1:72 Trumpeter English Electric Lightning F.2A

[MADMUSKY]

amazing amount of work going on to produce a correct lightning,my favorite aircraft of all time, its a pity manufacturers dont do the correct research to produce an accurate kit they think it "looks about right so that will do modellers will buy it" attitude wont wash anymore, airfix could beat them all and produce an accurate lightning they will have a top seller on thier hands,i have a couple of thier 1-48th F1s and F6s in my stash very good kits indeed. loving your deadication to producing a accurate lightning simply amazing work cant wait to see this finished up,following this all the way with amazment, once again great work

[Navy Bird]

Time for another quick update. I've put the finishing touches on my highly accurate EELWAAJ (EE Lightning Wing Anhedral Alignment Jig). As John Hammond says in Jurassic Park "I've spared no expense!" It's amazing how the Tamiya tape and the Waldron punch and die set not only happen to be exactly the same height, but also exactly the right height! Yikes! I've added the Quickboost resin intake ring, too, can't recall if I mentioned that before.

 

 

This should be interesting, as my drawings (and others that I've found on the net) indicate a significant amount of apparent anhedral, so I'm going to give it a try. The "jig" will get me close, but I'll be using a slow curing adhesive so I can make plenty of adjustments. For my final adjustment, I'll display my drawing (head-on view of the front of the Lightning F.6) on my PC screen. Then I'll hold the model in-between my eyes and the PC screen, in the same view (head-on). By varying the distance of the model from my eyes, I can make it exactly the same size as the drawing on the PC screen in the background - I'm sure you've all tried this trick, eh? Then I can line the two images up to my line of sight and see if the angles are right. Thank goodness our eyes aren't telecentric, or the PC screen illumination collimated, or this trick wouldn't work! (Sorry, geek humour for the optical engineers among us. You are out there, right? I'm not the only one? Right?)

 

Result? I think it's OK, but I'm not going to show you a photo until I have all the gaps filled and sanded (in progress). So let's move on to the landing gear bays. I have the Eduard photoetch detail set, and it includes some extra goodies for the wheel wells. First, here is what the starboard wheel well looks like before we start:

 

 

Then we take off the stuff that Eduard doesn't want:

 

 

Followed by adding the stuff that Eduard thinks should be there:

 

 

The result looks better in real life. These big pictures on the PC really magnify every little thing. It looks like there are big blobs of solder on there - but trust me, there really is nothing of any significance there. It will look fine. One thing's for sure - even before I added the photoetch, the wheel wells are very shallow. No way that the gear and tire would fit in there, not even the super skinny, high pressure Lightning tire. Or is it tyre?

 

OK, back to work sanding and smoothing, etc. It's coming together - in case you're curious, there is a sneak preview of the model on some post I just made on another thread about people's workbenches.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Oh, I also did some measurements last night and verified that the main landing gear legs from Trumpeter are too long. The ones from the Matchbox kit are, get ready for it, the correct length. However, Trumpy's are much better moulded and have much nicer detail. I'll be modifying them instead of using the Matchbox parts.

[periklis_sale]

great work my friend

:clap2::clap2:

[crobinsonh]

IMHO when looking at mods for the Trumpeter 1/32nd F1A over on LSP a couple of years ago I did not find any drawings that where accurate (Warpaint, Japanese book on Lightning, SAM etc) - the Airfix 1/48th Lighting and the Echelon Lightning match but then again as I understand it these where both created from the real 1:! plans at BAe.

[Navy Bird]

Hello mates,

I thought I would post some of the research that I did concerning the wing anhedral. The previous post concerning accuracy of drawings is a valid one, so it always helps to have more than one source. If possible, the real thing is the best help of all. Unfortunately, I don't have access to a real Lightning, so I'll have to make do with photos.

First, I took a front-on view from one of my drawing sets, brought it into CorelDraw, found the vertical centerline (axis) and constructed a horizontal axis perpendicular to it. I then drew a line that ran down the middle of the wing, from the tip to the root. Since the wing has variable thickness I drew this line right down the middle of the wing. Then I used the dimensioning tool in CorelDraw to measure the angle between the lines. This gave me an anhedral value, from this point of view, of 6 degrees. Like so:

 

Then, I did the exact same thing for my second drawing and got the same answer. Of course, one drawing could be a derivative of the other but I have no way of knowing that. Here is the second drawing:

 

Next, I took a photo of a Lightning F.6 which is nearly head-on, therefore close to the point of view of the drawings, and I copied all of the lines that I made in CorelDraw (vertical, horizontal, wing line, and angular callout) and superimposed them on the picture to see what the alignment looks like. It is a reasonably good fit, so I feel pretty confident that the apparent anhedral is approximately 6 degrees.

