On 25 June, the latest exhibit for the Kent Battle of Britain Museum arrived at Hawkinge, in the shape of the Whirlwind Fighter Project's replica Westland Whirlwind cockpit section. Not a single example of the 114 Whirlwinds built has survived, the last being broken up during 1947. Work on the cockpit has been under way in the workshop of the project's chief engineer, Peter Smith, a highly experienced professional precision engineer. This is an unusual project in that the team doesn't have a full set of drawings to go on, yet an accurate reproduction will result. This has been made possible by a web-based collaboration between researchers, engineers and computer-aided design (CAD) experts. All resources are 'husbanded' in one shared online file store. These include the few remaining factory drawings, parts manuals, repair manuals, photographs, sub-contractor drawings and data, references on construction techniques and standard parts, which are combined to make a CAD model via SolidWorks software. The project has been lucky in securing the assistance of Gunnar Olsen from Norway, the engineering design lead, who has assembled the CAD model. The other stroke of good fortune came in the unlikely form of a sheet of paper passed to the Wesdand woodwork shop giving the very precise dimensions of a wind-tunnel model of the aircraft. Armed with a precise outer profile of the aeroplane and only partial dimensions for everything else, Gunnar's trick has been to fit everything together like a jigsaw.
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