1:72 Airfix BAC TSR.2

[kev67]

Love watching your modelling skills Bill, it's a joy to watch knowing that the finished model will look superb

[Navy Bird]

On 1/25/2018 at 21:25, 72modeler said:

While the horde is tearing Disneyworld up, you can sneak out to the Kissimmee Airport and fly one of the T-6's or the two-seat Mustang that is based there. I got an hour of stick time in a T-6G in RCN markings while my family was at the park. Took two weeks, according to the War Department, to wipe the silly grin off my face! Just wish I could have afforded the hour in the Mustang, though! It was a thrill to fly the same type my late father flew in WW2 when he was at Randolph Field for his flight training...now I know what he meant when he said it was a groundlooping beast!

Mike

 

Great idea, and one that I've been dropping hints about to my children for years ("I sure would like to have a ride in a warbird before I'm pushing up daisies..."). I didn't have any extra time available on this trip, but if I prepare properly for the next one maybe I'll get my wish.  

 

On 1/26/2018 at 01:03, S5 modeller said:

Lovely build Bill, you're doing wonders with this old kit you're inspiring me to dig mine out.

 

Thanks, Matt. I enjoy reviewing all of the WIPS concerning the kit that I'm currently building. It always amazes me how I have issues where others don't and vice versa. Plus, I pick up some good ideas that help me avoid issues, and learn new techniques watching others. So, yes, dig that kit out! I'd love to see what you do with it.

 

On 1/26/2018 at 03:24, giemme said:

That's what grandpas are supposed to do, I'm afraid ...  

 

They look excellent to me  I can't see anything that needs more work, even on the big screen ...

 

Enjoy Disneyland Florida

 

Yup, that's what we grandpas do. But I have to admit that the smiles, laughs, and look of awe and wonder on a 2-year old's face when he meets and hugs Mickey for the first time are priceless. Cue MasterCard music. I rather enjoyed Ariel myself...   

 

However, you need to get your Disney-speak correct. Disneyland is in California, Disney World is in Florida.   

 

On 1/26/2018 at 12:38, canberra kid said:

As far as I know XR219 never did.

 

Do you know if she flew with the flight test equipment in the bomb bay? That seems to be what is included with the CMK resin set, including the orange insulating blanket.

 

On 1/26/2018 at 15:05, kev67 said:

Love watching your modelling skills Bill, it's a joy to watch knowing that the finished model will look superb

 

Thanks - I hope it ends up OK. I'm getting to that point of the build where I start questioning why I ever started it. But we'll get there - I have only one kit that's on the shelf of doom, and I'm quite sure the TSR won't join it.

 

 

So, right, yes, I'm back. Let's see what I've been up to today (not much). The main gear legs have been added to that big hunk of resin, and with just a few casual swipes of a sanding stick I was able to set the proper Angle der Splayage. I made a simple 36 degree template using a protractor (you young guys can look that one up) and used it to verify that the angle was either correct or close enough.

 

 

It will work for me. I thought about the procedure posted at Hyperscale to correct this problem, but in all honesty I felt it was an overly complex solution to a relatively simple problem. Oh, and it looked like too much work.  

 

I test fit the resin gear bay, and there were a few adjustments that were necessary. First, I added two small shims on the mounting surfaces at the rear of the bay to close a gap with the lower fuselage section. Next, I added a couple pieces of scrap plastic to the inside of the fuselage near the intakes, again to close a slight gap:

 

 

Looks like I have a small problem at the front of the nose gear bay too. Add more plastic!

 

You may recall that the resin bomb bay was just a small amount shorter than the kit piece, so I added two small pieces of styrene to "adjust" the length of the opening in the lower fuselage section. First, one at the front:

 

 

And then one at the rear of the opening:

 

 

These tiny pieces of plastic close up an gaps that would have otherwise been visible. I think we're just about ready to glue the resin gear and bomb bays into the fuselage, and add the lower section. And that will pretty much close the fuselage. I don't plan on having the vertical fin or the tailplanes move, so I'm not worried about attaching them at this point.

 

I've decided to do XR220 instead of XR219 or a what-if. I don't know why.  

 

Cheers,

Bill

[perdu]

I know, I know, sir I know

 

 

 

 

It's because 220 is the one that keeps maiming me isn't it

 

[Navy Bird]

3 minutes ago, perdu said:

It's because 220 is the one that keeps maiming me isn't it

 

I wonder if I can add a tiny piece of 1:72 scalp to that antenna...

 

Cheers,

Bill

[perdu]

ha ha

 

I would probably do that just by being an terribly untidy model maker

 

You could do it because you are not

 

[giemme]

24 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

However, you need to get your Disney-speak correct. Disneyland is in California, Disney World is in Florida.  

 Sure, it must be because I'm going to come to California next summer, I'm all focused on that  

 

Splay angle looks perfect from here, and I do love a simple solution with a nice outcome  

 

Ciao

Edited February 2, 2018 by giemme

[Martian]

Excellent stuff Bill, keep it coming.

