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1:72 Grumman/General Dynamics F-111B "Beta Tomcat"


Navy Bird

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I love this picture of 151970 (the first prototype) because it shows many of the F-111B unique features.

 

F-111B 970 flaps down

 

You can see the knife edge boat tail, the pointed "speed bumps," early open arresting hook design, translating cowl intake, IR pod on top of the vertical fin, boundary layer control (BLC) vents below the wing glove, and the early design of the aft main landing gear door which is the subject of today's post.

 

On all of the other F-111 builds that are part of this Group Build, the aft main door is hinged at the fuselage, and hangs down in a perpendicular fashion from the underside of the aircraft when the gear was down. The F-111B prototypes used a different mechanism that resulted in the aft main gear door positioned parallel to the underside when the gear was down, as can be seen in the above photo. The door was a different shape as well, completely covering the aft portion of the bay, unlike the production versions which left a slot open.

 

The aft main gear door supplied with the kit has two strakes moulded in:

 

IMG_1310

 

These are not present in the F-111B underside photos that I have, so I quickly sanded them off. If you compare the shape of the kit door with that in the photo, you'll see that we need to add some material to the door. I started with a strip of styrene card, and I'll build it up from here.

 

IMG_1313

 

You can also see in the above photo how the gear bay opening matches the shape of the door. This required adding two small triangular pieces of styrene to the rear corners of the bay:

 

IMG_1311

 

The door now covers the aft portion of the gear bay completely.

 

Now, about the mechanism that deployed and retracted the aft door. Rather than try to explain it here, I will refer you to the man who wrote the book, @Tailspin Turtle, and his blog where the mechanism is covered in detail:

 

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/09/f-111b-aft-main-landing-gear-door.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-f-111b.html (scroll down near the bottom)

 

I'll have to scratch build something that resembles this mechanism, at least the portion that is visible outside of the gear bay. Fun stuff, huh? I love this part of modelling - searching out the information needed to build an accurate model, and learning the history of the aircraft along the way. Having someone like Tommy, who has done the primary research, participate here is fantastic. Thank you!   :)

 

151972 had fixed glove slats, unlike the production F-111 airframes that featured rotating glove slats. The rotating gloves allowed the inboard portion of the wing slat to be longer, helping provide more low-speed lift. This kit has rotating gloves, so the wing slats are too long and need to be reduced at the inboard end. But that is the subject for another post!

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Following the diagrams at Tommy's website, I built a rudimentary mechanism for the aft main gear door. For variety, I used square styrene for the door actuator bellcrank, T-channel styrene for the brackets on the door that the bellcranks attach to, and round styrene rod for the door leading edge idler. Now, this is one of the things that is so great about modelling. I was not familiar with the term bellcrank before, at least not in connection with an aircraft landing gear door. I looked it up in an engineering dictionary, and now I've learned something new. At my age!

 

Here is what I came up with:

 

IMG_1314

 

In addition to the mechanism, you'll notice that I've filled some nasty sink marks on the bottom of the landing gear cross-beam, and since 972 did not have the rotating glove slats, that area is also being filled in. 

 

When the aft main gear door is added, she looks like this:

 

IMG_1315

 

Fortunately, my lousy scratch building will be hidden underneath the door, and behind the main tyres. In real life, the door leading edge idlers were an interesting curved affair that went from leading edge of the door to an attachment point deep in the main gear bay on the sides near the rear bulkhead (I believe). They were curved in order to navigate within and around the complex nature of the landing gear components. I've only built the part that is visible underneath the fuselage.

 

When I attached the main landing gear assembly to the rear of the bay, it seemed to me that it wasn't right for the F-111B. The cross-beam (which connects the two axles) when viewed from the side was essentially parallel to the bottom of the fuselage. I believe this was a change that was put in place after the prototypes - on 972, the cross-beam should look angled up at the front when viewed from the side. So, I shimmed a little bit until I was satisfied with it. If I can remember, I'll take a photo of it to show you what I mean.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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On 5/9/2017 at 2:07 PM, Navy Bird said:

 

 

On all of the other F-111 builds that are part of this Group Build, the aft main door is hinged at the fuselage, and hangs down in a perpendicular fashion from the underside of the aircraft when the gear was down.

 

 

Cheers,

Bill

Strictly speaking, the aft main landing gear door was rigidly attached to the landing gear itself, not hinged at the fuselage per se. That simplification is what resulted in the gap.

