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Allied and Soviet Air Forces Please use this forum to discuss the Air Forces of the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.

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  #1  
Old 14th November 2006, 22:38
Birgir Thorisson Birgir Thorisson is offline
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Woodworking, French, Soviet, and British.

In the thirties, the french government launched a program to use non-strategic materal in aircraft, primarily wood. This produced such aircraft as the Arsenal VG series of fighters, and the Bloch 700 light fighter. In about 1939 soviet designers produced wooden fighters, the Yatsenko I-28, (with Gnome-Rhone derived M-87 & 88 radial engines) and the better known Lagg series (using initially Hispano-Suiza derived M-105 inline engines.) Is there any connection here. Does anyone know whether the woodworking technologies in these aircrafts were similar, or different. Also, did the British "Wooden Wonder" use similar or dis-similar technologies.

Birgir Thorisson.
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Old 15th November 2006, 09:17
Kari Lumppio Kari Lumppio is offline
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Re: Woodworking, French, Soviet, and British.

Hello!

For what it is worth there was a Soviet book about making wooden airplanes which was translation of a British book (or report) plus apparently some indigenous chapters (paint technology). I have some copies at home, but don't remember the title now. The book was published in 1945.

Is it possible that the famous "delta-wood" used in Soviet designs has connection to the molded plywood technique developed by Lockheed at USA? Also in Germany compression molded wood was used in propeller blades (middle section of blade) already before war. IIRC that had conenction with USA (patent?).

It is also interesting that Soviet Union received 784 120 lbs phenol formaldehyde as Lend-Lease deliveries (plus 36 556 252 lbs phenol and 1 119 800 lbs formaldehyde). Phenol formaldehyde resin - better known as Bakelite - was used as adhesive for delta-wood and normal plywood. How big was Soviet Union's own production of these strategic materials?
(Source for the deliveries: http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/docume...ages_13-28.pdf )

These are some short thoughts of mine of this very interesting subject.


Regards,
Kari
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Old 18th November 2006, 17:52
Birgir Thorisson Birgir Thorisson is offline
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Re: Woodworking, French, Soviet, and British.

Thanks for the reply.

I have been having difficulty accessing the board, since I posted this question. Hope it is not a sign of disapproval Attempts to add to it have so far failed, but I hope this one gets through, because the connection seems to be working normally today.

Now back to the wood. I noticed when reading Gordons and Khazanovs book about Soviet Combat Aircraft, vol. 1 fighters, that the origins of the Lagg fighter is attributed to the initiative of a ministry official, Gorbunov, to use non-strategic material, to ensure adequate supply of fighters. It also states that a certain Ryzkov, manager of a factory producing skys and wooden propellers according to a german process, (which you explain as emenating from a process invented by Lockheed) supplied the woodworking technology.
It then caught my attention that the Yatsenko project (I-28) seemed to exactly parallel the Lagg project, except it seemed to be a few months older. Now, Common, central directives, leading to parallel programs are a feature of Soviet programming. That led me to think of the french, which must have started their program at latest in 1936. The soviets had close ties with France, (as the engines are evidence of.) The strength of the french communist party would have made "industrial espionage" very easy there, not to mention the allegation that the french air-minister Guy la Chambre was a communist agent. (Does anybody know whether the truth about that has been ascertained from soviet sources)?
A side issue is whether De Havilands wooden technology was unique, or a part of established industrial process in the late thirties. Is there any expert out there that could comment on this.
Also, in view of the quality control problem that plagued Lagg production, was it , with the benefit of hindsight, a bad idea. That is, was such a wooden aircraft always destined to be structurally heavier than metal aircraft?

Birgir Thorisson.

Now
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Old 18th November 2006, 19:19
Graham Boak Graham Boak is offline
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Re: Woodworking, French, Soviet, and British.

A few points. The DeH wooden technology came from internal experience, and the Mosquito does not, as far as I know, use resin-impregnated birch. It used a spruce and balsa sandwich. Therefore it has no relation to the Soviet use, other than the general worldwide knowledge of how to make wood work as a structural material for aircraft. Physics, biology and carpentry are the same for all nations, therefore engineering solutions will tend to be similar. I think it would - generally - be a mistake to see that any development as evidence of direct espionage/hand-over.

One point worth making is that once it was known that one company was making propellors from resin-impregnated wood, then every propellor company would study the idea, at first so see if it was any good, and then with the aim of finding a way around the patents. Did Rotol pay patents to Lockheed for their wartime propellors?

Wooden aircraft will always tend to be heavier than metal aircraft because wood is not as strong, and although less dense is also less consistent and reliable, so must be worked with greater safety margins. On the other hand, wooden aircraft tend to will have smoother external surfaces and hence less excresence drag. Fighters are better with metal construction than with wood, yes, but not necessarily faster.

As the Mosquito showed in British industry, that doesn't mean that it is not possible to produce a competitive aircraft using wood. As the Albemarle showed on the other hand, it rather depended upon just what you were making! The reason for doing so was not to achieve a performance benefit, but to be able to produce an aircraft at all given a shortage of aluminium. This was the position the Soviet industry was in: it would have preferred to use metal but adequate supplies were not available. Also, aluminium was used in the T-34 engine, which could reasonably have had a higher priority on whatever stocks were available. Also, being able to use the trained woodworking personnel without major training programmes, and distribute the manufacture, were seen as major benefits in the UK. No doubt this was also true in the USSR.