 

I searched the web trying to find a written specification to confirm this, but I wasn't able to find one. If anyone can point me to one, please do. In any event, I mounted the wings onto the fuselage at an approximate 6 degree anhedral when viewed square on from the front. If I had mounted the wings the way that the kit is engineered, there would be little to no anhedral. As someone mentioned, that is another one of the many reasons why this kit, when built OOB, just doesn't "look" right.

I'm just about finished smoothing the wing roots, and then I'll prime the beastie and post some pictures.

Cheers for now,
Bill

[keefr22]

As someone mentioned, that is another one of the many reasons why this kit, when built OOB, just doesn't "look" right.

That was me Bill, & to my eyes it, the nose ring & the jetpipe area, are the things that really spoil an OOB build of the Trumpy Frightning, as they stick out like three sore thumbs - but it was the lack of anhedral that really shouted 'I just don't look like a Lightning' immediately I first set eyes on my mate's model. I'm now tempted, if I can find a 'cheap' one, to build one with just those things changed to see what it looks like compared to your all singing & dancing one! I have a lot of Modeldecals & xtradecals waiting for a home & it doesn't appear Airfix ever intend to do the decent thing!!

Great work on determining the anhedral angle by the way, be interesting if any works drawings showing the anhedral of the real thing could be found, to see exactly what it was.....

Keef

[Navy Bird]

OK, it's time for the next problem. On the Lightning, the trailing edges of the ailerons are not quite perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the fuselage. You can see in this picture that the straight edge does not line up all the way across. The inboard edge of the aileron is just slightly further back than the outboard edge. All of my drawings show this, as does the decal artwork from both Trumpy and Xtradecals.

 

 

My newest problem is that this slight departure from a straight line is exaggerated on the Trumpy kit. By comparison, you can see that the height of the aileron is more tapered on the Trumpy wing (taller inboard than outboard) than it is on the Matchbox wing:

 

 

This is not a big problem. By measurement, it's only about 1mm off. The trailing edge of the Trumpy ailerons is very thin, and this is an easy sanding job.

Cheers,

 

Bill "I'm not going to bin it - there's too much work invested!" Navy Bird

[Navy Bird]

crobinsonh said:

IMHO when looking at mods for the Trumpeter 1/32nd F1A over on LSP a couple of years ago I did not find any drawings that where accurate (Warpaint, Japanese book on Lightning, SAM etc) - the Airfix 1/48th Lighting and the Echelon Lightning match but then again as I understand it these where both created from the real 1:! plans at BAe.

 

Hi mate,

 

I found your thread over at Large Scale Planes. Impressive! Did you ever finish the beast? I only saw two pages in the WIP thread. I'd love to see how it ended up. Thanks!

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

The main gear has been shortened so they are the same length as the Matchbox parts, and I've attempted to carve a square shape on the end so they will fit into the square holes in the wings. I've added the small amount of PE in the main gear bays. I cut off the oleo scissors on each leg, and replaced with Eduard's cute little brass jobs. There are PE brake lines to install, too, but I'll leave them off until later. I think I will also have the nose wheel turned just a bit, it makes a more interesting pose.

 

 

This will all look much better when it's painted of course. When I glued the legs into the main gear bays, I used the actuating strut from the Matchbox kit because it's much stronger (the Trumpy version was very thin soft plastic) and because the hinge in the middle is much better molded. It looks more like the real thing. It's not very noticeable in this shot, but the main landing gear legs (where the tires mount) do indeed slant forward like they should.

 

 

The big question on my mind is whether my homemade jig and line-of-sight method resulted in the correct anhedral for the wings. What I figured I would do is try to duplicate the head-on shot and superimpose those CorelDraw graphics again and see if it matches. Here it is, what do you think?

 

 

I think I got really lucky!! Because the Trumpy wings do not have the kinked leading edge, this head-on view does not exactly match what you see on the real plane. But I do think that the overall anhedral is pretty close. The kinked leading edge, when viewed head-on, makes the wing look like the anhedral is changing in several sections, but that's really just the leading edge that's doing that, not the whole wing, at least it appears that way to me. It's a very complex shape that has befuddled most kit makers as we've seen.

