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BA & Air France on one Concorde


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Hi Folks,

I'm going to build a Revell 1/144 kit as F-WTSB - the first French production machine as it appeared on 19/20th October 1977 flying into and out of JFK airport. It carried British Airways' tail logo plus a 'Concorde' title on the forward fuselage on its starboard side and Air France's on the port side with a similar 'Concorde' title.

When the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal by the New York Port Authority against a decision to allow Concorde to operate into and out of JFK, it was agreed a Concorde would peform a series of proving flights. The first was greeted with a big protest by some NYC residents and, initially, a hostile press reception. A charm offensive by BA & Air France plus the sight of the big white bird itself took the sting out of that plus the landing and take-off the following morning didn't even trigger the monitors never mind exceeding the noise limits.

I came across this story in the BBC TV documentary series Days Which Shook The World.

It really caught my imagination. I guess for two reasons really. 1) Its a great story which caused so much fuss at the time and 2) Its a great excuse to put BA and AF tail colours on one model along with nice big 'Concorde' titles!

Apart from a DVD of the TV show, I have found very few only 2 pictures of F-WTSB in this scheme. They are both on Concordesst.com on the Development fleet page for F-WTSB:

F-WTSB BA side

F-WTSB AF side

I have a couple of Revell Concorde decal sheets but they're from their Museum Sinsheim and the later BA Concorde set which came with a poster in a huge box. As a result, I still need to source early British Airways tail markings, an Air France tail logo plus Concorde logos for the forward fuselage & underneath the AF tail logo. :hmmm:

Blimey, that was a lot of typing. sorry about that.

Phil.

Edited by PHIL B
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Cheers Rich,

Yeah, why not do both? You'll already have the white paint out and ready to go.

Three months is pushing it a bit for me to complete a model so I'll really have to apply myself even though it'll be pretty much OOB!

Sourcing the decals will be the tricky part for me. The BA & AF tail markings and windows are easy enough but the 'Concorde titles' will need printing. There's also a very small script underneath the tail logo on the BA side. You can see its there on the ConcordeSST.com pics but on the DVD its clearer yet not quite obvious. I can't quite make it out but I reckon its 'British Airways Corporation' or 'British Aerospace Corporation'.

Why did I have to pick this one huh? :rolleyes:

If anyone has any other photos or information about this colour scheme, I'd be very greateful to hear from you.

Phil.

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I'm off to bed shortly, so I'll have a look in one of me books tonight, and the other at the weekend.

Thanks for that old son. I've just noticed from watching the DVD yet again that Christopher Orlebar was the technical consultant for the programme.

I've also just realised that the tail title on the BA side reads 'BRITISH AEROSPACE CORPORATION'. This was 1977 so it was still nationalised. Now to get some decals organised...

Phil.

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As you found out today, Phil, there are a couple of photos in one book, but they're quite small and not very useful.

No problem Obi-Jiff.

I actually got some work done on the beast today. I want to use window decals but I don't get on well with filling small but fairly deep indentations. I tried drilling a 1mm hole and cementing styrene rod into it for each window. It took a while but I soon got into a flow. Its all sanded down and rescribed now with just a couple of tiny gaps to take care of. I'm pretty pleased with it but I can't get a decent picture indoors so I'll take some outdoors in the morning.

Phil

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Ooh, piccies! I like piccies! Where are they then?

PS, your 'Name That Movie #3' is Get Carter.

Erm, those pics didn't get taken so that's why I haven't out 'em up yet. :blush:

As for the movie, you are of course quite correct but you had an unfair advantage. You knew the answer!

The good news is that I have BA and AF tail logo decals on the way courtesy of Pin. :yahoo: Thanks mate.

Phil.

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I was looking at pictures of F-WTSA in a book last night (Flightpath volume 1 from 2003, excellent Concorde Reference BTW if you can find it) and one thing I noticed was the BA side's window stripe looked a bit skinny compared to the later revenue birds. Plus, it doesn't have that slight curve at the front. It just goes straight into the cockpit window area. The BA cheat stripe also abruptly ends when it gets to the end of the tail stinger. It doesn't taper off or wrap around to the other side.

Edited by JMChladek
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I was looking at pictures of F-WTSA in a book last night (Flightpath volume 1 from 2003, excellent Concorde Reference BTW if you can find it) and one thing I noticed was the BA side's window stripe looked a bit skinny compared to the later revenue birds. Plus, it doesn't have that slight curve at the front. It just goes straight into the cockpit window area. The BA cheat stripe also abruptly ends when it gets to the end of the tail stinger. It doesn't taper off or wrap around to the other side.

