I have long been a fan of Nevill Shute's "No Highway".
What I would like is for a model of his Rutland Reindeer aircraft to be made available for Flight Simulator.
From what I can gather, the aircraft is a little larger than a Bristol Britannia, has a T-Tail and I envisage would be powered by six Bristol Centaurus piston engines, (at least in it's Mk 1 model.)
Probably a good size would be approximating a Douglas C-124?
I invite comments from other members.

Hi Tony,

a beautifull bridge between flightsimming and modelling. I hope you get some serious responses on your quest..


cheerio

Jan

If my memory serves me from way back - the Reindeer in the Film was a Halifax much modified with a timber & Aluminium fuselage (which had an oversize Viscount type blister cockpit). There were four engines port ones roataing in opposite direction to stbd ones & the tail plane was a Biplane set up mounted high on a Sharks fin shaped Fin & Rudder. The nosewheel was a Brabazon spare ! The only recognisable bit of the Halibag was its distinctive undercart.
The external shots of the aircraft were taken at Blackbushe outside the old Eagle hangar with the ground painted white to represent Gander snow!
BTW the RAE gate sign that used to be (Still is?) by the main gate by the Swan pub was made especially for the film!
Keith

Sadly it was Handley Page Halton G-AHDM 'Falmouth' that went from BOAC to Aviation Traders; then to Westminster Airways; then converted to the Rutland Reindeer G-AFOH for the Nevil Shute film No Highway.

Ugly brute, shades of Gerry Anderson on acid in there









S

Thanks for the memory re-awakener Sean.
No wonder it had metal fatigue with that tail.
Looking recently at a tail wobbling on a Globe Master landing I wonder.....
Keith

There was a good side on pic of this hideous montrosety taken at Blackbushe.

It mentioned a Halton screaming to get out and who can blame it

Garry

Trailer



Parts of the film on the right pane if watched in You Tube

Garry

Ooooh the rather delectable Glynnis Johns

S

Ah yes -- The symetery is back.

Watching Mr Honey in the early 60s gave me my first real idea of what my father did -- albeit NOT retracting undercarriage on the apron at Gander!

It would be an interesting and challenging model to make in MSFS and Plastic -- given that you know the wing form is Halton you have a starting point...


So...whose up for it?



Leif

(ummm ok I'll get my hat and goat and go quietlly........)

I though those links off the sie was the film but i'm only getting soundtrack

* * * *

I doubt any FS model would get made by request. The workload is high so unless it was something the modeller was wanting to make already it's unlikely to be done.

Kit bashing the old Matchbox Halifax could be an option, in this financial crisis I think your local Hobby Shop would be glad to sell a load of plastic sheets and Milliput. Not a project for the faint hearted, I think the empennage could be sourced from the Matchbox Stranraer with some serious tongue in cheek modding. But then trying to find those kits could make a hole in your pocket.

I concur with Garry an MSFS model would be quite unlikely to be made, but in saying that there are some MSFS modellers who have made some 'fictional' aircraft that can be found on AVsim and Flightsim. Perhaps you could download one of their fictional aircraft and approach them via their e-mail addresses usually found in the 'read me' files.

Just a thought

S

Interesting responses.
Given one know scale of the Reindeer, (a 55ft horizontal tailplane), to maintain the proportions, would, to me, suggest a wingspan of around 175ft.
This does produce quite a big aircraft and I feel that six Bristol Centaurus engines would have been required.
There is actually a depiction of the aircraft on the cover of my copy of "No Highway", but it relates to the MkII model, (the pure jet.)
The fuselage is a rounded form and horizontal tail is set in a similar configuration as the (much later) ATR-72.
Compared to the Bristol Brabazon, I envisage that the Reindeer would be smaller would probably have cruised faster?

Not too sure about that - given Neville Shute Norways previous experience with the R101(?) and Airspeed it could have been a 4 engined Ambassador, or Envoy, or even an airship balloon!
Keith

Given that the aircraft was purley fiction it can be assumed that the piston engines were a lot more powerful that was known then and so four would suffice.....they talk of jets but in reality it would probably have been Turbo props.....

The fact it was a rebuilt Halton gives some basic dimensions but the wingspand may have been more if they made a new inner section.

The only thing to me that looks un altered is the maingear

Garry

I looked over the supplied replies last night and it appears that the aircraft was indeed, powered by eight engines, in a very similar fashion to the Brabazon.
There appears to be a mix of technologies though. Some of the aircraft appears to be fashioned along the lines of the Wellington and some along the lines of aircraft constructed of aluminium. ie just about all post war metal airliners.
I wish that I was adept at constructing flight sim aircraft. Back in the FS98 days, I coupled the Brabazon sound to a DC-7 and pretended