 

I'm getting pretty close to painting with Alclad. I have some detail work to do in the front gear bay, mount the rear tailplanes, do some re-scribing, etc. I'm leaving Sunday for a week in San Francisco, and I'm not sure how much I'll get done before then. But after that, I'll be working to finish this. I'm already late for the F-14 Group Build! The Tomcat was my favorite plane back in the 70s and to be honest I haven't built one in over 20 years. It will be like re-living my youth! Only my back hurts more...plus the fact that 20 years ago wasn't exactly my youth. 40 years ago maybe...

 

Cheers,

Bill

[J.D.]

Very neat Bill. This is going to come up a treat.

[keefr22]

The anhedral looks good to me Bill, a huge improvement to what it's like when built OOB!

One thing with leaving the nosewheel turned - unless there was a very good reason for doing so, not straightening the nosewheel before leaving the aircraft would, on most (if not all) RAF squadrons, leave the pilot having to make a hefty contribution to the bar fund....!!

Keef

[Navy Bird]

keefr22 said:

One thing with leaving the nosewheel turned - unless there was a very good reason for doing so, not straightening the nosewheel before leaving the aircraft would, on most (if not all) RAF squadrons, leave the pilot having to make a hefty contribution to the bar fund....!!

Keef

 

Ha! LOL! My pilot is going to have to pay a really BIG contribution to the bar fund, because in addition to leaving the nose wheel turned, he also left the flaps down and the speed brakes open! He claims he fell victim to "AML" - I thinks that is short for Advanced Modellers License, or something like that!

 

Seriously, I'm only including these factual errors in my build because I don't want Trumpeter to be blamed for everything.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[keefr22]

Ha! LOL! My pilot is going to have to pay a really BIG contribution to the bar fund, because in addition to leaving the nose wheel turned, he also left the flaps down and the speed brakes open! He claims he fell victim to "AML" - I thinks that is short for Advanced Modellers License, or something like that!

Seriously, I'm only including these factual errors in my build because I don't want Trumpeter to be blamed for everything.

Cheers,

Bill

[Martian]

This is really coming together now! I am now so thoroughly put off the Trumpeter kit that I have decided to just tart up the old Airfix F1 a bit instead in preparation for my build of their 1/48 scale job.

Martin

[dangrouskeith]

Please don.t give FROG a hard time! it was a re box of Hasagawa,s. There were a lot of them, F100,F105,F102,A6 etc...I actually like the Airfix F1 as a starter for something better.Happy modelling.

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

More progress! First, Eduard says I have to put these fiddly bits into the front wheel well. If you know how skinny that is in real life, you can imagine how much fun this is going to be in 1:72 scale! The smallest PE bit here needs to be folded twice, then glued onto the bigger piece, which then needs to be folded, before we put it in the wheel well never to be seen again. Here is where we start, with my faithful Euro coin for scale:

 

 

Then we fold up the little guy (I use very small, narrow needle nose pliers):

 

 

Glue it to the longer piece, make another bend and viola! We got it:

 

 

I glued this fiddly thing (what is it?) into the top of the front gear bay and it is now completely out of reach of prying eyes. Next, I finished all of my sanding and re-scribing (don't look too close please) and out comes the Alclad Grey Micro-Filler and Primer. (Which as far as I can tell looks and smells just like good old automotive primer.) I like this primer - I use it a lot, even when I'm not spraying Alclad. So here she is after priming is complete:

 

 

The front tire is moulded one-piece with the landing gear leg, but the main tires are just stuck on for the photo. Don't pay any attention to their alignment - they might look a bit crooked. As I study the model's stance, I've come to the realization that even though I shortened the length of the main landing gear legs (to the same length as the Matchbox parts), they are still too tall. The pictures that I see of the actual aircraft show it has a slight nose-high stance, and I don't have that at all. Here is another shot:

 

 

See what I mean? I made a quick measurement, and it looks like I need to shorten by an addition 2-3mm. I'm judging by looking at where the top of the tire is relative to the bottom of the belly tank in photos - it should be higher. On my model, they're just about even. Oh well, that's what they make razor saws for. Here are a couple of overhead shots to get an idea of how the wings look. Tailplanes aren't on yet since I'm filling most of the rivets. That is another odd part of this kit - the tailplanes are covered in rivets, but there are relatively few elsewhere.