Problems with production quality fall into two main categories: firstly those where the process is new, and not all lessons have been learned. The LaGG does seem to have suffered from this. Then there are failures due to lack of production control. Note that the Mosquito suffered from wing failures that, although blamed on substitute glues,were caused by a reduction in production quality. The Japanese also suffered from production problems when attempting to change to non-strategic materials late in the war. In the conditions under which the Soviet industry suffered in the early years of their war, quality problems were inevitable. Any production line would have seen a reduction in quality if abused in this manner.
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Old 18th November 2006, 19:49
Franek Grabowski Franek Grabowski is offline
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Re: Woodworking, French, Soviet, and British.

I understand that quality control of wooden construction is much harder than of metal one. Also, there is always a difference of quality demands for materials, as I believe siluminium used for engine blocks may have been of worser quality rather than the alluminium used for airframe construction.
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Old 18th November 2006, 22:24
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Re: Woodworking, French, Soviet, and British.

First advantage was made after introduce of the fenol resin in the manufacture. This material was used as bond as well protective coat. First total composite wooden plane was Timm N2T and many planes used this material in manufacture such as Rogozarski IK-3 or North American Mustang. Technology mainly usec is the layer lamination of the wood stripes. I have some technical extract but I am afraid that I can not find it in moment. Is it urgent for you?
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Old 18th November 2006, 23:23
Kari Lumppio Kari Lumppio is offline
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Re: Woodworking, French, Soviet, and British.

Hello!

Of the book I mentioned. The title is:

Projektirovanie derevjannyh samoljetov, published by NKAP, Moskva 1945.

The book is "перевод с английского" - translation from English, but the original is not given (at least I didn't find it). Many of the illustrations (drawings) do show La-5 (or -7?) manufacture so likely the book is adapted.

I was wrong about the German wooden propeller manufacturing technique - it is not from USA. The technique is original German Leichtholtz-Mantel patented by Gustav Schwartz Propellerwerk. The patent was used by foreign companies too: Engineering Research Corp. of Riverdale (USA), Rotol (!!! UK) and Nohab (Sweden). Source for this info Finnish magazine article of wooden propellers (Suomen Ilmailuhistoriallinen lehti 3/2001, pp. 10-13).

It would still be interesting to know how many Yaks and Lavochkins would have been manufactured without the Lend-Lease deliveries of phenol formaldehyde and it's raw materials.


Plywood may produce the lightest structure if it is stability (= not strength) critical. This is sometimes the case with light general aviation planes. Metal has the big plus that it yields before braking up - structure may buckle or deform and still keep itself in one piece. This is not the case with wood (or carbon, glass, aramid etc. fibres).

Cheers,
Kari
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Old 19th November 2006, 01:06
Birgir Thorisson Birgir Thorisson is offline
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Re: Woodworking, French, Soviet, and British.

Thank you all.
Pilot, I am not going into complexities, so technologial details are not of interest.
The question about wood in the USSR would rather seem to be, a) that wood was still a viable option on 1938/9, and Stalin tended to want a little bit of everything.
Now, what about the Aluminium situation in the USSR. Were there any particular problems with increasing Aluminium production in the USSR, (that is not faced by other major powers).
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Old 19th November 2006, 02:47
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Re: Woodworking, French, Soviet, and British.

Wheter you like or not this topic goes into the technical question too. As I have noted on the manufacturer diagram of the I-16 fighter it is made of the diagonal strip of veener. Main reason for the Soviet use of wood is the avaiable work force. Main interest is that any of the airplane project could be manufactured by non skill personel and this was find of using of wood.

Also price of the wood is not small. Wood taken for the aircaraft manufacture is of aeronautical grade and from the tree just small amont can be used for building process. Some experience state that from the total of the used wood material only 25% became part of the aircraft construction and the rest is waste material. Also this can not be recicled as the metal and if we take in mind how many woods have to be cut for this type of manufacture wood is cheap material as it is look like. Specialy note thatonly the best wood tree are selected for the further use!!!

Manufacturer process is much longer then of the metal in a reason of the drying time but this can be progressed with used of pressure and heat but this additionaly get more price of the final product. Also wood need more care then the metal in a reason of much sensitivity to the moisture, weather as well microorganisam. Wood construction are basicaly box type or stresed skin type.

You will also note that Soviet bombers which were in the mass service use was of complete metal construction while the most used materials for fighters are wood. This situation had been changed at the end of the WW2. But due to the social situation in the country Soviets could engage that number of types in manufacture. Just to note that one airplane from the USA Republic Seabee had conventional wooden wing and this wing is discarded in a reason the 95% of its cost was hand assembly labour.
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Old 19th November 2006, 12:24
Graham Boak Graham Boak is offline
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Re: Woodworking, French, Soviet, and British.

Yes, the Soviets did have problems with increasing their production of aluminium: they had no major source of bauxite. It was only the receipt of large stocks from the USA that permitted them to introduce metal spars on the fighters, and later full metal structures.
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