John R Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 (edited) Two were built and the first one flew in December 1948. Rather similar to the De Havilland Swallow they were designed to investigate transonic flight. Both survived, the first is at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and the second is in storage at the USAF Museum. Not a bad little kit. I resisted the urge to add any extras. It really should have had boundary layer splitters in the intake and perhaps more could have been done with the wheel wells and gear doors. Overall it seems about the right size and shape. I'm not too convinced about the canopy size and shape and the nose profile but it looks OK. Stars and bars came from a search through the stash to find some I would not need. USAF and 6676 were home-made. Colour? An interesting question. When with NACA it was white but I wanted to represent the first prototype at first flight stage. Airmodel reckoned it was orange with black stripes but I could find nothing to justify this. Someone on ARC reckoned it was light gray. Looking at pictures gave me the impression that there was a difference in colour between the white of the insignia and the colour of the fuselage so I went with the light gray and used Xtracolor ADC grey. Maybe I should have used a lighter grey for the paint job but it will do until someone comes up with a definitive answer. Build details here - non-injected group build http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234985829-northrop-x-4-airmodel-172/ It was quite a tiny thing - seen here with a Meteor 4 for comparison As usual any comments or extra information welcome John Edited August 1, 2015 by John R 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russ c Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 Love the X-Planes and you`ve done a great job on that one. I must get around to restarting my own collection as my others got crushed when my lad had a tantrum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace From Outer Space Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 Thats a cool little model! I want one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Dyck Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 I want one too!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildeSau75 Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 nice one not seen everyday. I like it! Cheers, Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viking Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 Lovely little vac form there. Meteor looks great too. Cheers John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave N Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 ...lovely little model, very clean and tidy...and yes, that meteor does look great too! D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John R Posted August 1, 2015 Author Share Posted August 1, 2015 Thankyou all for the compliments Love the X-Planes and you`ve done a great job on that one. I must get around to restarting my own collection as my others got crushed when my lad had a tantrum Did you feel like crushing the lad? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spitfire31 Posted August 1, 2015 Share Posted August 1, 2015 Very neat and interesting model of an intriguing little member of the 'X-tended' family! As far as I've read, inspired by your model, the X-4 was designed to investigate perceived advantages of a semi-tailless configuration in the transonic/supersonic range. The bottom line of the test flights seems to have been that the control technology of the era (1948) wasn't up to the challenge of stable flight around and above the speed of sound. Thank you for piquing my curiosity about this lesser known pioneer! Kind regards, Joachim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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