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1:72 Planet Models Grumman XF10F-1 Jaguar


Navy Bird

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Hi mates,

 

I'm not entirely back to 100% after back surgery number nine, but let's see if I have enough in me to build a swing winger by July. I decided to have a go at the Planet Models 1:72 Grumman XF10F-1 Jaguar, one of the first attempts at building and flying a variable geometry aircraft. I won't give you the historical background, as it's pretty easy to find that on line, but the project has roots in the late 1940s, and the sole aircraft that was built first flew in 1952. Corky Meyer, Grumman test pilot, was the only person to ever fly the Jaguar. His best quote about the aircraft was that it "was entertaining to fly because there was so much wrong with it."

 

So let's see what we have to start with:

 

100_3024

 

Amidst the clutter of my workbench, I've laid everything out so you can get an idea of the raw materials. First, this is an all-resin kit except for the vacuform canopy (and Planet included two - they must know me!). As you can see there are few parts, but I have a suspicion that doesn't mean it's going to be easy!

 

The only other resin kit I built was the CMR Buccaneer that some of you may remember from last year. In one sense, that was probably an easier build because the level of detail was exquisite and it included all the extra multimedia goodies you needed. We don't have that here, I'm afraid. Here is a close-up of the box (nice painting!) and the decal sheet (gotta love those pouncing cats!):

 

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And a wee bit better look at the resin parts:

 

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Planet has cast the landing gear in a much stronger resin (denoted by the brown colour) and this will help support the finished model. The Jaguar was not a small aircraft, at 17m in length it was only 2m shorter than its descendant the F-14 Tomcat. And at 5m in height, it was actually a tad bit taller than the Tomcat's 4.88m.

 

The first thing that I noticed when reviewing the parts was that the ejection seat looked, well, odd. What it appears to be, quite frankly, is an ACES II seat which I have this strong suspicion wasn't around when the Jaguar first flew in 1952. I'll take a close-up photo of it soon, so I can show you it and what I've decided to use instead.

 

First up I dove right in and started cleaning up the edges of one of the fuselage halves, and to remove a small pour block on the inside of the nose. I cleaned up the edges the same way you would a vacuform kit. After I was happy with that, I took a photo of the finished half (closest to camera) and the other half unfinished.

 

100_3077

 

There was a little flash to clean up, but overall the resin parts are very well cast. Surface detail consists of finely engraved lines which are a bit deeper on the wings than the fuselage, but I don't think it's a problem. Speaking of the wings, there is no mechanism here to provide for working swing wings. You have the choice of building the model with the wings swept or spread.

 

On the actual plane, the pivot for the wings moved forward when the wings were swept, and backward when they were spread. It wasn't until Barnes Wallis' pioneering work on a swing wing version of his beloved Swallow concept that it was learned that if the pivot points were brought outboard, off the aircraft centerline, then it was not necessary to move the pivots along longitudinally during sweep. Wallis pitched that design to NASA in 1958, who expanded on it and eventually it became known as the "NASA wing" and was used by the TXF competitors in their proposals. In a sense, the F-111 was part British!

 

OK, I'll leave you for today with a nice shot of the real thing!

 

F10F Taxi at Edwards 800

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. I'm going to do the wings swept. I gotta, that's what this prototype was all about, and besides the planform looks like lawn dart territory! :):):)

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Ah yes, the wings! We won't be going too far without those! Here they are:

 

100_3160

 

I haven't done any clean-up on the wings yet, but I did finish the other fuselage half. More to come... :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/2/2013 at 13:30, Sernak said:

Any progress????

 

Uh, no, actually. I've been finishing my Spitfire Mk I, and also preparing some models for the big contest this weekend. Right now I'm adding torpedoes and sonobuoys to my Gannet! I expect to be back on the Swinging Jaguar next week. :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

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I'm glad somebody's building this one, couldn't have a GB like this without this one.

Built lots of Planet Model resin models, looks from here like it should go together nicely. Upgraded resin for u/c is a good idea, wish they'd used it earlier.

Clean tidy bench......just waitin for resin dust!!!! :D mmmm that smell........ :wacko:

have to watch this one....

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First problem: cockpit is too wide for fuselage. And I was very careful cleaning up the fuselage edges, removing a bare minimum of resin. Dry fitting reveals that trapping the cockpit inside and trying to close the fuselage halves leaves about a 0.5mm gap between the fuselage left and right. Hmmmm...

 

Repeat after me: Sanding sticks are my life! :(

 

Cheers,

Bill

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On 5/7/2013 at 11:56, Screech said:

Just out of curiosity is there a 1/48 scale kit of this as well?

Cheers,

 

Yes, from the same manufacturer. Stock no. PLT249. Have a look here:

 

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234935183-grumman-xf10f-jaguar-148-planet-model-plt-249/

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Stop the presses! Operator error!

