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1:72 Trumpeter English Electric Lightning F.2A


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andym said:
According to this pic it did:

http://www.torstennienaber.de/flieger/uplo...972_grondst.jpg

HTH

Andy

 

Yes! That's the picture I have at home. Now I won't have to go looking for it! Thanks, Andy.

 

Oh, and I also ditto all the remarks about Airfix. Please do the Lightning justice in this scale!

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Hi mates,

 

Some quick updates for today. First I did some test-fitting of the Quickboost rear fuselage section, and it looks like it doesn't fit very well. There are going to be some interesting gaps to fill. But the shape is so much better, and there is no comparison on the nozzles. In the next two photos, the top one shows the kit parts and the second one shows the Quickboost parts:

 

100_1665

 

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Next up was painting and finishing the Aires cockpit. These 1:72 pits are always so much fun to detail, man some of those cables and knobs are small! But I think it turned out OK. Here are a few shots of the pit, plus a couple of the instrument panel. Sorry for the crummy photos...

 

100_1667

 

100_1668

 

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Cheers for now,

Bill

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Any suggestions? Did anyone other than Trumpy make an F.2A in 1:72? I've seen an F.3 (Airfix) and F.6 (Frog/Hasegawa/Revell).

Cheers,

Bill

Matchbox/Revell's F2a/F6 (not without its own problems!) is probably the best of a bad bunch! these are generally available on E-bay reasonably priced. I'd use that as a starting point. The fuselage is a bit skinny, but the overall shape is relatively good. It would look pretty good with an Aires rear end and new pit!!

If you can get hold of one cheap - use the belly tank, IFR probe, Nose ring and wings off of this kit!

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Bill Clark said:
Matchbox/Revell's F2a/F6 (not without its own problems!) is probably the best of a bad bunch! these are generally available on E-bay reasonably priced. I'd use that as a starting point. The fuselage is a bit skinny, but the overall shape is relatively good. It would look pretty good with an Aires rear end and new pit!!

If you can get hold of one cheap - use the belly tank, IFR probe, Nose ring and wings off of this kit!

 

Thanks, Bill

 

I will definitely have a look to see if I can find one. I know that Revell reboxed the Frog kit, I wasn't aware that they also did the Matchbox. Do you know the kit catalog number offhand?

 

In the meantime, I've decided to see if the Trumpeter belly tank can be "modified" to present a better shape both in profile and cross-section. I'm not sure if that is possible but it's worth having a go at it. I was just going to bin their tank anyway!

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Hi Mates,

 

Just to get a better idea of how this will look going together, I taped the fuselage, tail, wings, and belly tank together. I think that the belly tank in particular looks much better when located on the fuselage than it does when it's just laying there. Here are some quick photos (sorry I forgot the intake ring):

 

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This is the Heritage resin belly tank, and I've sanded off the cannon blisters and made an attempt at "straightening" the bottom of the front portion as it looks in profile, as it would appear on an F.2A. Thoughts?

 

The one area where I thought the Heritage tank might be off is in cross section. We saw earlier just how bulbous the kit tank looked in cross section. The Heritage tank is "flat" on the sides, and I thought it should look somewhat convex. So I went back to the net to do some more image searches to see if I could find any head-on shots that show the cross section of the tank. I found this one that I can provide a link for:

 

http://www.touchdown-aviation.com/flying-l...-f6-xr728js.php

 

If you go to that page, the first picture you see is an almost head-on shot of an F.6. Notice that the sides of the belly tank are almost flat, what little curvature there is only right at the top where the tank meets the fuselage (which you can see in the other pix at the bottom of the page). Maybe using the Heritage tank is not so bad? It is certainly closer to the real thing than what TrumpyBoss provided.

 

It is also apparent from this little exercise is that the wings do indeed need to be moved back. From my measurements yesterday, I thought they needed to move back about 1mm, but looking at this mock-up, I think it's more like 2mm. But this should be an easy fix.

 

Also, any thoughts on the speed brakes? Should I leave them open (and show off the nice placard that comes with the Eduard PE) or close them like they would normally be on the ground?

