most of the 25 airplanes built were retired before decades end, The last commercial flight was a BOAC flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam's Schiphol in 1970. The last existing airplane, a BEA machine was scrapped at Lasham in 1974.
TECHNICAL: The Westminster was powered by four Bristol-Siddley Coupled-Proteuses of 12,500 shp and two BS Proteuses of 6,000 shp each. The coupled pairs drive DeHavilland contra-rotating propellers 18 feet in diameter and manufactured at first out of laminated wood, eventually evolving through the disasterous attempts at using glass-fibre resin, until forged hollow aluminum was utilised. The engine units can be removed by lowering them down after removable sections of the front and centre wing spar are removed. each coupled engine unit drove a remote gearbox, driving a British-Thomson-Houston solid state brushless alternator, a cabin blower and two hydraulic pumps. Hydraulics were split into two main systems and a backup system, with an electric pump and a manual hand pump. Hydraulic power operated the boosted flight controls and artifical feel jacks. It also operated powerful multi-disk wheel brakes, undercarriage retraction and extension, flaps, speedbrakes, nosewheel steering and the tailplane trim screwjack. Each engine nacelle was equipped with an electrically de-iced inlet and a shutter which would close off the engine inlet if it was shut down or the emergency fire handles were pulled. During ground operation, a Rotax RP-40 gas turbine would supply electrical power, deicing air, hydraulic power and cabin conditioned air with the engines shut down. A Freon vapour-cycle refrigerating plant provided cooled and conditioned air during flight and four cabin blowers maintained a 7.5 psi cabin differential pressure. the structure is composed of integrally stiffened milled skin and wing sections and machined wing spars, all being manufactured of Noral DTD-74 aluminium copper magnesium alloy. Redux bonding is used at most connections and riviting supplementing Redux bonding in high stress areas.
ACCIDENTS: The first occured during flight testing of the first prototype in April of 1959 after a demonstartion flight from Birmingham airport. During the descent phase into the Saunders-Roe East Cowes factory airstrip, the right elevator push rod, connecting the elevator servo jack to the elevator tab broke in half, wedging it between the pivot tab and the tailplane trim unit jamming it in a nose down configuration. attempts by the pilot to surge the engines and apply full up tailplane trim were vain and the airplane crashed 2,000 feet from the runway in a residential area, killing the test pilots and five test engineers as well as twelve people on the ground. The second major accident occured in August of 1961 an airplane, belonging to BOAC, was climbing to 12,000 feet enroute to Chicago O'Hare from London Heathrow, suddenly lost the propeller blade, manufactured from fibre-glass reinforced resin, on the number three engine unit which punctured the pressure cabin, striking it at over 600 miles per hour. It immediately killed the six occupants located adjacent to it, while four others and a flight attendant were promptly sucked throught the gap by cabin pressure. The fuselage buckled from the weakness and immeditely the airplane lost control, entering a flat spin and eventually nose diving and breaking up before hitting the ground in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and prtions of the airframe splashing down in the Atlantic. there were no survivors. The third major incident involved a BOAC Westminster, taking off from Rome Michaelangelo International enroute to London in December of 1962. The number three inboard propeller lost a moulded vinyl foam balance insert, force fit into each propeller blade and weighing approximately 3 kg. The resulting wild unbalance wrenched the whole engine and gearbox from the airframe and it swung upwards tearing off a large portion of the leading edge. it struck the left elevator right as the plane was getting airborne, causing a sudden left roll, striking the left wingtip into the ground and crashing into the field adjacent to the airport. A serious fire broke out afterwards. 65 passengers perished in this accident, mostly from toxic fume inhalation. The last major incident which did not cause an accident or death, was a cabin pressure rear bulkhead failure at altitude enroute to New York from heathrow in August of 1966. The airplane returned and made a safe landing at Heathrow. There were a few injuries, mostly trauma caused by the sudden loss of cabin pressure. The explosion was traced to an earlier faulty installation of a cabin air outflow valve, causing damage to the rear pressure bulkhead which led to cracks forming and eventually bursting it out one fourth of its circumference.