 

The cockpit is NOT too wide - I assembled the cockpit inside the fuselage halves and held everything together with tape. Even though this leaves a gap between the fuselage halves, it's the gap that needs to be filled. I figured this out by taking the canopy and seeing if its width looked correct - and it matched the taped together pieces quite well. If I had sanded down the cockpit, the canopy would have ended up too wide, a problem I'd rather not have. Always good to double check. Measure twice, cut once as they say.

 

Here is a quick shot of the seat situation:

 

100_3428

 

The kit seat is on the left front; left rear is an old Verlinden ACES II seat from the last century. I think you can see the similarities (in my opinion the Planet Models seat is a better representation of the ACES II than the old Verlinden seat). On the right is the Obscureco seat for the F9F Panther. Two things strike me as odd about this seat. First, the tilted headrest, although I've read on Tommy Thomason's site that it is a correct feature for the Panther seat, as the headrest was adjustable. Second, what are the two levers on each side of the seat? Gearbox shift and parking brake? I suspect they'll be coming off.

 

The Panther seat will be too low if simply installed in the Jaguar cockpit. The pilot wouldn't be able to see over the instrument panel - so I'll raise it up to the proper position. That's it for now, back to my sanding! I love resin, I love resin... :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Don't take off those levers until I get home this weekend and take a look at the manual. However, my guess is that they only come up as part of the ejection process. The headrest, although correct for the F9F Panther, needs to be replaced for the XF10F.

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On 5/9/2013 at 06:49, Tailspin Turtle said:

Don't take off those levers until I get home this weekend and take a look at the manual. However, my guess is that they only come up as part of the ejection process. The headrest, although correct for the F9F Panther, needs to be replaced for the XF10F.

 

Thanks Tommy! At least I have some photos of the Jag's headrest. That and the instrument panel and consoles are all I've found of the cockpit so far. I'll be painting the cockpit aluminum instead of interior green. That seems to be the consensus, and is what the instructions say. It should look interesting. No clue what colors to paint the seat...

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. If you've got a copy of "the manual" you are going to be "my man" for the remainder of this build! :):):)

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Had a few moments to fondle some resin, so I had a look at the cockpit tub. This is cast one-piece with the rear bulkhead and the front gear bay. All devoid of details of any sort. The gear bay is simply five smooth walls, and the cockpit has an attempt at side consoles, but they're pretty weak. But I don't care, because this is a freaking Grumman Jaguar! Anytime Baby's Grandfather! :):)

 

So out came the secret magic box of fiddly bits. I found some ancient PE instrument consoles, and the thinnest ones in this photo actually fit the cockpit surfaces perfectly. The slight taper they have matches right up:

 

100_3436

 

I have no clue where these came from, but after starting up a background UNIX search, I remembered that they were from a Model Technologies set for...um, some kind of airplane. Hey, the search hasn't completed yet!

 

You'll notice above that I also added some styrene pieces to the front of the cockpit. This was necessary because the casting in this area was only a few molecules thick, and Mr. Ham-Fisted Modeller managed to land a few good blows that removed said molecules. Actually, I thought it was "resin flash" so I removed it. Having a look at the instructions would indicate that it is supposed to be there. Dry-fitting the cockpit into the fuselage shows the reason it's necessary - without it, you could look up through the intakes from the underside of the model and see right through into the cockpit. And since I know that every judge at every contest that I might even think of entering this model will immediately do that, I dutifully added the pieces.

 

I'm thinking that I might remove the misshapen blob on the floor of the cockpit. Methinks this is the bottom of the control column, but I will probably replace that.

 

Here is the best photo I have of the headrest that Tommy has mentioned needs to be added to the F9F ejection seat:

 

XF10F Ejection Seat Headrest

 

You can see that his advice was spot on, as this is considerably different than the Panther seat. Luckily, the front of the bulkhead is very reflective, so we can actually see what's on the back of the headrest. I will call on Tommy's expertise again to let me know what is immediately behind the bulkhead, visible through the canopy above. The part supplied with the kit (see the first photo in this post) does not include the equipment in this photo. Some scratching will be in order!

 

The vertical bar that you see in front of the windscreen is a barricade deflector which was deployed any time the canopy was open. Easy to add and easy to sacrifice to the carpet monster, so we'll leave that for later!

 

Back to the bench, I think I have a few more quiet moments before wifey wants the barn painted.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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On 5/10/2013 at 19:18, Tailspin Turtle said:

That "dome" behind the canopy bulkhead is an ADF sense antenna as on the F-86:http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm133/pjferreira/modelismo/F86%20FAP/f86fap_lat.jpg

 

Thanks, Tommy. ADF means "Airborne Direction Finder?"

 

That photo makes the dome look like it's glass - is that correct? It also looks like it's coated with copper on the inside. If I recall correctly, there should be just one of these, not two as depicted in the 1:48 scale Planet XF10F kit. The three air cylinders that are part of the resin piece for the rear deck will still be present, I believe, and the ADF dome will need to go on a platform above the air cylinders. At least that's how it looks to me.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Hi Mates!