 

Cheers,

Bill (who pretty soon has to start making this model!) :D

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Bill Clark said:
Matchbox/Revell's F2a/F6 (not without its own problems!) is probably the best of a bad bunch! these are generally available on E-bay reasonably priced. I'd use that as a starting point. The fuselage is a bit skinny, but the overall shape is relatively good. It would look pretty good with an Aires rear end and new pit!!

If you can get hold of one cheap - use the belly tank, IFR probe, Nose ring and wings off of this kit!

 

Must be the holidays, I got one cheap off of e-Bay. Original Matchbox F.2A/F.6 still sealed (or so they say!), should have it in about a week. This project is turning into a real kit-bash! With my luck, right after I finish this thing Airfix or RoG or somebody will put out a new tool 1:72 Lightning that is the bee's knees!

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Hi mates,

 

The Matchbox kit arrived over the holidays, still shrink-wrapped in its 1975 plastic. Opening the kit was like going back in time!

 

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Plus, it came with four decal sheets! Believe it or not, they don't look yellowed at all. Not bad for 36 years old! The first order of business is to see how the belly tank looks against my drawings. I'm looking for the Goldilocks tank - The TrumpyBoss tank is too big, the Heritage tank is too small - I need something "just right."

 

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As you can see, the Matchbox fuselage is an exceptionally good match to the drawings, in particular the belly tank. So far, so good. To use this tank, I'll need to remove the cannon blisters, fill in the cannon ports, and sand off the raised panel lines which I think are supposed to be representing the black stripes around the tank. Speaking of the cannon blisters, Matchbox has them in the wrong place, as you can see if we move the fuselage up a bit:

 

100_1687

 

I also had a look at the wings and tailplanes against the drawings. TrumpyBoss in grey; Matchbox in white. Both look pretty good (but not perfect) to my eyes in this planform view. The Matchbox kit has the outboard edge of the wing flap at a right angle to the trailing edge of the wing; TrumpyBoss has the correct angle, but in the wrong place. The Trumpy wing is a bit too wide; and the Matchbox tailplane is too "pointy" at the tip. The panel lines agree with each other, and with the drawings (other than the flap). The notch in the leading edge of the wing is in the right place on both kits.

 

100_1693

 

We'll return to the subject of the wings later. But for now, let's get on with it. Let's hack that belly tank off the Matchbox fuselage and see what we can do with it. After a few scrapes with my scriber, off she comes:

 

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Before I start sanding away, I had a look on the other side of these pieces. Good thing I did, as the blisters are very concave on the inside. This means that if I just started sanding, I would probably go right through the plastic and I'd be left with a big hole.

 

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To avoid this, I mixed up some resin and filled the blisters on the inside. This would give it more strength, and if I do break through while sanding, I'll be able to sand the resin and still be left with a good surface. Unfortunately the resin is clear, so it doesn't show up too well.

 

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While the resin was curing, I had a look at the intake tunnel and the front of the engine. Trumpy molded on some guides so that the engine face would easily line up with the tunnel pieces - but it also means that these guides would be visible just in case you're crazy enough to look down the intake of a 1:72 Lightning. Here is what the guides looked like before I removed them:

 

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Here is the engine face, and the splitter that holds the intake cone after some Alclad grey primer, Aluminum No. 101, and a quick black wash on the fan blades:

 

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I assembled the Matchbox tank and put some reinforcements inside to maintain its width:

 

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The seam on the Matchbox tank was filled with super glue so I could scribe panel lines through it (which you can't always do with regular putty). Here are the three belly tanks after I sanded all of the raised detail off of the Matchbox tank. From the top: Trumpeter, Heritage, and Matchbox.

 

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The two holes you see right below the blisters were added to the Matchbox tank by drilling through the plastic, and then backing with sheet stock inside. The diameter is 1.5mm, which I scaled off of the TrumpyBoss tank. Next, I needed to rescribe the panel lines, add some smaller holes (1mm) and fill in the cannon blisters. After doing that, here is how it ended up:

 

100_1706

 

Here is a dry run of the Matchbox tank on the Trumpeter fuselage. I think it will work, but there will be some interesting filling around the rear of the tank. The tank is a bit thinner than the fuselage, but it's not a show stopper.