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Thanks for that, Tommy. That should have been quite obvious to me!   :)

 

I've been playing around with the intakes, and now I wish I had taken the time to make them more "seamless." If I model the intake with the translating cowl forward, as it seems to have been when on the ground, a seam is going to be nicely visible through the gap. So, I either fix the seam or close the cowl. Guess I'll fix the seam.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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On 5/11/2017 at 2:23 PM, Navy Bird said:

Thanks for that, Tommy. That should have been quite obvious to me!   :)

 

I've been playing around with the intakes, and now I wish I had taken the time to make them more "seamless." If I model the intake with the translating cowl forward, as it seems to have been when on the ground, a seam is going to be nicely visible through the gap. So, I either fix the seam or close the cowl. Guess I'll fix the seam.

 

Cheers,

Bill

I'm pretty sure that the only time I've seen a picture of an F-111B on the ground with the translating cowl closed was 970 at its roll out. And there was a cover over the inlet.

Edited by Tailspin Turtle
typo
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Sorry for the lack of progress mates. I've been suffering from the worst sinus infection I've ever had (literally have to breathe through my mouth most of the time). I haven't been getting much sleep - plus I've been trying to prepare for Noreastcon (IPMS Northeast United States Regional Convention) this weekend. Someone volunteered me to do a presentation on the joys of photoetch, which is quite a chore since I never use the stuff.   :)  But I can probably purloin enough stuff from the web to make it look respectable.

 

Since I haven't been responding to the sinus treatments, I'll be having a CT scan of my head tomorrow. They suspect I have polyps in my sinuses or something. I had a dream about it the other night - "Well, we have some good news and some bad news. The good news is we've found nothing of consequence in your head. The bad news is we've found nothing of consequence in your head." That would explain a lot!

 

Anyway, I feel rather lousy, and haven't had much time for modelling. The only progress on the 111B has been the construction of the front landing gear, and I hope I have the nose gear strut leaning forward at the right angle. Even if it's off a bit, I'll just add the red stripe on the nose gear doors to match.

 

Cheers,

Bill the Stuffed (Up)

 

PS. My oncologist is having me do a PET scan, and if all looks well I can stop the chemo. Woo hoo! Those lymph nodes better be the right size on that scan...

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"The Joys of PE"  no such thing, PE bits are the work on the devil most of the time!

 

Hope you get well soon....and when I say I hope they find nothing up there you know what I mean!! :D

 

Take it easy and we look forward to an update when you are able!

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Some pretty intensive work on that nose cone, but it really did pay off! The shape looks spot on. Hope you are feeling better and your presentation goes/went well. Any lecture about PE should include an instruction to start searching at least four feet away from the desk when a part goes "ping".

 

Regards,

Adrian

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Some progress today. First, the bad news. I need to have sinus surgery, as it seems the sinuses behind my cheeks and behind my eyes are pretty much closed up due to bone and tissue growth to the point where they cannot drain; the resulting “junk” (as the doc called it) has become hardened and can’t be removed without a knife. Plus, the sinuses have to be opened back up, re-shaped and re-structured. Oh, and they’ll fix my deviated septum while they’re at it.

 

They do this by going in through my nose, and also through incisions they make in the rear upper gum. It’s very rare that they have to make any externals cuts, so I should not look like the loser of a boxing match when it’s over. They tell me I won’t believe how much better I can breathe (once they take the three foot long tampons out of my nostrils the day after the surgery). Sounds like fun. That is scheduled for July 7. In the meantime I'm on a regime of Prednisone and actually feel much better.

 

The good news is that I've made some progress on the F-111B. I've used Perfect Plastic Putty (thanks @Martian Hale) to smooth the seam inside the intakes so it won't be seen when the translating cowl is open. Here is what we're shooting for:

 

IN011a

 

The inner lip that you see at the back edge of the translating cowl is what seals with the fixed portion. @Tailspin Turtle has informed me that the shape of this surface is a classic bell mouth shape, and I'll try to make this with styrene behind the cowl, and faired in at the back edge with a slight radius.

 

151972 did not have the "kink" in the intake ramp, so I previously made new ones from sheet styrene using drawings provided by @Tailspin Turtle and put them in place.

 

IMG_1329

 

I'm not sure whether this early intake design had the vortex generators inside. Maybe Tommy will drop by and let me know. I've also added the ventral strakes at the back, and smoothed them in with Perfect Plastic Putty. The shock cone and the translating cowl will be added much later in the build because I think it will be better to paint them when they are not attached.