 

While researching the XF10F, I found this photo which shows one of the alternate design studies. This one shows the mock-up equipped with variable incidence wings (like the F-8 Crusader) but the design dates back to 1947.

 

XF10VariableIncidence

 

This also shows a conventional tail, with the horizontal tail surfaces mounted mid-fuselage (see below the wing and aft of the stars and bars). I find this interesting as it pre-dates the Crusader by several years. Get a load of the position that the open canopy is in with the wings raised.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. And yes, I've been working on the model too. I've added some styrene to the cockpit and front wheel well to add some details, and I've primed with Alclad Grey. This is in preparation for spraying Alclad aluminum on these areas.

 

I've also found an Eduard self-adhesive instrument panel that is just about a perfect match for the Jag's cockpit. That's perfect in size and shape, not necessarily in its depiction of the various dials, switches, and gauges. But it's close enough for me, and since there is very little reference material out there that shows the cockpit in detail it will work just fine. Let's see if anyone here will be able to guess what aircraft it's from.

 

The instrument panel photograph that you find most often when searching the web is actually that of the mock-up, and bears no similarity to the line drawing in the Naval Fighters volume on the XF10F.

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Thanks, Tommy. ADF means "Airborne Direction Finder?"

That photo makes the dome look like it's glass - is that correct? It also looks like it's coated with copper on the inside. If I recall correctly, there should be just one of these, not two as depicted in the 1:48 scale Planet XF10F kit. The three air cylinders that are part of the resin piece for the rear deck will still be present, I believe, and the ADF dome will need to go on a platform above the air cylinders. At least that's how it looks to me.

Cheers,

Bill

ADF = Automatic Direction Finder. The antenna (a vertical hoop about nine inches or so in diameter) originally had to be turned by the pilot or navigator to determine the direction of the signal by its strength. And then before the incorporation of the sense antenna, figure out which way it was coming from. Pictures here http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/message/1368377976/Early+F-84s+%28A-G%29+Loop+Antenna+- and here http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jinxx1/media/T-28%20Trojan/T-28B138247N572JBWarEaglesAug1228.jpg.html?sort=9&o=37

I agree that there is just one and the shelf back there is almost certainly black.

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Thanks, Tommy! The cutaway drawing of the XF10F produced by Pilot Press shows a loop antenna behind the aft bulkhead, above the air cylinders. Either they've "cut away" the dome, or the original design had the old manual antenna and the ADF was added before first flight. In any event, I'll scratch build the ADF as it is present in the photos.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Hi mates,

 

Time for an update. There hasn't been a lot going on, as I've gone back to work after my back surgery. Those folks at work are so inconsiderate, they keep getting in the way of my modelling. Sheesh!! :)

 

I mentioned that the nose wheel well is completely devoid of detail, so I added some plastic strips to represent structural ribs. I have no photos or drawings that show what was actually in there, so I'm running completely on modeller's license here.

 

100_3438

 

I'll add some hydraulic lines and stuff like that later. Next up I felt the cockpit itself needed some help. I used sheet styrene to make a small panel below the starboard console (this was where the fuse panel was on the XF10F). I also wanted to spruce up the area where the rudder pedals were, in addition to adding a small resin block that I'll mount the pedals onto. The front face of this block will have some controls added to it as well. In the Ginter Naval Fighters volume on the XF10F, this panel immediately below the instrument panel contained the relief tube. It appears the tube was pulled out and attached to...well, whatever needed relief. :)

 

The rudder pedals came from an old Airwaves PE set for the Grumman F4F Wildcat. Hey, I figured the old Iron Works worked on a budget, and they had some leftover Wildcat pedals in stock. The cockpit has been primed in the second picture:

 

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As I mentioned before, I chose to paint the cockpit aluminum. Others have chosen US Interior Green, which is equally acceptable to me. But I have a million models with Interior Green, and very few with Aluminum cockpits. So I figured I'd mix it up a bit.

 

The XF10F model is going to be a tail-sitter if we don't add some weight forward of the main gear. I added some shot to the nose cone area, but there is not a lot of room here. Just this one layer of shot fills it completely, and it is not enough weight. I will have to remove the pour block from the back of the cockpit and put in a lot of weight - there's plenty of room. First, though, I need to trim the wings and tape everything together so I can get a good idea of how much weight is necessary.

 

100_3442

 

We're getting close to gluing the two fuselage halves together. The wings attach via butt joints, which I'm not a big fan of. On my recent MPM Sea Vixen build, I used a very strong epoxy to attach the wings, and did not add brass rods, etc. for support. I think it worked fine, and I'll probably do the same thing here. Although the resin wings are a bit heavier...

 

Cheers for now,

Bill

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