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Lying down on the job...1/48th Prone Meteor


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Hi guys, this one I finished a few months back for Airfix Model World and was featured in the June issue of the magazine. It's actually a test shot of the new 1/48th Meteor F.8 Korean War crossed with the resin Brigade Prone Meteor conversion set. In simple terms the kit is superb the resin not so. Full marks to Brigade for producing this but to say it was a struggle is to put it mildly. There were air bubbles galore, mainly underneath where the pour stub had to be removed, almost a canyon once the piece was removed and a few clustered around the underside of the nose and in the nose gear well for good measure. The vac parts while beautifully clear needed a lot of coaxing to get to conform to the shape of the new nose (as the prone canopy has a bubble shape that curves slightly into the fuselage) and the underside observation window was badly skewed to one side and ill-fitting. The forward fuselage interior needed a lot of 'Dremeling' to allow the nose gear to fit and worst of all the whole forward resin nose section was warped to the left, (plus a large depression at the top in front of the windscreen) with the end result that a good deal of the forward fuselage is now Milliput ! Having said that the decals were superb, the prone seat very well rendered and instruction sheet clear and concise...all in all the presentation of the package was exemplary. 

Now hopefully all this was down to it being a review sample and not representative of the production parts but be warned. The Airfix kit went together with no dramas and was a lot of fun to assemble but what should have been a weekend build turned into a two week marathon......oh well such is life.

 

Lots of extra parts were provided including all the Eduard sets for the cockpit, seat belts, flap and undercarriage bays and the engines. Painting was sploshed on courtesy of several AK Interactive's Xtreme Metal aluminium tones through the trusty Iwata Micron and weathering was provided courtesy of Ammo of MIG and the superb Abteilung 502 oil range. 

 

 

Cheers all and thanks for looking,:cheers:

 

 

Meteor Melchie.... (almost always found prone)

 

 

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Edited by general melchett
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That is quite ugly - yet beautiful at the same time!!

The forth photograph from the end is certainly lifelike - you could pass that for the real thing.

A masterclass in modelling if ever there was one.

Like all your models General - this one is top shelf.

 

Cheers.. Dave

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Thanks chaps, glad it tickles yer fancy. 

 

Dave, it certainly wouldn't win any beauty awards but it served a purpose...even if it was only to prove that the idea was crazy given the limitations of the equipment then available and very quickly abandoned. Apparently it wasn't ever flown from the front...

 

Agree Gerrard, the days of these wonderful machines the Bristol T.188, EE P1A, Ashton, Sperrin, SR.53 etc, etc are long gone..shame but that's 'progress', you had to build it and fly it to see if it worked.

 

Thanks John, glad you enjoyed the article, It was nice to have Tony write the factual account too....yes the prone nose was darker than the rest of the airframe and the cone a different tone again, I think it makes for a more interesting finish than just overall High Speed Silver.

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Very nice General. I like what you've done with the flaps - did you use any aftermarket for those?

 

I didn't have so many problems with mine - the nose wasn't warped (the fin was, but not badly), and there were some bubbles but it sounds like yours was a lot worse - but I agree getting the vac formed clear parts to fit is tricky and getting the nose to fit over the undercarriage needs some material to be removed from either the nose or the undercarriage. Since I don't own a dremel I ended up modifying the undercarriage - it's in my WIP in the prototypes, experimentals etc group build.

 

On the other hand you seem to have liked the decals more than I did. I found they were very thin so tricky to handle and I thought the reds and blues seemed too bright, so I replaced the roundels and fin flashes with Xtradecals.

 

Overall I liked it, the quality of the resin isn't as good as, say, AlleyCat would be, but good enough to make a decent model with and it gave me a bit of an education in handling resin, which is no bad thing. And I'm very pleased to have a Prone Meteor in my collection, which I never thought I'd have.

 

 

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5 hours ago, general melchett said:

Dave, it certainly wouldn't win any beauty awards but it served a purpose...even if it was only to prove that the idea was crazy given the limitations of the equipment then available and very quickly abandoned. Apparently it wasn't ever flown from the front...

 

 

There was an article in Aeroplane Monthly many moons ago written by a Royal Air Force or Institute of Aviation Medicine doctor who did fly the jet from the front.  Apparently the controls "creaked with static friction" and were not particularly easy to operate.  However the difference in g-tolerance between the prone pilot and the safety pilot in the normal cockpit was very noticeable, with the latter getting very uncomfortable compared to the former.  The aeroplane was never flown solo from the front as several of the vital controls couldn't be installed there (including, IIRC, the engine relight switches).