 

 

 

Some questions - I'm going to paint the fuselage Alclad Aluminum, with some panels in different shades of aluminum for that effect. The panels around the cannon openings will be a much darker metallic shade in keeping with the photos I have of the actual plane I'm modelling. Wheel wells are aluminum I guess? Landing gear legs, etc, should be steel? The nose ring is a highly polished aluminum?

 

Oh crap! I just saw that I didn't add the scoop on top of the spine. Arghhh. Easy fix, I suppose, but I wish my brain would work properly all of the time. And I've also got to add that little fairing that is on top of the rear fuselage right at the bottom of the rudder. What is that, something to do with the chute, or an antenna or something? It doesn't come with the kit, so I'll need to search the spares box.

 

So, we're getting closer to the finish line. I wish I wasn't losing next week to a business trip, I've got to figure out how to take my workbench, tools, kits, paints, and supplies with me. It's got to beat sitting in a bar all evening. Well, on second thought...pour me a Guinness.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Navy Bird]

dangrouskeith said:

Please don.t give FROG a hard time! it was a re box of Hasagawa,s. There were a lot of them, F100,F105,F102,A6 etc...I actually like the Airfix F1 as a starter for something better.Happy modelling.

 

Is it true that FROG was an acronym for "Flies Right Off Ground?"

 

Bill (looking for more useless trivia to add to his collection.)

[Mark M]

looking good mate, mines at primer stage too, but going for the Alclad black primer on mine, as i plan to cheat and use the black as the tail of the 74sqn jet

id be very interested in which colours you use, ive been thinking along the lines of,

main body - airframe aluminum

random panells - pollished aluminum

wheel bays - duraminum

nose ring - chrome

tail pipes - light burnt metal

what do you think?

[Nobby]

Is it true that FROG was an acronym for "Flies Right Off Ground?"

Bill (looking for more useless trivia to add to his collection.)

Aye mate that be true! they werei producing flying model kits long before they did plastic kits. They brought out one of the first ready to fly models called the "Frog interceptor" A rubber powered job that came built with spare rubber motors. Nice looking thing it was too. I once nearly made on for RC, then went of the idea for some reason, but the model did fly well and did Fly Right Of the Ground!

Anyway mate you're really making a cracking job it!

[AnonymousDFB1]

A really impressive build, fascinating in fact.

[Duncan B]

It really is coming along nicely, front end looks much better than the OOB Trumpeter. You've done a great job on the belly too.

[Michou]

Is it true that FROG was an acronym for "Flies Right Off Ground?"

Bill (looking for more useless trivia to add to his collection.)

FROG does indeed mean Flies Right Of Ground. They used the name "Penguin" for their pre-war plastic kits because penguins can't fly. And FROG kits in France were labelled "Tri-ang" as it was felt that the word "frog" might be offensive to the French. This is over-sensitive, politically correct nonsense as is demonstrated by the fact that there is a pub in Paris called The Frog and Rosbif, where rosbif is Froggish for roast beef, the culinary preference of the Brits. I can't imagine that someone is going to hang such a sign outside his establishment if he risks offending the majority of his customers.

Mike

[Navy Bird]

markmarples said:

looking good mate, mines at primer stage too, but going for the Alclad black primer on mine, as i plan to cheat and use the black as the tail of the 74sqn jet

id be very interested in which colours you use, ive been thinking along the lines of,

main body - airframe aluminum

random panells - pollished aluminum

wheel bays - duraminum

nose ring - chrome

tail pipes - light burnt metal

what do you think?

 

Those look like good choices. My current stock of Alclad only has aluminum, dark aluminum, light burnt metal, titanium, maybe one other - is there one called white aluminum? Can't recall, and I'm not at my workbench right now. (I'm at work but don't tell my boss!)

 

Anyway, I'll do a base coat of aluminum, and then just try to match photos. I also have a full stock of Gunze Mr. Metal Colors - I'm hoping that they can applied over the Alclad, as they are lacquers too. Has anyone here tried that? The Gunze chrome buffs up right shiny. But they're more like the early Metalizers - you need to put them on last as they can't be masked or painted over.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Mark M]

Those look like good choices. My current stock of Alclad only has aluminum, dark aluminum, light burnt metal, titanium, maybe one other - is there one called white aluminum? Can't recall, and I'm not at my workbench right now. (I'm at work but don't tell my boss!)

