Vought XF6U-1 Pirate prototype - converted Admiral 1/72

[John R]

When Vought designed their first jet fighter, a simple design with straight wings which first flew in October 1946, they must have thought that the only problems would be those associated with the new method of propulsion. In fact almost everything went wrong. Performance, particularly on take-off, with the J34 was abysmal and led to it being fitted with an afterburner which then required a redesign of the rear fuselage and, for the production version a longer front fuselage. There were many aerodynamic problems which required wing TE fillets, tail LE fillets and no less than 6 different versions of the tail.

It was a most undistinguished a/c but I felt that I ought to have one in my collection of early jets.

What follows is a warning that persons of a faint hearted or gentle disposition should not try this at home!

 

I think that the model was almost as much trouble as the original a/c. I wanted one in the original configuration but none was available. Then Admiral brought out a kit of the ‘early’ F6U-1 which supposedly could be built as one of the prototypes which had the afterburner and final tail assembly. I made a start on it but ran into several problems. The fuselage halves were a very bad fit and required inserts to keep them aligned as one would for a vacform. There was trouble getting the fuselage and wings aligned but it all came to a halt when it came to assembling the tail and finlets. The tailplanes were warped and unevenly moulded so it seemed that there was little chance of a satisfactory outcome so it ended up on the shelf of doom. A contributing factor was the announcement by Prop & Jet that a model of the original version was in the works so it seemed sensible to wait for that as I have a very high regard for their products.

Alas the Prop & Jet version never appeared and an email to them elicited the information that work on it had stopped due to the economic situation in Russia so thoughts turned to restarting mine. However reading one of Tommy Thomason’s Tailhook Topics blogs revealed that the kit was in error in that the XF6U-1 version had the longer front fuselage, whereas the actual a/c had the original (shorter) version so I decided to try to use the kit to build a model of the first prototype.First task was to build a new back end and one thing was immediately apparent. There appeared to be no information about its shape and the thrustline obviously differed between the prototype and afterburning versions. There was only one thing to do and that was to consult the Oracle – Tommy Thomason (aka Tailspin Turtle). He provided much of the information that made this project possible and deserves a round of applause.

The back end was made from planking over formers and sanded to shape with only a side view as a guide. The rather complex shape came out naturally as I worked it into what looked like a streamlined form. The only real problem was finding the shape of the underside of the tail cone as there were no clear photos of it. I settled for a flat ‘V’ section which gave the right shape where it met the jet exhaust. For the jetpipe the back end was built around a tube into which was inserted another section of tube which carried the bullet fairing which can just be seen in some photos.

The front end was shortened by cutting out a section just ahead of the wing. A new canopy was made to match the smaller one fitted to the prototype. When fitting the canopy it became apparent that the two halves of the fuselage had different cross sections where the front of the canopy sat and this had to be rectified with Milliput. The gun ports were drilled out. The dorsal fin was removed and the fin made smaller and reshaped.

The fillets where the wing trailing edge met the fuselage were removed. The intakes were tidied up and boundary layer off takes fitted.

The strakes at the leading edge of the tailplane were removed and some sanding done to remove the uneven moulding of the parts.

Just when I thought that everything had been sorted out I discovered a couple of other problems. The u/c legs were far too long. I think that they had been made to match the fully extended version and the decals were not right for my version as they had the red bars. Infuriatingly the instructions showed a version with the red bars as an optional extra. Fortunately Hannants had a suitable set.

The model was finished using Humbrol Authentic Sea Blue Gloss. I don’t know how old it was but it went on without trouble.

 

Panel lines, except for the tail, are muted because the actual a/c had a very smooth finish due to the method of construction. It used  'Metalite' - two sheets of aluminium sandwiching a balsa core.

 

 

 

 

 

As usual - comments, criticism and extra information welcome

John

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Great looking results considering  all of the problems you list. 

[jean]

Gee,

your build is absolutely fantastic, but it reads like a litany of horrors!

Congrats for persevering to the bitter end. It was definitely worth it.

 

JR

[invidia]

Great looking model after the battle you had building it.

[Dennis_C]

That's what is called true modelling! Prototype research, scratchbuilding, fighting nasty kit... And the result is simply outstanding!

[TonyW]

A good looking model from a very interesting period in aviation history.

