1:48 Airfix Lynx G-LYNX world speed record

[Caerbannog]

Hi,

so here I start my first build on BM and my first GB

My Lynx arrived on Friday at my door step and I am really impressed by the Airfix offering. I haven't build a helicopter for ages but just had to start a GB and as the Lynx GB was just a few weeks ahead I had a good reason to order the Airfix kit plus the Belcher Bits conversion for the world speed record holder G-Lynx:

As I am awfully bad in actually finishing models I though a GB will provide some pressure on me. Despite of the Belcher Bits conversion I will not add any aftermarket stuff although I find the Eduard sets very tempting. I simply do not want to lose track and keep this build as straight forward as possible. I have a Roden Junkers D.I in 1:48 I am currently working on and which is by now almost finished (need to glue some small stuff and then it is done tonight), which had a similar plan (almost OOB but well... almost.). After taking the picture below it received the flat coat yesterday and so I started the Lynx despite I said to me I want to finish the b****dy Junkers first.

So here is my "progress" on the Lynx so far:

Just glued two seat parts together, removed the molded on harness and did start my own harness with milliput.

Rene

Edit: Just corrected the pics... and a million typos.

[Paul J]

Interesting project. But why is one of the top two photos upside down?

[heloman1]

Nice start Rene, nice seat belts and welcome to the GB. The Airfix kit is a good one if you follow their assembly instructions, you'll get a good fit and use very little filler.

Colin

[Antony Robertson]

Nice start, the harnesses look great.

Antony

[Caerbannog]

Thanks!

I dunno why the one pic is upside down... I seems photobucket did this for whatever reason.

Rene

[Lynx7]

Its a Lynx...being upside is normal

Rene, great to see youre doing G-LYNX and a lovely job on the harness. I did the same conversion a while back (http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234927115-airfix-148-lynx-converted-to-g-lynx/?hl=g-lynx). If you need any pics, let me know as I collected quite a few. Just remember, the main rotor blades are a bit different from the ones in the kit. Similar shape but are flat at the tips and have trim tabs on the trailing edge and fairings on the blade roots. During the BERP programme, they did change slightly. They were the very first iteration of BERP.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Lynx7

[Caerbannog]

Thanks a lot for the offer Lynx 7 - I only have some pics of G-LYNX which I found using google but not many. So I would be really happy about any pictures of the "covered" rotor blades, the upper of the crew cabin and interior shots :-) Well basically everything if I think about it...

I am not too deep into the subject and just always found the Lynx somewhat special and was temped to build one since I read about the Belcher Bits conversion.

Cheers,

Rene

[Lynx7]

Rene, heres my Flickr album with all my G-LYNX stuff in it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69492181@N02/sets/72157638328779373/

[heloman1]

Hi Tony, great collection of pics there, thanks for allowing us the opportunity to view them.

Colin

[Caerbannog]

Great pictures Lynx 7 - I will print them out today for reference.

When I got home yesterday the Belcher conversion was in my mailbox already. Quite amazing how quickly Michael Belcher shipped the parts. I will post pics soon.

I finally finished (that is f-i-n-i-s-h-e-d !!!) my Junkers yesterday so the road is free for the Lynx now. Just to do something on it I drilled some lightening holes in the Lynx seats, so not much progress.

Rene

[Caerbannog]

Not much happend - just finished the seats. Pics will follow by Monday latest. Hope to get ahead with the Lynx interior over the weekend. I am still thinking about redoing the insulation as I am not overly happy with the kit parts here. But I do not know if G-LYNX really had the insulation fitted. Besides it will hardly be seen as I keep the doors closed anyway. So if my efforsd in replicating the insulation fails, I will go ahead OOB with the interiour.

Rene

[heloman1]

Hi Rene, save yourself some time and use the kit parts if you are closing the doors.

Colin

[Caerbannog]

Hi Rene, save yourself some time and use the kit parts if you are closing the doors.

Colin

:-) I know Colin - it is more the urge to try to get a better looking insulation than the need to improove the look of the completed model. I will be on a trip over the weekend so I cannot paint the interior parts anyway (which would be otherwise my next step).

Rene

[Caerbannog]

So as usual with me my time was tighter than I hoped so I skipt my attempt with the Milliput insulation

Instead I just painted the interior bits. The seats are not finished yet (just 80% I would say) and the instruments are still missing. Looks as if my plan to finish the interior before 2014 is ibecoming very unlikely:

Rene

P.S. sorry for the blurry picture. I will post better ones when the interior is done.

[AnonymousDFB1]

Looking good Rene

[Antony Robertson]

Nice progress

Antony

[Caerbannog]

Thanks!

Surprisingly I did catch up a little with my scelule. I worked on the interior untill I called it done (I did nothing on the insulation except that I puttied the holes for the bench. Then I found that there is a slot molded into the side insulation for the bench as well but left it there. I am sure it can harldly be seen after everything is closed up. As I suppose the G-LYNX was pretty empty in the cabin I left the benches out.