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9 hours ago, stever219 said:

 

There was an article in Aeroplane Monthly many moons ago written by a Royal Air Force or Institute of Aviation Medicine doctor who did fly the jet from the front.  Apparently the controls "creaked with static friction" and were not particularly easy to operate.  However the difference in g-tolerance between the prone pilot and the safety pilot in the normal cockpit was very noticeable, with the latter getting very uncomfortable compared to the former.  The aeroplane was never flown solo from the front as several of the vital controls couldn't be installed there (including, IIRC, the engine relight switches).

 

There was also one in Flight - it's on their online archive, I'll add a link if I can find it - the writer flew it from the front, as I recall he seemed to find it quite easy to fly that way but was critical of the pilot's view above and behind. It was definitely flown from the front, but I think never solo, and I think I read it was never landed from the front.

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Thanks chaps, yes sorry I should have said that it was never flown solo from the front (but then it couldn't be as not all the cockpit systems were duplicated). It's all mentioned in the accompanying article written by Tony Buttler in AMW. I believe finding the rudder pedals again if your feet slipped out of them was quite difficult and the fact that the prone cockpit wasn't pressurised resulted in a very chilly ride.

 

The 'Flight' pilot,  Mark Lambert found it great fun to fly and highly manoeuvrable particularly in the roll though he felt the boosted ailerons were somewhat over sensitive. 

 

Zebra, the flaps details comes from Eduard (set ED48884)...they cover everything cockpit, engines, undercarriage bays and flaps. Gets a bit expensive but well worth it, (luckily for my wallet these were all provided for in the box). I'm glad you didn't have so much trouble with yours, (I forgot to mention that my fin was also warped !). I must be honest I only used certain decals, I also used appropriate Xtradecal roundels and fin flashes. I had to source a few others that were missing from the sheet to portray the aircraft in the time frame I'd chosen. Overall it was a fun build but I was rather disappointed with the quality of the mouldings which was hopefully down to it being an early review sample. 

 

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Hello,Andy - Once again I have pleasure in saluting the General on another example of scale perfection.

 The 'Prone Meteor' certainly makes for an unusual variation of this classic aircraft.

Inspirational work as always.

😉👍 All the very best,Paul.

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Fabulous build there General sir! No sign of any struggle to get it done and superb photographs.

Like others, I think it is a shame we no longer see interesting prototypes like this, but I suppose it was all 'of its time' when we had a large aircraft industry and the costs, although never cheap, were not so eye wateringly expensive. Add in computing power, and all protyping is virtual,

 

Cheers

 

John

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I believe that one test pilot who flew this aircraft declared that the pilot's prone position was suitable for only one human activity....and flying was not it.

Lovely model. The original is in Cosford isn't it?

Chris

 

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Thanks guys, always appreciated. 

 

Paul, thanks, certainly a bit different, it would be really nice if a manufacturer would take the plunge and produce a few more 1/48th prototypes such as the Bristol T.188, Fairey Delta II (or it's more beautiful sibling the BAC 221), Short SB5, P1A, etc, etc. Cosford's full of them...

 

Thanks Unc, good to hear from you...hope all's well with you out there mate.

 

Thanks John, well looks can be deceiving, I did invent a few new adjectives with this one but the more it fought the more I insisted I'd win ! the bin was never far away.

Agreed the days of these wonderful machines has truly been and gone, incredibly risky, (though the pilots only saw it as challenging), high cost and no guarantee of a contract at the end of it all. Modern aircraft designed on computers don't need to run the risks and the results are very efficient which is really what it's all about but a lot lack that rather expensive luxury....hand crafted 'character', just look at the flying atrocity that is the F-35 :tomato:.  

 

Chris, he was probably right, I know Mark Lambert commented that at 4g the gravitational pressure instead of being less than he had expected acted equally at full force all the way down the front of his body exerting considerable pressure on his rib cage. The result was extreme 'stiffness' between the shoulder blades the next day, (I'd imagine he was being very 'British' about this, not to mention diplomatic)...........doesn't sound ideal ! yes the aircraftis at Cosford, in fact I had a good look over it just the other day.

 

Cheers Neil, I think I'd just finished it when you came over.....memory's totally shot ! (btw still working on details of the Manchester's engineer panel in case you thought I'd forgot )...  

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As I can't afford magazines these days, it's the first time I've seen this beauty Andy, another stunner off your workbench! Those b&w piccies are simply fantastic (not that the colour ones are bad mind...!!)

 

Lovely work all round!

 

Keith

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Blimey...a new look BM eh...keep us on our toes !  

 

Keith the 'Telford Trance' is a common affliction...goes hand in hand with the mathematical certainty that the 'Wallet Content to Desired Kits & Bits Ratio' is usually not what was hoped for when planning the trip then add to that the nightly visits to the 'Fool & Bladder' and things only get worse !....

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