 

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That's where we are for now. Next up will be filling the insides of the fuselage and closing her up, followed by mounting the tank. Thanks to Bill Clark for suggesting that I use the tank from the Matchbox kit. I have a feeling I may be going back inside the Matchbox carton before this model is finished!

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Yeah gads! I thought I was mad chopping the Trumpeter Lightning in half to fit a 2mm plug but this is a major kit bash. Must admit I'm looking at the Matchbox belly and the Heritage you have there, both of which I've got access to, and thinking I might have a go at the Matchbox route now.

Keep up the good work, it might inspire me to drag my one off the doomed shelf again?

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Cracking work there Bill and some proper modelling going on. Enjoyed reading through your thread but now I feel a strange need to ignore the Trumpeter kits in my LMS and go find a Matchbox Lightning...

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This "Trumpeter" Lightning is going to end up like one of those aircraft restorations where only the maker's plate is original. Glad you've found some bits you can use. Now, why on earth did I buy a second one - even if it was going cheap?

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Seahawk said:
This "Trumpeter" Lightning is going to end up like one of those aircraft restorations where only the maker's plate is original. Glad you've found some bits you can use. Now, why on earth did I buy a second one - even if it was going cheap?

 

I've started a pile of parts from the Trumpeter kit that I'm not using. It keeps getting bigger all the time! I'll still be using the fuselage halves from Trumpy as the Matchbox fuselage is too skinny. Doesn't match the drawings at all in that regard. Plus, the Aires pit would never fit without reducing its width by several millimeters.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Hi mates,

 

Haven't done any real modelling on this project since my last post, but I have done some research into the wings. As we all know, the F.6/F.2A wings have a really weird shape along the leading edge. To my knowledge, it has yet to be captured in 1:72 scale (I am told that the new Airfix 1:48 scale kit nails it exactly.) Here is the best picture I've seen that shows this shape (the picture is taken from a vantage point looking right down the leading edge. My apologies for posting this picture directly, but I can't remember what the link was - I know I found this somewhere on Britmodeller - the copyright belongs to J. Davidson at Mach 2 Images. Mr Davidson - if you read this and can supply the link to your post, I will gladly make the change here.) Notice that the slope of the leading edge changes four times:

 

xs904starboardoverwingcmx2[1]

 

So, let's see how the TrumpyBoss and Matchbox wings compare to this. First, I tried to take some pictures from the same vantage point, they didn't come out so good, but they give us an idea of the shape in the two kits. Here is the port Matchbox wing, as you can see, it has a substantial curve along the leading edge, but none of the change in slope that we see in the real thing.

 

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So, let's take a look at the Trumpeter wing:

 

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Not sure what to make of this. Although the first segment of the leading edge (from the wing root to the notch) does slope downward, it also has a reverse curve from that which we saw on the Matchbox wing. It appears that Trumpeter tried to do something with the leading edge, but did not succeed in capturing this unique shape. However, since very few folks will be looking at the model by sighting down the leading edge of the wing, I think it's more important to see the wings from a different viewpoint. So I taped the Matchbox and Trumpeter fuselage halves together and mounted the wings. Here is a head-on shot:

 

100_1712

 

The Trumpeter fuselage and wing is on the starboard side and the Matchbox fuselage and wing is on the port side. Now let's see if I have a photo that is taken from a similar viewpoint. Here is a good link:

 

http://www.touchdown-aviation.com/imagepop...10/703_0400.jpg

 

Isn't that a great photo? I love it. So what have we learned? Neither the Trumpeter wing nor the Matchbox wing are accurate. To my eyes, the Matchbox wing has way too much curvature to it, and the Trumpeter wing doesn't have enough. My preference at this point is to use the Trumpeter wing, but try to add some curvature to the leading edge section that is nearest the wing root. To use the Matchbox wing would require me to remove all of the raised panel line detail (and the fuel ports, which are considerably higher than the panel lines), correct the angle on the outboard section of the flap, try to get some of the curvature out, and then re-scribe (which I'm not so good at). The engraving of the panel lines on the Trumpeter wing is VERY nice, and I'd like to keep that. So for now, I'll try to make some mods to the Trumpeter wing and I'll come back and show you whether I've got something that I can use, or we can all have a good laugh if I cock it up!

