1:72 Airfix BAC TSR.2

[SallysDad]

To my old eyes, it looks beautiful.

[Navy Bird]

Ah, what the heck let's throw some stickers at it.

 

 

I had a lot of fun with the wing walkway stripes, as the longer pieces broke into 3-4 sections each for some reason. I got them back together okay, but it was tedious. It's really hard to see, but the light blue stripes have the pink hashed line alongside:

 

 

Hmm...I guess a need a macro lens to get close enough. Regardless, based on photos these walkway stripes are not wide enough. But it's all I had, so on they went. Another fascinating aspect of the sticker session was that the decal paper, when wet, turned the exact shade of light blue as the markings. This meant that the stencils "disappeared" when I put them in water. I had to poke around with my decal brush hoping something would slide off and onto the model.

 

I finished painting the gear wells, and also the exhaust area. Several panels have been painted with a different white, but again these are not easy to see. Take a look on top of the spine behind the cockpit and see if you notice anything. It seems my five different brands of white are all very much alike!

 

The panel lines were toned down some more by sprayed highly thinned white over them. The camera makes the lines stand out more than they actually do for some reason. Probably some automatic contrast/tone curve/unsharp masking algorithms that are lurking in the confines of the camera's mother board.

 

Onward...

 

Cheers,

Bill (who's already itching to move on to something else, maybe with a prop)

[Seversky]

To my taste - everything is wonderful!

[Brandy]

It looks absolutely gorgeous to my eyes Bill. Nicely muted panel lines et al!

 

Ian

[giemme]

12 minutes ago, limeypilot said:

It looks absolutely gorgeous to my eyes Bill. Nicely muted panel lines et al!

 

Ian

Same here  

 

1 hour ago, Navy Bird said:

Take a look on top of the spine behind the cockpit and see if you notice anything.

I do, subtle but noticeable variations, I love it  

 

Ciao

[Bigdave22014]

You've managed to get those panel lines to look just right. 

Beautiful recreation of a beautiful bird.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

For what its worth i can see a couple of panels that are different tones of white. These are located as you asked on the spine behind the cockpits.

[general melchett]

Looking good Bill, if I didn't know better I'd say it was a larger scale!

Quote

I had to poke around with my decal brush hoping something would slide off and onto the model.

That's how I always do it...the old 'more luck than judgement' trick.

[Martian]

Bill, you seem to be a bit disappointed with the way this is turning out but believe me, it is absolutely gorgeous and a great result from what is widely regarded as a rather difficult kit to build.

 

Martian

[Timmas]

That's looking really really nice Bill.

As it happens, I stood underneath the real thing earlier today. Looking at what you've made of it so far makes me feel that I've mysteriously turned into some kind of Gulliver character and am back there in the museum looking down on her.

 

Really looking forward to seeing the finished thing.

[SallysDad]

A beautiful job.

I makes me think of the refined beauty of this airplane sitting on the tarmack, in the "what if" future, if a large number of these beautiful airplanes had been put into production.

Again, I am amazed this kit is now so hard to find. I cannot fathom the reasoning of Airfix to go this way.

[perdu]

It looks really good from over here Bill, I know you wont but the temptation now is to overdo it

 

Any more on or taken off will spoil the ship, she looks great to me

 

 

[CedB]

What they said Bill - beautiful. Subtle is the way to go, she was designed to ‘hide’ after all. 

[Navy Bird]

On 2/21/2018 at 14:46, general melchett said:

Looking good Bill, if I didn't know better I'd say it was a larger scale!

That's how I always do it...the old 'more luck than judgement' trick.

 

Thanks - I've always found luck to be my favourite ingredient. Unfortunately, some kit boxes don't include it.  

 

On 2/21/2018 at 15:05, Martian Hale said:

Bill, you seem to be a bit disappointed with the way this is turning out but believe me, it is absolutely gorgeous and a great result from what is widely regarded as a rather difficult kit to build.

 

Thanks - I wouldn't say I'm disappointed, I'm just not gobsmacked. The kit is not a shake and bake, that's for sure. Come to think of it, I haven't built a shake and bake in a long time. I'm addicted to kits that don't like me.  