 

Martian

[Navy Bird]

1 hour ago, Martian Hale said:

Excellent stuff Bill, keep it coming.

 

Martian

 

Thanks, green guy. I believe you've built both the 1:72 and 1:48 Airfix kits of the TSR.2, so here's my question of the day: Are there any issues with the lengths of the gear legs on the smaller kit? I don't think the actual TSR.2 had a "nose down" or "nose-up" attitude when parked - in pictures it looks pretty level. I think I'm going to have a bit of a nose down stance (which might be due to the resin gear bays for all I know) and I'm curious if anyone else has encountered this one.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Martian]

As far as can recall Bill, both kits sit level.

 

Martian

[Ratch]

Yes they both sit level on the kit u/c

72

 

48

[theplasticsurgeon]

Confirming level.

 

 

[canberra kid]

7 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

Thanks, green guy. I believe you've built both the 1:72 and 1:48 Airfix kits of the TSR.2, so here's my question of the day: Are there any issues with the lengths of the gear legs on the smaller kit? I don't think the actual TSR.2 had a "nose down" or "nose-up" attitude when parked - in pictures it looks pretty level. I think I'm going to have a bit of a nose down stance (which might be due to the resin gear bays for all I know) and I'm curious if anyone else has encountered this one.

 

Cheers,

Bill

Bill going by what I've seen she does have a fairly flat stance.

John

[canberra kid]

12 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

Do you know if she flew with the flight test equipment in the bomb bay? That seems to be what is included with the CMK resin set, including the orange insulating blanket.

She would have had a fight test instrument package, from what I understand the they were mounted in the fuselage electronic bays. Is the orange thing in the CMK quite long? if so it mat be the long range fuel tank?

 

John

[Tomoshenko]

Nice going Bill. Glad you enjoyed Disneyworld. Disappointing to hear about the white metal parts. I mean you'd think they'd address stuff like sink marks and seams before making the cast. Still the plus side is we get to see your additions and improvements to the kit parts.

 

12 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

I wonder if I can add a tiny piece of 1:72 scalp to that antenna...

 

Cheers,

Bill

At the next Brum IPMS meeting I will make Bill a nice cup of tea to butter him up, then see if I can make a silicon mould or get some reference piccies. I'm sure you will be able to scale it down.

[Navy Bird]

Thanks mates. Here is what was driving my concern:

 

 

She looks reasonably level, but there is a big difference in the size of the main and nose tyres (14mm vs 10mm). This would make her set nose down slightly, the front dropping by half the difference in the tyres, or 2mm. (The nose gear leg is not glued in yet.)

 

However...

 

I forgot that the bogey arm, which the main tyres attach to, actually raises the axle/hub location. My estimate is that this amount is 2mm. So I guess this cancels out the effect from the tyres, and she will set level. I've been sensitive to this issue since I built my Canberra PR.9, which ended up nose down more than I thought it should (I've since shortened her main gear legs again). Airfix made a mistake in that kit with the length of the gear legs, and I was wondering whether they did it here too. But no, she looks good - I just didn't think it through all the way.  

 

So, you've probably noticed that the fuselage is now closed up. This all went surprisingly well, thanks to the spreaders and all those little shims that I added. If I hadn't done that, I think it would have been a right proper mess to get everything lined up, and not have a seam pop later on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is still a LOT of work to do cleaning up the seams and getting everything ready for painting. The main gear legs needed to be attached prior to the bottom fuselage section going on, but I'm pretty sure the rest of the gear arms, forestays, jacks, etc. can attach later. This is a good thing, as some of them are quite fiddly, especially the photoetch pieces from Eduard like the torsion links, door actuators, strut clamps, etc.

 

I'll use the beautiful drawings of the main and nose gear in Damien Burke's book when I get around to detailing the gear. Unfortunately, there are a LOT of brake lines that I will most likely need to add, as they are quite prominent. Eduard provide some in PE for the wheel well, but those on the main gear strut and bogey arm will be made from lead solder. The smallest I have is 0.3mm diameter, and it is crazy fiddly. Every time I look at the photos, I cringe.

 

 

This also shows you how the bogey arm raises the tyres relative to the bottom of the strut. As I understand it, the complexity was driven primarily by the unprepared field requirement (grass runways) and the small amount of space inside the fuselage when retracted. Looks cool though, and I like spidery gear like the F-18, MiG-23, etc.

 

The previous photo is XR220, and it's interesting to note that the oleo is fully compressed. They'll need to top off the hydraulic fluid at the next petrol station stop.  

 

Back to work...

 

Cheers,

Bill

[SallysDad]

This is really great to follow, Bill.

In that last picture, which is the bogey arm?

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

7 hours ago, Tomoshenko said:

At the next Brum IPMS meeting I will make Bill a nice cup of tea to butter him up, then see if I can make a silicon mould or get some reference piccies. I'm sure you will be able to scale it down.

Maybe some plunge moulding, just to get it really accurate?  It’s in the interests of accuracy, Bill; a bit of pain all in a great cause.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Navy Bird]

57 minutes ago, Bendinggrass said:

This is really great to follow, Bill.