Here a pic of the ceiling:

And the glued cabin parts minus the instrument panel which needs minor additions before I glue it in place (tonight?):

I took the pics at rather bad lightning so I had to use the flashlight ...

The inner sides of the fuselage parts are painted too so I am quite happy to be able to start on the exterior now :-)

Rene

Edit: Anyone else having problems with the orientation of the pictures in photobucket? The last two pictures showed in photobucket as the now show up here (vertical) so I corrected the orientation in photobucket to horizontal again - but now they are showing vertical here

[AnonymousDFB1]

That's looking great

[Caerbannog]

"???" Strange - now the pics show as they should although I did not change a thing...

Thanks Mish!

Rene

[Caerbannog]

Another mini update: I compared pics of G-LYNX with the Airfix kit and made the following changes on the fuselage halves:

There is still some detail missing, that I will add from very thin sheet. I noticed that I will have to make a replacement lower window for the right fuselage as G-LYNX has plain ones - this kept me from closing the fuselage.

Rene

[Caerbannog]

Another mini up-date... I vacuformed the lower right and the left skylight (hope you know what I mean). I used the kit parts as a base and altered the shape with Milliput / Pefect Plastic Putty and sanded them down a bit hoping the vacuformed parts will not be too much oversized then. Vacuforming was done with an improved Mattel machine:

Edit: Do not get confused about the long canopy - it is for a Sea Fury Racer (September Fury) which has paused for way too long. I hope to finish it now I have redone the canopy again. Different story.

[Lynx7]

Looking good mate and very ingenious.

I was about to suggest that if you have a Navy kit (that was spare), you could have used the complete screen (no TOW cover on left upper) and the right hand footwell window. The latter does not have the OAT gauge in it as the AH version does.

[Caerbannog]

Thanks! Wel I no not have the Navy version so had to take this route. It showed the vac pieces fit nicely - so I could do some progress yesterday by closing the fuselage sides around the cockpit parts. As reported before the fit is tight but sanding the marked areas and repeated dryfitting showed good results very quickly. Form what I read before I expected worse. I used two pretty strong clamps to press the fuselage sides together and had to use a shim as shown as the clamp would otherwise have pressed the fuselage parts down on the cockpit ceiling part. The cockpit parts themself are not glued to the fuselage "shell" so the shell will be a bit flexible to work with - I like to omit bad surprises when I insert the bottom fuselage part:

In the heat of the battle I forgot to add the reinforcement plates on the sides but it is no big issue and can still be done easily enough.

The first Belcher Bits part was used and I must say the castings are flawless and fit superb. The resin is also very easy to work with

[AnonymousDFB1]

Impressive work

[Caerbannog]

Thanks Mish!

For some reasons I get ahead with this one now. Quite disturbing ;-)

After I figured out that I glued the wrong intake parts on top Frankly I find the Airfix insturctions could need some improovements as does my brain. Anyway this was easy to fix but I started with the Belcher Bits exhaust part first, simply because I wanted to get a step ahead before I take a step back again.

The Belcher Bits exhausts are nice but a bit shallow, so I just could not help it - I had to drill them out. I used a properly oversized tool and carefully fixed the resin bit in a vice. Amazingly everything went pretty well. Again I have to praise the Belcher Bits casting quality - there is not one air bubble showing in the drilled out material.

After drilling the exhaust out I had to do something to the end. I have no picture of this area but figured out that simple fans would do nicely. They are really simple to do: Cut a thin sheet of metal (I used the frame of a etched detail set, but you can even use the metal of a beer can. Well non alcoholic would certainly work as well). The add radial cuts with a scissor to create the fan blades - they will twist to a nice even angle automatically. For the... ehr what is it called??? - well the spinner thing - for this I used stretched sprue, cut and finished with sandpaper. They look a bit different in size in these pictures but are better looking in real life. Once glued in place they look way less roughly done. This whole thing took me about 30 minutes:

To fit the exhaust part in place the tap at the engine cover must be removed as well as two very small taps at the Airfix parts:

After removing the wrong intake parts I assembled the correct ones and put them in place for fitting check. There are some seams to remove and a few details to add - which I will do next time:

Happy with my progress I decided to glue in the bottom (not shown here) and the nose. I was quite happy that I did not glue the cabin parts to the fuselage sides and thus to keep a bit of movement in this assembly - it helped a lot to install the bottom and to reduce the seam lines so far that not filling is required. Before I glued the nose parts in place I had to remove some details with my trusty round scalpell. The parts fit was very good:

Having closed the fuselage I must say that the fitting of the parts is very tight in places but with a little care the fitting is way better than I expected - well done Airfix!

Rene