Anyway, I'll do a base coat of aluminum, and then just try to match photos. I also have a full stock of Gunze Mr. Metal Colors - I'm hoping that they can applied over the Alclad, as they are lacquers too. Has anyone here tried that? The Gunze chrome buffs up right shiny. But they're more like the early Metalizers - you need to put them on last as they can't be masked or painted over.

Cheers,

Bill

will i bit the bullet today, all over airframe aluminum, burnt iron tail, and panels or pollishsed aluminum and duraminum, she looks ok to me

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

I'm back from my business trip, and it's time to move this project along! So, where were we? The airframe has been primed and polished (up to 8000 grit Micro-Mesh). I'd like to get the tires on, as without them the back of the fuselage rests on the ventral fins. Eduard has provided photoetch parts for both the inside and outside of the main gear wheels:

 

 

 

I'm not sure how much this will add to the model, but I bought 'em, so I'm gonna use 'em! Before shooting the fuselage with Alclad, I added a small piece of plastic stock by the front of the windscreen. I believe this may be an air duct to keep the windscreen clear. Not sure why most of the available kits don't include this, since it's rather obvious. Anyway, it also does a nice job of covering a seam that I forgot to tend to:

 

 

After looking at every photo of XN793 that I could find, I've decided that the airframe for sure wasn't very shiny, so the high-gloss Alclad paints aren't appropriate. The only exception is the intake ring, which is polished on most Lightnings. I decided to use regular old "Aluminum" as the base coat. After a couple of light coats, the model doesn't look too bad!

 

 

 

Now the fun begins, as we have several panels that need to be masked off and painted a different metallic colour. First, we'll paint the panels around the cannons and the cannon vents with Alclad Steel. This looks like a good match to my photos.

 

 

I'll be modelling XN793 with missiles, which would mean that the lower cannons are not installed. However, I have a photo, which is a close-up of the nose area, that clearly shows the missiles and the openings for the lower cannons. Apparently, these openings were not covered (yet). That is how my model will be depicted. Alclad dries very quickly, so I did not have to wait long to apply Alclad Chrome to the intake ring. Wow, that's shiny, looks like I've been polishing it for weeks!

 

 

Next, I used Alclad Magnesium to highlight a few panels on the rear fuselage, as well as the area around the jet exhaust. I used Alclad Dull Aluminum on the ailerons, and a couple of panels on the side of the rear fuselage next to the exhaust.

 

 

 

I then used Alclad Dark Aluminum for the area inside the walkways on top of the wings. This color is only slightly darker than the base Aluminum, it was hardly worth the effort! Next, I painted a panel on the front of the belly tank, as well as some panels on top of the fuselage near the spine, with Alclad White Aluminum. This surprised me a bit, as it went on very shiny. Looks nice, though. I also painted the bottom of the ventral strakes with a light tan color. The real things are translucent, but I don't have any paint like that!

 

I did not go crazy with painting panels a lot of different colors, as my reference photos of XN793 don't show much variation! Next up would be to paint the spine and the vertical fin Roundel Blue, which I mixed from Gunze H322 and black, in order to match the roundels on the Xtradecal sheet. I only added a couple of drops of black - here she is all masked and ready to be painted:

 

 

So that's where we are for today. I'll end this post with some photos of the model after the application of the Roundel Blue, and the addition of the main gear tires. I may have a go at painting a few extra panels, but that will depend on whether I see any more in my reference photos. The following photos don't show the metallic variations as well as the naked eye, and there seems to be a very slight gold cast to the aluminum. Trust me, it's not really like that! It's just that I'm a lousy photographer! I temporarily installed the nose cone - it has a base coat of tan, which I'll soon overcoat with green and add a metal tip to it. My intent is to carefully sand through some of the green to leave the tan showing through for that "well worn" look. My reference photos show that is how it looked on XN793.

 

 

 

 

 

Some questions for the Lightning experts:

 

1) Were the roundels applied over the walkway stripes, or the other way around? I've seen models done both ways.

2) What do you guys think about weathering? Should I add a panel line wash? They seem to show up pretty well without a wash.

3) What's the correct method for using decal solvents on Alclad? (Believe it or not, this is the first time I've used Alclad!)

4) Any last advice before I start adding the transfers? I've got the full sheet of stencils - oh boy!

 

Cheers,

Bill