Vickers valetta engine upgrade.

[chrisonord]

After  saying  I  would  never  buy another  Valom kit I  had one of their Valetta  kits wafted at me for much cheapness.  I have been looking at  what I  could do to it and have thought about  putting  the  Basler turbo  Dakota conversion  on it, and putting  a nose wheel on it(with lots of ballast  no doubt, as it would  sort of look like its successor  the Varsity, all be it a bit shorter. The engines  would  fit in with the time frame as they have been around  for quite  some time, my main concern  is whether the  engine  pods will fit the Valetta  without too much  of a problem.
Chris

[joncarrfarrelly]

Valetta has Hercules of 55” diameter, the DC-3/C-47 was originally designed to use the
Wright Cyclone (R-1820) which has a diameter of 54.25”. The DC-3A/C-47A/Dakota use
the Pratt & Whitney Twin-Wasp (R-1830) which has a diameter of 48”, but the firewall
and nacelle dimensions were not changed, for obvious reasons.
 

Thus the Basler conversion parts should at least be close.

A Varsity was used as a testbed during Napier Eland turboprop development.



Better photos here including one showing the installation.
https://archives.imeche.org/archive/engines/d-napier-son/eland-napier?ipage=5

https://archives.imeche.org/archive/engines/d-napier-son/eland-napier/588315-varsity-napier?

[NARSES2]

After  saying  I  would  never  buy another  Valom kit I  had one of their Valetta  kits wafted at me for muck cheapness. 
Chris

You might be o.k. Chris. The Valetta is one of their recent kits and they are nowhere near as bad as the early ones. Indeed the Fokker I'm currently building is fine. Just take your time and whilst they don't fall together they do go together. I think the answer is not to have to high an expectation when you start it and allow weeks rather than days.

Chris (the other one  )

[chrisonord]

Thankyou for the  replies  John and  Chris, much appreciated.  I  think  I might order a Basler  conversion set for it then , as it will save me  time  scratch building  some  engine pods. 
Chris