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Hello mates,

 

Some more research today, this time regarding the position of the wings. I've read many times in reviews of the Trumpeter kit that the wings are too far forward. My initial measurements would verify that this is the case. I took my drawing of the F.6, and zoomed in on the side view which shows the location of the leading edge at the wing root. I drew a vertical red line from that location and extended it to the canopy sill. As we can see, the foremost point of the wing is just a slight bit ahead of a line that points to the intersection of the bottom of the canopy sill and where it begins its upward angle towards the rear. Take note of where my red line is relative to the access panel between the wing and the canopy sill.

 

WingPosition

 

How do my two kits compare? First, the Matchbox kit:

 

WingPosition2

 

To my eye, this looks pretty good. Also notice the position of the wing relative to the access panel, matches the drawing very well. Next, the Trumpeter kit:

 

WingPosition3

 

As you can see, the Trumpeter wing leading edge is considerably forward of where it should be, approximately 2mm, nearly 14.5 scale cm. The next question is why? Is it simply a case that the wing is mounted wrong, or is something else amiss? As can be seen in my Post #34, the Matchbox and Trumpeter wings are very good matches to the drawings in terms of size, so I'm quite sure that there is no error in the chord of the Trumpeter wing. The other thing that could cause the wing to "appear" to be too far forward would be if the front section of the fuselage were too short. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

For comparison, here are two shots that show both Matchbox and Trumpeter fuselage halves against the drawings. I aligned the front of the fuselage to the seam where the intake ring starts, and went from there. This gives the "best fit" I think in both cases. Matchbox first:

 

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Overall, a good fit - it may look a bit short at the rear of the fuselage, but this is made up when the exhausts are added. Here is TrumpyBoss:

 

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Adding the Quickboost resin exhausts extends the overall length to a point where it's just a tad short.

 

Two other differences between the two kits become obvious here as well. The APU exhaust is much too large on the Trumpeter kit, and isn't "open." Matchbox models the APU exhaust as a misshapen bump. Neither are right. Next, notice the difference in the tailplane fairings (where they attach to the fuselage). Much larger and protruding on the Matchbox kit. Comparing this to photos of the real plane, and to on-line builds of the Airfix 1:48 scale kit, my feeling is that Trumpeter has captured these fairings betters (although they may not protrude as much as they should), but the ones on the Matchbox kit seem too large.

 

I have also seen some comments on-line that the canopy sill is too low on the Trumpeter kit, and this is certainly the case on the 1:32 scale kits. I really don't see a problem with this 1:72 scale version though. The Matchbox sill is just a tad higher, but Trumpy seems to match the drawings better.

 

Here is another little boo-boo I found. The "ridge" along the top of the fuselage spine is tapered on the real Lightning - it is higher at the canopy, and gradually gets shorter towards the tail fin. Matchbox got this right, and Trumpy did not, as their "ridge" is a constant height. This picture shows the amount of the error at the point where the tail fin starts:

 

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I'm going to think about whether I want to fix that, or leave it as it is. Off on a trip to California next week, so I probably won't post until I get back.

 

Happy New Year,

Bill

 

PS. Dear Mr. Airfix: Please scale your wonderful 1:48 Lightnings down to Braille Scale. I promise to buy several! All marks, please. Thanks!

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Bill

Now you know why so many of use don't have anything nice to say about the Tumpeter Lightning, frustrating isn't it? It is all over the place so that when you address one problem it highlights the next and so on, a never ending can of worms, good luck anyway.

Mr Airfix is our only hope (but what do I do with the 6 Trumpeter kits in the stash?).

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Now you know why so many of use don't have anything nice to say about the Tumpeter Lightning, frustrating isn't it? It is all over the place so that when you address one problem it highlights the next and so on, a never ending can of worms...

