Javlin 1:50 Whilhelmshavener

[hyair]

Dear JohnM - in the Thunder and lightnings site of british post war fighters there was in the past a sound track of the 26 Javlins fly past over the crowd.
For some reason this sound track is not there anymore.
Still, the sound of the 52 saffhire engines roaming above is nothing but spectacular.

Yair

[hyair]

Looking back at my old posts it looks like I didn't cover the Javlin enough. The Javlin somehow falls between the Hunter and the Lightning and never received the same publicity of either of the two. It served for 10 years with the RAF between 1957-1967 and never saw real fight or war activity.
Still it was a big plane with formidable delta wing shape and could carry 4 firestrike infra red AA missiles which were considered among the deadliest for thier time.
Some more pics of the Javlin.
Will be continued.

Yair

[hyair]

The Hunter entered service with the RAF in 1955. The early models had troubles with limited range and ingestion of gas into the sapphire engine that shut it down at hight. These problems were rectified in F-6 model that had Avon engine instead and external fuel tanks.
Then the Hunter become the most successful post war British jet and more then 2000 were produced along with many that were returned back for refurebish. It was very popular in the middle east in particulare.
The Javlin was first flew in 1952 or slightly after the Hunter but the development was long and required many tests for optimizing the aerodynamic shape . Because of the thick delta wings it suffered from high drag and buffet at high speed. Vortex generators were added to the wings in order to minimize these problems. The wide fuselage carried two sapphire engines that were added afterburner in later versions. When the pilots compared it with the Hunter they claimed that in terms of handling both were very similar at hight despite the Javlin bigger size and dimensions . The Javlin main use was of an interceptor with 4 AA firestreak missiles and 4 Aden 30mm canons. The Hunter had also 4 Aden 30mm canons but was adapted for ground attack missions with bombs and rockets.
The two models are IAFM Hunter with Jordanian airforce colors and the Javlin with the RAF colors - both in 1:48 scale.

Yair

[hyair]

The Javlin and the Scorpion were contemporarie planes.
Some pics of the two models. The two are from Wilhelmshavener design and were added with scratch build cockpits and landing gears along some other add ones.

Yair

[hyair]

The Javlin and the Thud served for a brief time under NATO unit in Germany in the mid 60's.
This international unit was comprised from French Mirages , German Starfighters , American Thunderchiefs and British Javlins.
The Thud looks like the opposite of the Javlin - long fuselage and small wings compared to the short fat fuselage and big delta wings of the Javlin.
Some pics of the two together shows the big difference between the two.

Yair

[Kevin WS]

Very nice model indeed.

A classic and iconic aeroplane, with the real thing just barely remembered by me!

[hyair]

Kevin thanks !

The Javlin delta wing was very wide with a span of almost 16 m . The Douglas F-5D Skylancer bat - delta wing was also very uniqe and the thickness was half of the Javlin wing - somthing that gave it supersonic performance of mach 1.45 as opposed to the subsonic Javlin that was able to do 0.93 mach in level flight and required a very stip dive in order break the sound barrier. A proposal for a supersonic Javlin with thin wings was considered but was canceled.
Some pics of the two for comparetion purpose of the two different design approaches.

Yair

[hyair]

The Fairy Delta 2 was a supersonic research plane that held the world record speed of 1132 mph or mach 1.73 in 1956. The FD-2 had a very thin delta wing specially designed for high supersonic speeds. Compared to the big \ wide span and thick delta wing of the Javlin it was much smaller and thinner with half the thickness of the Javlin wing profile. The thick wing and wide - fat fuselage made the Javlin nicknamed " The harmonious drag master ". Because of this high drag the Javlin could slow down very fast when engine power was reduced in a flight which was good for some dogfight tactics . On the negative side the wing created a lot of buffet and vortex generators had to be installed on the wing edges to reduce it. In order to go supersonic the Javlin had to be put in a dive from 45000 feet nose pointed almost vertically down and could only reach mach 1.05 for a short period of time before reaching lower altitude densed air which limited the mach number back to subsonic speeds .

Yair

[hyair]

Some pics of the Javlin with the FD-2. The difference between the two is obvious . The FD-2
smooth lines are all about high speed up to mach 2.0 while the Javlin lines are very wide and thick and limited it's performance to high subsonic speed of around 0.92 mach in level flight.

Yair

[hyair]

Although I don't think the two were ever compared there are many similar things between them. The main task of them was of a missile carried interceptor and both of them carried 4 AAM's . The Cutlass carried 4 Sparrow riding beam 1st generation and the Javlin 4 Firestrike
IR missiles. Both had 2 engines with afterburners. Both had short operational range.
Both could break the sound barrier in a vertical dive and had the same speed of mach 0.93 in level flight. The Cutlass had a better handling and roll rate along better low level climb but the Javlin had higher service cieling. The Cutlass was one seater and the Javlin was two seater.
The production run of them was 300 for the Cutlass and 430 of Javlins. Both were known as complex planes to maintain with many hours per 1 hour of flight. The Javlin had also 4 aden 30 mm guns which were better then the 4 20 mm of the Cutlass. The Cutlass created too many problems in service and was phased out of service in 1957 after only 3 years of service.
The Javlin entered service in 1957 and served until 1968.
The Cutlass appearance was of a more moderm design but the history proved that the Javlin was the more successful of the two.
I took some pics of the two together. Both were from Wilhelmshavener design from the 60's and are colored with typical color schemes of the period. I added scratch build cockpits to give them more realism .

Yair