 

On 2/21/2018 at 16:15, Timmas said:

That's looking really really nice Bill.

As it happens, I stood underneath the real thing earlier today. Looking at what you've made of it so far makes me feel that I've mysteriously turned into some kind of Gulliver character and am back there in the museum looking down on her.

 

Really looking forward to seeing the finished thing.

 

I'm jealous! I'd love to get a look at the real thing. Wifey and I are coming over to London on holiday for the third week of May (finally made our arrangements!). She has no interest in looking at airplanes, but maybe I can get a day off from the touristy stuff. How many of you Britmodellers are near London? Maybe we can meet for a drink while I'm there.

 

22 hours ago, perdu said:

It looks really good from over here Bill, I know you wont but the temptation now is to overdo it

 

Any more on or taken off will spoil the ship, she looks great to me

 

Thanks Bill - those are true words! Overdoing it is so easy - it's why I try to model schemes that don't need a lot of weathering.

 

22 hours ago, CedB said:

What they said Bill - beautiful. Subtle is the way to go, she was designed to ‘hide’ after all. 

 

Thanks Ced!  

 

 

Well, the old gal has her shoes!

 

 

And you can see that I've started some detail painting on the avionics bay. Getting the landing gear on straight and with all the flat spots on the bottom was a bit of a challenge. Very strange design for landing gear, but I'm sure there were good reasons for it. I used some incredibly fiddly solder to try and replicate the hydraulic lines on the main gear - I cheated, though, and only put in four lines when there should be five.

 

 

Eduard provide some photoetch for the mechanism that captures the main strut when retracted, but also links to one of the gear doors. Maybe you can see it in this picture? It's right in front of the orange box.

 

 

I still need to add the extra link that was added to help reduce the lateral oscillations when landing. Say, did the Klingons help design this gal? It reminds me of the "bird of prey."

 

 

 

 

The vertical fin, tailplanes, flaps, elevators, and the gear and avionics doors have all been primed and I'll try and shoot the white tonight. I've also got some work to do with the vacuform canopies, cutting them out and filing to shape. CMK provide some nice resin to represent the inside of the canopies, and I think that will look quite nice. Ta for now!

 

Cheers,

Bill

[perdu]

Yep, that's the way to do it

 

 

Lovely

[Learstang]

Beautiful work on a fascinating aircraft, Bill! I don't know if looking at yours makes me want to get back to mine, or simply hide it at the bottom of a stack somewhere as there's no way I can approach the quality of your build. Knowing me, I'll just keep it in a place where I can easily get to it, but ignore it anyway.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[Timmas]

28 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

I'm jealous! I'd love to get a look at the real thing. Wifey and I are coming over to London on holiday for the third week of May (finally made our arrangements!). She has no interest in looking at airplanes, but maybe I can get a day off from the touristy stuff. How many of you Britmodellers are near London? Maybe we can meet for a drink while I'm there.

Would love to meet for a drink, but London is a bit of a stretch for me and the congestion here is such that it would take hours to get there! Mind you, if you were to take a trip down to God's Country while you're here, that would be different.

[David H]

On 2/21/2018 at 3:10 PM, Bendinggrass said:

Again, I am amazed this kit is now so hard to find. I cannot fathom the reasoning of Airfix to go this way.

If i recall correctly, Airfix billed this kit as a "Limited Edition" item, in its original guise as the TSR2.

It turns out the kit sold far better than imagined,  and Airfix was in the awkward position of having to re release a limited run kit due to demand. The tie-in to the Japanese animated series was their (clever) way out.

 

If anyone else remembers differently correct me if i'm wrong.

 

-d-

[Ratch]

Available as 07004 with decals for XR219, XR220 & XR222 in 2005 only.
Limited availability to approx 11,000 kits worldwide.
Issued with extra parts as Stratos-4 TSR.2MS (A08011) in 2011.