 

Congratulations on beating it into submission!

[72modeler]

Wow- it sounded like it was a real dogfight (Pardon the pun!) but the result looks like it was worth it. Very nice build and it's more handsome than the "production" versions, I think. I totally agree that TT is an awesome reference person and always very generous with his knowledge...I wonder how many finished models he has had a hand in helping  bring to completion? You're a real model builder, not an assembler, John! What's next- an XF10F Jaguar. perhaps?

Mike

[John R]

On 28/03/2018 at 4:25 PM, 72modeler said:

Wow- it sounded like it was a real dogfight (Pardon the pun!) but the result looks like it was worth it. Very nice build and it's more handsome than the "production" versions, I think. I totally agree that TT is an awesome reference person and always very generous with his knowledge...I wonder how many finished models he has had a hand in helping  bring to completion? You're a real model builder, not an assembler, John! What's next- an XF10F Jaguar. perhaps?

Mike

Thank you. Glad you and all the others liked it. With the inevitable SNAFUs it was actually rather harder than I made it sound, but there is only so much you can write without making people want to end it all!

One of my fellow modellers around here suggested that it was time for something like a Tamiya product without any research or references so I am going ahead with a Modelsvit Mirage 4000

I do have a Cutlass XF7U-1 that's been somewhere on the workbench for ages and an XF10F in the stash.

Edited April 10, 2018 by John R
typo

[kapam]

Very nice job.

Thanks for the introductory facts about its development, as it is not a plane I know well.

[stever219]

That is a beautiful rendition of a very obscure subject.  It’s also a snapshot of, IIRC, a very brief moment in US Navy aviation after the Second World War when “Navy” titles weren’t carried.  Although the early Pirates were marked like your model later prototypes and the few production examples completed did wear them.

 

I remember reading of the XF6U in an issue of Air International back in the mid-seventies and being impressed with the (apparent) simplicity of its design.  The account of Vought’s troubles in building it was somewhat brief.  There’s a stunningly badly-written account somewhere on the internet (youtube) which goes into a little more detail about some aspects, for instance the aeroplanes being built in Vought’s original factory, being dismantled, trucked to another factory (whose runway was too short to operate the jets from) to be reassembled, then dismantled again and trucked to an airfield for final reassembly and eventual test flying.

[Robert]

Excellent work on the Pirate and getting it to the finish line.

 

Robert

[Tailspin Turtle]

22 hours ago, 72modeler said:

What's next- an XF10F Jaguar. perhaps?

Mike

If so, this might be of assistance: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2012/06/xf10f-pictures.html

[John R]

Thanks Tommy. I had already got that one bookmarked. Also Navy Birds WIP of the same a/c. All I need is the guts to face it and resist all the all the other kits/ideas/ambitions clamouring for attention.

Do you have a blog on the XFJ-1 by any chance. I have a Siga kit of one and think that it looks simple enough not to cause too much anguish and it will make athreesome with the Pirate and FH-1 Phantom

John

[Tailspin Turtle]

2 hours ago, John R said:

Do you have a blog on the XFJ-1 by any chance. I have a Siga kit of one and think that it looks simple enough not to cause too much anguish and it will make athreesome with the Pirate and FH-1 Phantom

John

I haven't done a post on the XFJ-1 yet since it was not very different from the production airplanes. That said, I know that they had parallelogram-actuated speed brakes in the wings like the Banshee instead of fuselage speed brakes (at some point early on in flight test, one side of the wing-mounted brakes reportedly came out and the other didn't, causing an attention-getting yaw and roll, so they were deleted and the fuselage speed brakes adopted) and the aft fuselage just above the tailpipe opening is different. They also don't appear to have those vents in the side of the fuselage. I'll work something up in the near future. Have you noted any other differences?

[John R]

I must admit that I really have not done any research into it yet. This post by Sabrejet shows a dimensioned three view and a drawing showing the aribrakes. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235021672-north-american-xp-86/

I have had a quick look at a few photos since your post and the only thing I noticed was the aft fuselage item you mentioned. Thanks for pointing that out

John

 

[John R]

There has been a minor tweek to the original post. I have revised the rather crude looking main u/c jack.  It still does not bear much resemblance to the actual a/c as information on the gear is almost non-existent.