 

Next, 151972 had one of the early designs for the arresting hook, with the hook exposed and attached to a structure that also held the tail bumper:

 

970 Boat Tail

 

I used Tommy's drawings again, and reshaped the resin piece provided in the Pete's Hangar conversion set to match the size and shape shown in the drawings. The tail bumper was modified from the one that came with the kit.

 

IMG_1328

 

IMG_1326

 

IMG_1325

 

This will be smoothed into the fuselage. The arresting hook itself will be scratch built and come along much later in the build. Everything looks pretty rough to me right now, especially when magnified by photography, but they always do. In the end, I think she'll look purty good.

 

151972 did not have the large triangular vents on top of the fuselage wing glove section, a feature that is really prominent on other F-111 variants. I'm going to fill these in shortly. What 151972 used instead were four smaller, rectangular vents in addition to three on each side of the upper fixed portion of the intake. This is 151971, and it's a bit different than 151972, but you get the idea.

 

151971 Small top of fuselage  vents

 

I'm going to spend about a month and go through my box containing the Island of Misfit Stickers, and see if I can replicate them with decal scraps. These are the three vents under the wing on 151970:

 

151970 underwing vent 2of2

 

Again, these might be a bit different than 151972 during the Phoenix missile testing at Hughes. At one point, the first two were covered (this is 151972):

 

vent covers resamp

 

I'm not sure if these were on 151972 at Hughes, but if they were they'll have to be made from card stock. The pictures I have of 151972 in the scrapyard show the covers quire clearly. The louvers themselves will need to be sourced from decals, and probably won't match exactly. But it should have the "aroma" of an F-111B.   :)

 

I had a good time at the IMPS USA Region 1 contest last weekend, with my Blackburn Buccaneer S.1 winning category and the overall Best Aircraft award. My FAA collection also won its category and the overall Best Collection award. I also got some hardware for my Canberra, Beaufort, and RAAF Buffalo. British subjects can do well in the USA, we're not all just P-51 and F-4 nuts! And I think folks enjoyed the "Joy of Photoetch" as only one gentleman fell asleep. 

 

Cheers,

Bill

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This is lovely work as usual Bill. However, I must be totally be losing the plot: I have been worrying that I had not seen any of your work recently and have been concerned that you were OK. I must pay more attention to the WIP section in future! Marked as following so I don't miss any more of this.

 

Martian the Muddle Headed

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16 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

This is lovely work as usual Bill. However, I must be totally be losing the plot: I have been worrying that I had not seen any of your work recently and have been concerned that you were OK. I must pay more attention to the WIP section in future! Marked as following so I don't miss any more of this.

 

Martian the Muddle Headed

 

Dear Mr. Muddle,

 

Thanks for stopping by! I'm fine, other than the normal medical crises that seem to following me all the time. But I'm having a lot of fun with this build - there are so many little detail changes that have to be made to build a replica of 151972. Right up my alley, as we say over here. Do you say that over there? I've always had a great interest in the F-111B, and remember being very downhearted when the program was cancelled in 1968(?) even though I was just a young teenager. I've loved carrier aviation ever since watching "Victory at Sea" on the telly, and I was devastated that the Navy wouldn't get their version of the latest and greatest. I couldn't wait to look at the newspapers and magazines to see some photos of the F-111, because it was just so cool - and pointy. Pointy is good.    :) 

 

Cheers,

Bill Buffoonery 

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What a fascinating build. Most impressed by the tail bumper and frankly all the other modifications. This story is a treat to read. You've probably heard it lots of times but I must say your photography and the background you use are very easy on the eyes. Quite pleasurable. 

 

Jay

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Right up my street is more the way we would put it. Certainly where I come from "right up my alley" would have a very different connotation! :yikes:

 

Martian

 

 

Quote

 

 

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On 5/26/2017 at 6:31 PM, Navy Bird said:

Some progress today. First, the bad news. I need to have sinus surgery, as it seems the sinuses behind my cheeks and behind my eyes are pretty much closed up due to bone and tissue growth to the point where they cannot drain; the resulting “junk” (as the doc called it) has become hardened and can’t be removed without a knife. Plus, the sinuses have to be opened back up, re-shaped and re-structured. Oh, and they’ll fix my deviated septum while they’re at it.