Description
Here is the other airplane I made up, the Saunders Roe Westminster. The story behind it is not so rosey
In the late 40's, saunders-Roe Aircraft Ltd. began work on the Princess class flying boat. It was the largest pressurised commercial airliner ever built in that time. Unfortunately, delays with materials shortage from the war, as well as a market for seaplanes which rapidly dried up, the Princess was scrapped by 1954. saunders Roe had already began work on the Imperial, a landplane equipped with two Bristol-Siddley Coupled Proteus turboprops, driving counter-rotating propellers. the Imperial entered airline service in 1955, in which by that time, the groundwork for the westminster was already in place. Using a planiform, identical to the princess, Saro squeezed four Coupled Proteuses as well as two conventional proteus engines into the leading edge of the wing. The engines being buried in the centre spar and driving the propellers through extended shafts. Improvements over the Imperial were vast. conventional boosted flying controls, replacing the cumbersome electro-hydromechanical flight controls used on the Imperial. Wing skin and spars would be machined from solid aluminium on tape controlled milling machines and titanium finding extensive use in the airframe, mainly around the engine bays. saro completed its first prototype and rolled it out in december of 1958. The first flight was performed in March of 1959, on a flight from Saro's plant in Cowes on the Isle of Wight to London's Gatwick Airport, followed by taxi tests and a flight back to Cowes. The Westminsters first major setback occured just one month later when the first prototype crashed during a landing at Cowes, destroying the aircraft and killing the test pilot and seven other crew members and test engineers. The fault was eventually traced to a broken elevator push rod, which snapped and jammed the elevator in a nose down position. Delays ensued while new elevator rods were designed and manufactured. A second prototype flew in November of 1959. Airline orders remained limited to BEA, BOAC and a couple ordered by DAN Air of London. The first prooduction airframe was rolled out in May of 1960 and was delivered to BEA the following month. In 1961 another major setback occured when a BOAC Westminster, flying at altitude over Northern Ireland, on its way to Chicago, suddenly lost contact and was found broken up in Londonderry North ireland and major bits found in the Atlantic Ocean. An investigation was started and the planes Certificate of Airwothiness withdrawn while the Ministry of Transport oversaw the investigation. the problem was uncovered as a thrown experimental glass-fibre propeller blade puncturing the pressurised fuselage and causing a flat spin in which there was little hope of recovery. the airplane breaking up as it nosed over and exceeded structural speed. Another year would pass, while the propellers were remanufactured, laminated wood and experimental glass-fibre blades being peplaced with forged hollow steel blades. other problems which were oncovered during the investigations were addressed and rectified including wing spar fatigue cracking, "whirl mode" oscillations of the propellers and propeller gearboxes, and unacceptable amounts of fuel leakage into the engine bays. The airplane reentered service in late 1962, but this was short lived as another airplane, a BOAC machine crashed during takeoff at Romes Michaelangelo Airport. This was traced to an expanded vinyl foam balance block, moulded into the propeller tips breaking loose causing uncontrollable vibrations, eventually wrenching the number three engine -gearbox assembly off the wing and breaking off the leading edge of the left elevator as well. the airplane began rolling left and crashed into a field, killing 65 of the 80 passengers and crew on board. Again the C of A was withdrawn and propellers and engine mounts re- designed. Again the Westminster re-entered service in May of 1963. By this point ,however, Saunders-Roe had become a member of Hawker-Siddley and one of its maritime partners, British Hovercraft Corporation was utilising the Cowes facility for manufacturing the SR.N4 and SeaSpeed ferry hovercrafts. HS had also approved manufacture of the Hawker Siddley (formerly the DeHavilland) Trident, and Saro would be contracted to build complete tailplane units and engine nacelles.All occupied factory space would be required. HS immediately axed any further production of the Westminster, the last complete airframe was delivered in May of 1964 to BEA, and two more incomplete airframes were unglamorously parked outside of the factory, to be scrapped a few months later. In service the westminster would be riddled with many technical troubles and eventually proved to much of a maintenance hog for any further use. Most of the 25 airplanes built were retired before decades end, The last commercial flight was a BOAC flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam's Schiphol in 1970. The last existing airplane, a BEA machine was scrapped at Lasham in 1974.