Nice one. I wonder whether that picture was of F-WTSA in a dual BA / Air France scheme. It carried this on a demo and trials tour.

These Airliners.net pics show it:

BA side - rear 3/4 view

BA side - front 3/4 view

AF side - shark tail scheme

I thought of finishing my Concorde in this scheme but I like the big Concorde titles on F-WTSB.

Phil.

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Yup, those are pictures of the same bird all right. I must admit WTSA looked pretty smart in this half and half livery.

I am tempted to get involved in this GB myself. But I am already over-committed on other GB builds. Still, we shall see what happens as I have two of the out of production Nitto/Entex Concordes in my stash (the Revell kit is a close copy, but I think the Nitto kit is a smidge better IMHO).

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Hi folks,

Its a bit late but here is the obligatory box shot:

IMAG0857.jpg

I've made some progress (stop laughing Obi-Jiff!). I didn't fancy trying to get a neat row of cabin windows from the moulded depressions in the fuselage halves plus F-WTSB has 21 windows in the forward cabin whereas the kit gives 19 which is typical for a British Airways aircraft. Neat painting isn't my forte and there are a few ejection pin marks across some of the windows so I elected to fill the windows and use Draw Decals instead. I'm also not too neat with filler so I tried an alternative method. After drilling a 1.2mm hole through each window. I cemented a short length of plastic rod into each hole making sure there was enough soft plastic 'ooze' to fill any gaps.

IMAG0860.jpg

Once it had all set overnight. I trimmed the rods with a sprue cutter and sanded flush. It all took a while but I reckon I saved some time overall and I'm happy with the experiment.

IMAG0864.jpg

The upper wings have been attached to the fuselage halves. I've already tried this method on another Revell Concorde with some success. I cemented small 20 thou plastic card tabs to the fuselage halves to support the joint and to help with alignment. A bit of super glue at the front of the joint helped to stabilise things and I then worked one panel at a time running MEK into the joint and applying pressure with just my fingers for a minute or two until a good joint had formed. Sooner than I expected, I had two good joints which look pretty smooth and well aligned. There's a bit of rubbing down to do to sand back some 'ooze' from using a bit too much MEK but I'll settle for that.

IMAG0879.jpg

That's it for the moment. The next job is to get the fuselage sewn up and the ventral fuselage/wing panel in place. The engine nacelles are in for some detailing as I want to give the intakes a central divider and the variable geometry ramps which were so vital to Concorde's success.

Phil

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(stop laughing Obi-Jiff!).

Phil

as if he would.....as if!.....at least you have made more progress than me....

are you going to droop the nose, if so, planning any mods to the cockpit windows?

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as if he would.....as if!.....at least you have made more progress than me....

are you going to droop the nose, if so, planning any mods to the cockpit windows?

Of course he wouldn't...

No Kev. I'm going to use decals for the cockpit windows and visor so Revell's HS125 front window (the train that is) won't be visible. My other half-built Revell Concorde is getting some wedge shaped plastic card over the front of the windscreen to give a proper v-shape but that was too far gone to qualify for this STGB.

I'm lucky with the configuration of my subject. I'm building it as seen when it was tractored into a hangar where the BA & AF flight crew were being grilled by the US press. Luckily, the nose was fully up and the elevons still had hydraulic pressure so were in flight position.

Come on Kev, you can do it. I'm looking forward to seeing all that 1/144 bone china in your model's cabin!

Some useful tips there, Mr B.

Thanks Obi-Jiff. I'm making it up as I go along really plus the experience gained on my half-built Revell kit is helping a lot. Once I have this half-built, I'm on my own!

Phil

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Come on Kev, you can do it. I'm looking forward to seeing all that 1/144 bone china in your model's cabin!

Phil

Of course you are......

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  • 1 month later...

Hello folks of world!

Those of a certain persuasion may gather from that I have been listening to a lot of Goon Shows lately.

Anyway, this progress report is one of no progress. A house move earlier this week and a sea of boxes have held up the old girl.

However, Paul Parkes' decals have arrived and are very nice.

I don't think I'll be able to get this one anywhere near finished by the deadline but she will be finished at some stage.

I do hope everyone else keeps going to the finish line.

All the best,

Phil

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  • 3 weeks later...

well....hopefully I'll have some progress to report within the next few days....maybe.

the bone china may be a little hard to find tho...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry folks but my Concorde is still firmly in the assembly hanger. Real life has prevented any modelling since mid-March and it won't resume any time soon.

Its great to see the progress on other people's models though.

Phil.

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