:ditto:

<wanders off to do some more pattern fettling>

Iain

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Thanks guys. The kit is a challenge, that's for sure. But I think at the end of the day I can make a respectable model out of it. It really is a shame that such an important aircraft like the Lightning doesn't have a modern kit in 1:72 scale that is accurate. Either Airfix or Revell should answer our pleas!

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Hello mates,

 

I've found some time to work on the Lightning. Progress is slow, but there is a lot to work on. This is definitely NOT a "shake and bake" kit! First, I drilled out the cannon barrels. The ship that I'm modelling had a four cannon nose arrangement. I used these cool little drills that I got from my Grandfather (who flew a Spad during WWI). After the war he made his living as a clock maker and ran a clock repair shop. I believe these drills are actually wood drills, but they work great on plastic.

 

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I played around with mounting some small diameter hypodermic needles as the barrels for the cannons, but when I put them in the right position, they interfered with the exceptionally tight fit of the intake and cockpit. You could hardly see them anyway, so I left them out. At this point, I also drilled out the vents for the cannons, and numerous other vents and air scoops on the fuselage.

 

Next I had a go at the APU exhaust. It is considerably out-of-scale, being much too large. I made the decision (which I'll probably regret) to leave it that size. I did, however, cut out the aperture (Trumpeter had moulded this "shut") and added a simple drinking straw to represent the APU exhaust inside the fuselage. I could only put it in at one angle due to the elliptical nature of the opening. Here is what I mean:

 

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I painted the straw black, both inside and out. I suspect in real life, the inside of the APU exhaust is black and sooty, so we'll have to revisit this area during the final painting. I'm already regretting not making this smaller.

 

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Next, I mounted the intake tunnel and the Aires resin cockpit. I had to sand the sides of the resin cockpit to get a good fit between the fuselage halves, but once everything was in, the fit was good. I added a shade of stainless steel for the leading edges of the intake bullet supports, and used a small circular white decal to denote what I think is a light.

 

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Before closing up the fuselage halves, I needed to add weight to the nose to avoid the Lightning being a tail-sitter. I added fishing weights behind the intake tunnel, in the radar cone, and in the front of the belly tank, like so:

 

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Once that was in, I did a dry run by taping all of the major components together to see if I had enough weight. Hey, it looks like a Lightning!

 

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The model is considerably nose-heavy, so I'm quite sure that I have enough weight in there. Next, I closed up the fuselage halves and added a brace where I cut out the original belly tank, as it was a wee bit flimsy and I want to make sure that everything stays solid. I also added the F.2A conduit extensions to each side of the fuselage. The F.2A cable conduit does not extend as far forward as that on the F.6, and Trumpeter provided both so you can be correct in the version you're modelling.

 

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Next, I had a look at the wings. (Do you think the APU exhaust is too big?) I previously determined that the wings are mounted too far forward on the Trumpeter kit, so I need to find a way to move them back by 2mm or so. Here is how the wings mount straight out-of-the-box:

 

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The simplest thing to do is to modify the wing, but this would mean that some of the nice engraved panel lines on the top of the wing (where the walkways are) might get removed (near the root, at the location of the notch). I didn't want to do this, so I decided to move the notch on the fuselage back, in addition to making the tab on the wing shorter. In this photo, I've highlighted the areas to be removed in blue:

 

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The blue areas actually represent 3mm, as I refined my estimate of how far back the wing needs to go. I modified the port side first, and this next photo shows the port wing moved back, and the starboard wing in its original location. (I think maybe I should change the size of the APU exhaust.)

 

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Three millimetres doesn't sound like much, but I think this makes a major difference in the overall "look" of the model. I then proceeded to make the same modification to the starboard side. I assembled both sides of each wing together, and I altered the leading edge of each wing (at the root) to have move of a downward curvature. This does not make the wing look as curved as what we saw with the Matchbox wing, but it does look nicer when viewed head-on with the wings at their correct apparent anhedral. I'll try to get a picture of that so you know what I mean.

 

That's it for now. I'm regretting even more that I didn't fix that APU exhaust. Time to think about how I can do it now. Hmmmmm...

 

Cheers,

Bill

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