TECHNICAL: The Westminster was powered by four Bristol-Siddley Coupled-Proteuses of 12,500 shp and two BS Proteuses of 6,000 shp each. The coupled pairs drive DeHavilland contra-rotating propellers 18 feet in diameter and manufactured at first out of laminated wood, eventually evolving through the disasterous attempts at using glass-fibre resin, until forged hollow aluminum was utilised. The engine units can be removed by lowering them down after removable sections of the front and centre wing spar are removed. each coupled engine unit drove a remote gearbox, driving a British-Thomson-Houston solid state brushless alternator, a cabin blower and two hydraulic pumps. Hydraulics were split into two main systems and a backup system, with an electric pump and a manual hand pump. Hydraulic power operated the boosted flight controls and artifical feel jacks. It also operated powerful multi-disk wheel brakes, undercarriage retraction and extension, flaps, speedbrakes, nosewheel steering and the tailplane trim screwjack. Each engine nacelle was equipped with an electrically de-iced inlet and a shutter which would close off the engine inlet if it was shut down or the emergency fire handles were pulled. During ground operation, a Rotax RP-40 gas turbine would supply electrical power, deicing air, hydraulic power and cabin conditioned air with the engines shut down. A Freon vapour-cycle refrigerating plant provided cooled and conditioned air during flight and four cabin blowers maintained a 7.5 psi cabin differential pressure. the structure is composed of integrally stiffened milled skin and wing sections and machined wing spars, all being manufactured of Noral DTD-74 aluminium copper magnesium alloy. Redux bonding is used at most connections and riviting supplementing Redux bonding in high stress areas.
ACCIDENTS: The first occured during flight testing of the first prototype in April of 1959 after a demonstartion flight from Birmingham airport. During the descent phase into the Saunders-Roe East Cowes factory airstrip, the right elevator push rod, connecting the elevator servo jack to the elevator tab broke in half, wedging it between the pivot tab and the tailplane trim unit jamming it in a nose down configuration. attempts by the pilot to surge the engines and apply full up tailplane trim were vain and the airplane crashed 2,000 feet from the runway in a residential area, killing the test pilots and five test engineers as well as twelve people on the ground. The second major accident occured in August of 1961 an airplane, belonging to BOAC, was climbing to 12,000 feet enroute to Chicago O'Hare from London Heathrow, suddenly lost the propeller blade, manufactured from fibre-glass reinforced resin, on the number three engine unit which punctured the pressure cabin, striking it at over 600 miles per hour. It immediately killed the six occupants located adjacent to it, while four others and a flight attendant were promptly sucked throught the gap by cabin pressure. The fuselage buckled from the weakness and immeditely the airplane lost control, entering a flat spin and eventually nose diving and breaking up before hitting the ground in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and prtions of the airframe splashing down in the Atlantic. there were no survivors. The third major incident involved a BOAC Westminster, taking off from Rome Michaelangelo International enroute to London in December of 1962. The number three inboard propeller lost a moulded vinyl foam balance insert, force fit into each propeller blade and weighing approximately 3 kg. The resulting wild unbalance wrenched the whole engine and gearbox from the airframe and it swung upwards tearing off a large portion of the leading edge. it struck the left elevator right as the plane was getting airborne, causing a sudden left roll, striking the left wingtip into the ground and crashing into the field adjacent to the airport. A serious fire broke out afterwards. 65 passengers perished in this accident, mostly from toxic fume inhalation. The last major incident which did not cause an accident or death, was a cabin pressure rear bulkhead failure at altitude enroute to New York from heathrow in August of 1966. The airplane returned and made a safe landing at Heathrow. There were a few injuries, mostly trauma caused by the sudden loss of cabin pressure. The explosion was traced to an earlier faulty installation of a cabin air outflow valve, causing damage to the rear pressure bulkhead which led to cracks forming and eventually bursting it out one fourth of its circumference.