In that last picture, which is the bogey arm?

 

The bogey arm is the horizontal assembly that is attached to the bottom of the main gear leg, and to which the wheels are attached. It has a VERY flattened V shape that results in the wheel hub being higher than the bottom of the main strut. Technically, it's called a bogie beam, so I should get my spelling and nomenclature correct. Hope my explanation makes sense.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[CedB]

Looking very good Bill, she's joined up really well.

Good luck with the brake lines, fiddly indeed!

[Navy Bird]

This shows it much better. It's the darker grey piece that the wheels attach to.

 

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. This is XR222, and although it has its proper amount of hydraulic fluid in the main strut oleo, it's missing most of its brake lines.

[canberra kid]

Bill is the grey area's under cout or is that the colour call out in the instructions? Are you definitely building XR220? Going back to the weapons bay and equipment, it looks like she did have two flight test instrument packages in the bay.

John 

[SallysDad]

58 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

This shows it much better. It's the darker grey piece that the wheels attach to.

 

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. This is XR222, and although it has its proper amount of hydraulic fluid in the main strut oleo, it's missing most of its brake lines.

Thanks, Bill.

That would be the heavy gray rods/tubes/pipes at the bottom of the vertical pipe/strut.... ?

It looks like this one heavy gray piece connects to each wheel at the axel part..... is that correct in me saying that?

[stever219]

Bendinggrass the bogie beam is the heavy greyish member running between the axles and the bottom of the leg.  Above the bogie beam are, I think, brake arms and, behind the leg and below the scissors link, is the bogie rotation cylinder (part of the persistent undercarriage retraction problems during the earlier flights).  For the main wheels to retract  the bogie beam had first to rotate through almos 90 degrees nose down and then toe-out to lie parallel (when viewed head on) to the leg.  Only then could the leg itself pivot forwards, inwards and upwards to get the wheels into the bay.  You can see this on some of the surviving film from the test flying and pre-flight testing.

 

'222 doesn't have the shimmy damper strut between the top of the leg and the rear end of the bogie beam as shown in the last photo in Bill's post 190.  This was introduced to reduce or eliminate the violent vibration that set in on touchdown: '220 had it installed during the repair works occasioned by her falling off the back of a lorry on delivery to Boscombe Down whilst it also appeared on '219 very late in the flying programme (there's a photo of '219's inverted fuselage lying in the Shoeburyness scrap compound clearly showing this in Damine Burke's "TSR 2: Britain's lost bomber".  Had it been allowed to prove itself effective it would have appeared across the fleet either during production or, I suspect, as a fairly urgent post-production modification.

[SallysDad]

Thanks, stever219, very helpful.

It boggles the mind such an amazing aircraft was sent to an early grave..... similar to the Avro Arrow's fate, sad to say. 

[Navy Bird]

3 hours ago, canberra kid said:

Bill is the grey area's under cout or is that the colour call out in the instructions? Are you definitely building XR220? Going back to the weapons bay and equipment, it looks like she did have two flight test instrument packages in the bay.

 

<snip>

 

Do you mean the grey areas in the wheel wells? This is Gunze's version of Light Aircraft Grey, which is as close as I can get to Light Admiralty Grey, the colour that Damien Burke states was used for the landing gear and wheel wells in his book, on his web site, and even here on BM.

 

 

My photos make it look a bit darker than it actually is. (XR222 appears to use white in these areas, but I believe this is a result of the restoration work that was done before she went on display. Airfix have you paint these areas white.) The photos of XR220 clearly show these as grey, but it's hard to tell which grey. I'll take Damien's word for it. The grey on the intakes is just a primer.

 

You can see the grey on XR220 in these photos (note the bay and inner door covers as well as the strut):

 

 

 

In this photo of the main wheel well, you can just see a portion of the white fuselage at the lower right, contrasting with the grey of the well itself:

 

 

Ugh, all those hydraulic lines! You can also see the grey colour in the avionics bay.

 

 

Some of the inner surfaces of the doors and panels on XR220 are in fact white, like the avionics panel and main gear doors, so one must pay careful attention to the photos. Which is difficult, as some of the photos of XR220 show the grey as very washed out due to the flash being used.

 

I have the parts from CMK for the flight test instrument packages that were in the bomb bay:

 

 

The orange colour of the thermal blanket will spice up the otherwise monotone finish on XR220.

 

The bits that are above the bogie beam are the hop damper strut (below the torsion links) plus the forward brake compensation link and the bogie beam rotation jack (the reddish silver part). The aft brake compensation link is hidden behind the hop damper strut in that photo. I have no knowledge of this stuff, that's just what they're labelled in the drawing!  

 

 

The exhaust nozzles are attached to the empennage which has in turn been added to the fuselage. The fit here is not terrible, considering the cross-sectional profile of this piece, and the corresponding fuselage profile made from several different pieces, it's surprisingly good. Besides, I like putty.

 

Cheers,

Bill