 

They do this by going in through my nose, and also through incisions they make in the rear upper gum. It’s very rare that they have to make any externals cuts, so I should not look like the loser of a boxing match when it’s over. They tell me I won’t believe how much better I can breathe (once they take the three foot long tampons out of my nostrils the day after the surgery). Sounds like fun. That is scheduled for July 7. In the meantime I'm on a regime of Prednisone and actually feel much better.

 

The good news is that I've made some progress on the F-111B. I've used Perfect Plastic Putty (thanks @Martian Hale) to smooth the seam inside the intakes so it won't be seen when the translating cowl is open. Here is what we're shooting for:

 

IN011a.jpg

 

The inner lip that you see at the back edge of the translating cowl is what seals with the fixed portion. @Tailspin Turtle has informed me that the shape of this surface is a classic bell mouth shape, and I'll try to make this with styrene behind the cowl, and faired in at the back edge with a slight radius.

 

151972 did not have the "kink" in the intake ramp, so I previously made new ones from sheet styrene using drawings provided by @Tailspin Turtle and put them in place.

 

IMG_1329.jpg

 

I'm not sure whether this early intake design had the vortex generators inside. Maybe Tommy will drop by and let me know. I've also added the ventral strakes at the back, and smoothed them in with Perfect Plastic Putty. The shock cone and the translating cowl will be added much later in the build because I think it will be better to paint them when they are not attached.

 

Next, 151972 had one of the early designs for the arresting hook, with the hook exposed and attached to a structure that also held the tail bumper:

 

970%20Boat%20Tail.jpg

 

I used Tommy's drawings again, and reshaped the resin piece provided in the Pete's Hangar conversion set to match the size and shape shown in the drawings. The tail bumper was modified from the one that came with the kit.

 

IMG_1328.jpg

 

IMG_1326.jpg

 

IMG_1325.jpg

 

This will be smoothed into the fuselage. The arresting hook itself will be scratch built and come along much later in the build. Everything looks pretty rough to me right now, especially when magnified by photography, but they always do. In the end, I think she'll look purty good.

 

151972 did not have the large triangular vents on top of the fuselage wing glove section, a feature that is really prominent on other F-111 variants. I'm going to fill these in shortly. What 151972 used instead were four smaller, rectangular vents in addition to three on each side of the upper fixed portion of the intake. This is 151971, and it's a bit different than 151972, but you get the idea.

 

151971%20Small%20top%20of%20fuselage%20%

 

I'm going to spend about a month and go through my box containing the Island of Misfit Stickers, and see if I can replicate them with decal scraps. These are the three vents under the wing on 151970:

 

151970%20underwing%20vent%202of2.jpg

 

Again, these might be a bit different than 151972 during the Phoenix missile testing at Hughes. At one point, the first two were covered (this is 151972):

 

vent%20covers%20resamp.jpg

 

I'm not sure if these were on 151972 at Hughes, but if they were they'll have to be made from card stock. The pictures I have of 151972 in the scrapyard show the covers quire clearly. The louvers themselves will need to be sourced from decals, and probably won't match exactly. But it should have the "aroma" of an F-111B.   :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

The vent ducts were on the side of the intake when 972 was flown by Hugues. They were also added to early F-111As that had this vent configuration.

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nice work Bill, I'm just loving this build, you're far braver than I am to tackle this one! And those detail photos for Tommy are just invaluable for a project like this.

 

Congrat's on you wins, did you leave any awards for anyone else! :D The post surgery description is way too much for me first thing in the morning .......but good luck with it all Bill.

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Hi mates,

 

More difficult news on the health front. Last Thursday, June 1, I had the follow-up scans for my cancer checkup. Good news is all my lymph nodes are normal size. However, the chest scan showed a pleural effusion in my right chest cavity with my lung compressed to about half size due to the fluid. I was admitted to the hospital, and had a chest tube installed. Pneumonia was present in both lungs.

 

I'm still in the hospital, and we keep flushing and draining the fluid. So far about 6 litres have been drained. 

 

What a mess. Several infections have been seen and I'm on a ton of different antibiotics. But I'm slowly feeling better. No energy, major fatigue, difficulty breathing...it will just take time. No modelling in the meantime.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Very sorry to read of your illness, but hope that the worst is behind you. Get better soon! It's great to know that your lymph nodes are normal size, though - I think you're owed a long holiday in a nice warm climate somewhere as a reward.

 

cheers,

 

Andrew.

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