[stever219]

2 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

I'm jealous! I'd love to get a look at the real thing. Wifey and I are coming over to London on holiday for the third week of May (finally made our arrangements!). She has no interest in looking at airplanes, but maybe I can get a day off from the touristy stuff. How many of you Britmodellers are near London? Maybe we can meet for a drink while I'm there.

 

And you can see that I've started some detail painting on the avionics bay. Getting the landing gear on straight and with all the flat spots on the bottom was a bit of a challenge. Very strange design for landing gear, but I'm sure there were good reasons for it. I used some incredibly fiddly solder to try and replicate the hydraulic lines on the main gear - I cheated, though, and only put in four lines when there should be five.

 

 Bill, the RAF Museum site at Cosford, near Wolverhampton , holds XR220.  It’s a bit of a flog from London, about a 2 1/2 hour drive or two train journeys each way.  The Imperial War Museum at Duxford keeps XR222: south west of Cambridge it is far closer but is a train journey of about an hour from King’s Cross station and then a very-not-inexpensive taxi ride from the nearest station at Whittlesford IIRC.

 

I live about 50 miles from London (an hour on the train) so a meet-up for a beer or coffee wouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility.

 

I don’t blame you for “cheating” on the plumbing: unless you use extremely fine solder you run the risk of the area looking cluttered.  I’m sure we won’t tell if you don’t.  The undercarriage design was intended to give this 50-ton aeroplane as big a footprint as possible to allow operation from semi-prepared and/or low bearing strength runways whilst keeping the fuselage cross-sectional area as small as possible to meet the top end of the specified performance envelope.

[perdu]

To add to stever's point Bill the train does stop at Cosford then there's a five minute walk round to the Museum, or maybe a taxi from the station

I will be there in April it seems, but I could do May too if a chap needed a guide

 

Another point of stever's, the plumbing does not look 'short changed' in any way, it's rather better than great

[Edge]

7 hours ago, stever219 said:

 Bill, the RAF Museum site at Cosford, near Wolverhampton , holds XR220.  It’s a bit of a flog from London, about a 2 1/2 hour drive or two train journeys each way.  The Imperial War Museum at Duxford keeps XR222: south west of Cambridge it is far closer but is a train journey of about an hour from King’s Cross station and then a very-not-inexpensive taxi ride from the nearest station at Whittlesford IIRC.

 

I live about 50 miles from London (an hour on the train) so a meet-up for a beer or coffee wouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility.

 

I don’t blame you for “cheating” on the plumbing: unless you use extremely fine solder you run the risk of the area looking cluttered.  I’m sure we won’t tell if you don’t.  The undercarriage design was intended to give this 50-ton aeroplane as big a footprint as possible to allow operation from semi-prepared and/or low bearing strength runways whilst keeping the fuselage cross-sectional area as small as possible to meet the top end of the specified performance envelope.

If your wife isn't into aeroplanes Bill,  David Austin Roses is close to Cosford, in Albrighton and is well signposted from the A41 (which runs through the RAF station. David Austin specialise in Old English Roses - really beautiful to look at and with excellent perfume. They have a great garden there, well planted to show off their range and a great cafe in the wooden framed entrance area. May could be a little early for some varieties, but there should be plenty in bloom for the visit to be worthwhile. Or if she's not a gardener, historic Shrewsbury is just a little further along the M54 from Cosford.

 

Just some ideas to hopefull persuade Mrs Navy Bird that the trip is worthwhile.

 

Great work on the TSR2

Edge

 

 

 

[Bedders]

It's looking great Bill, and your work on the undercarriage has really paid off. When I look at the TSR2 my gaze often lingers on the  main legs as I try to figure out the retraction mechanism. You've got the angles and the plumbing spot-on as far as I'm concerned. The white paintwork looks lovely too.

 

Justin

Edited February 23, 2018 by Bedders

[giemme]

Outstanding, Bill, from the overall view down to the single detail    And it's not even completed yet!

 

Ciao

[Paul J]

Just popped in to see whats going here. By the look of all that aftermarket stuff, there can't be much left of the original kit!  Love all the beautiful work and research done to achieve the build so far, Top Marks!!