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Tupolev Tu-22 Blinder - pictures of bomb bay?


Paul A H

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I picked up a copy of the Italeri rerelease of Esci's Blinder in my local model shop this morning. I know it's not a particularly accurate kit, but I think it captures the look of the Blinder well enough... and anyway it's such a fine looking aeroplane... and it's a pretty nice kit with subtly recessed panel lines... and it was only £24.99 compared to £33.50 at Hannants...

Anyway, does anyone have, or know where I can find, any pictures of the Blinder's bomb bay? I'd like to build it loaded up with conventional bombs, with the bay doors open.

Thanks

Paul

Edited by Paul A H
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Paul, Hate to put you off but it's wildly innaccurate and needs a fair bit of tweaking to get right!.I'm building one at the moment using a lot of scratch building and resin parts from a now defunct Czech company, (can't recall the name offhand). The resin includes a 2 inch fuselage plug just in front of the wings, where the natural join is, as the kit is way too short, the wings are too wide chord wise and should be set with 5 degrees anhedral, wing fences way too small, engines in the wrong place, undercarriage pure fiction etc, etc etc..

If you'd like to pm me I'll list all the errors and you can decide what you want to fix or not, or of course leave it as it is!! I realise that not everyone is as anal about these aircraft as me so please excuse the rant!!....

I've got a wealth of info on the Blinder and Backfire so I'll have a look for anything on the bombay...if you can get hold of Sergey Burdins excellent book on the Blinder there is a photo of the bombay on page 90. Basically think the kit parts with lots of ribbing and two main spars running across the roof span wise...and you get the idea...the bombs are too small unfortunately..

Biggest problem though is that the nose whilst accurate is for the Blinder K or KD version which were strictly missile carriers, if you are to put bombs on it you need a new sharper more pointed nose that was fitted to the TU-22 R and P versions !!.( this is included in the resin set I mentioned). There are a lot of problems but none of them insurmountable..

Sorry to be so negative but I am a bit passionate about this aircraft and sadly it's an awful kit, made long before much was readily available on the aircraft....hopefully Amodel will come to the rescue at some point!! ( though a good basis for something a lot better.. :winkgrin: )...

:cheers:

Andy

Ken Duffeys site is good for reference, I'm sure he wont mind me showing this, although it doesn't show the interior you get the idea of how the doors look...

tu22-15.jpg

Some pics of work on my Blinder so far, very much a work in progress....this has taken over 5 months to date, mostly corrective surgery!.......undercarriage is finished, this will be a KPD escort radar jammer when finished, hence the ECM bumps on the sides of the forward fuselage..,this version doesn't carry the AS-4 missile or bomb load or have the extended ECM tail cone..

All the areas you see in primer have been rebuilt with either resin or plasticard. the tailplanes have been modified too as the kit parts are too big and in completely the wrong place...

P1060350.jpg

P1060353.jpg

P1060351.jpg

Worst part of the kit, the engines are too far apart and must be bought back together, a very time consuming job!!..the engines inf fact need to be turned round and about 2 cms removed from the rear as they are too long ....!!.also a new vent pipe must be fitted between them .. it's never ending :o

P1060355.jpg

P1060352.jpg

Edited by general melchett
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Paul, Hate to put you off but it's wildly innaccurate and needs a fair bit of tweaking to get right!.I'm building one at the moment using a lot of scratch building and resin parts from a now defunct Czech company, (can't recall the name offhand). The resin includes a 2 inch fuselage plug just in front of the wings, where the natural join is, as the kit is way too short, the wings are too wide chord wise and should be set with 5 degrees anhedral, wing fences way too small, engines in the wrong place, undercarriage pure fiction etc, etc etc..

If you'd like to pm me I'll list all the errors and you can decide what you want to fix or not, or of course leave it as it is!! I realise that not everyone is as anal about these aircraft as me so please excuse the rant!!....

I've got a wealth of info on the Blinder and Backfire so I'll have a look for anything on the bombay...if you can get hold of Sergey Burdins excellent book on the Blinder there is a photo of the bombay on page 90. Basically think the kit parts with lots of ribbing and two main spars running across the roof span wise...and you get the idea...the bombs are too small unfortunately..

Biggest problem though is that the nose whilst accurate is for the Blinder K or KD version which were strictly missile carriers, if you are to put bombs on it you need a new sharper more pointed nose that was fitted to the TU-22 R and P versions !!.( this is included in the resin set I mentioned). There are a lot of problems but none of them insurmountable..

Sorry to be so negative but I am a bit passionate about this aircraft and sadly it's an awful kit, made long before much was readily available on the aircraft....hopefully Amodel will come to the rescue at some point!! ( though a good basis for something a lot better.. :winkgrin: )...

:cheers:

Andy

Ken Duffeys site is good for reference, I'm sure he wont mind me showing this, although it doesn't show the interior you get the idea of how the doors look...

Some pics of work on my Blinder so far, very much a work in progress....this has taken over 5 months to date, mostly corrective surgery!.......undercarriage is finished, this will be a KPD escort radar jammer when finished, hence the ECM bumps on the sides of the forward fuselage..,this version doesn't carry the AS-4 missile or bomb load or have the extended ECM tail cone..

All the areas you see in primer have been rebuilt with either resin or plasticard. the tailplanes have been modified too as the kit parts are too big and in completely the wrong place...

Worst part of the kit, the engines are too far apart and must be bought back together, a very time consuming job!!..the engines inf fact need to be turned round and about 2 cms removed from the rear as they are too long ....!!.also a new vent pipe must be fitted between them .. it's never ending :o

Great job on your Blinder! :speak_cool:

One day, I want to do mine as one of the reconnaissance variants.

Larry

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Thanks Andy, are you refering to the L&M resin set? I've seen this mentioned elsewhere but it seems impossible to get now. Sometimes a kit is so innacurate that it puts you off buying it, but in this case it's such a fantastic looking aeroplane that I couldn't resist! I'm in two minds whether to try to correct all the errors or not. One half of me thinks "hell, it was only £25, go for it" and the other half thinks "hell, it was only £25, just build it oob and enjoy it!" I have to say I'm leaning towards the oob approach at the moment because:

1) correcting it would be such a massive job and I know my attention span probably won't got the distance; and

2) as you say, perhaps someone will make a more accurate version one day. Maybe even Trumpeter will have a stab at it...

I have a spare Kh-22 missile somewhere, so I might just try to recess that into the fuselage. That would at least solve the problem with the nose...!

You have my respect for your efforts so far though!

Edited by Paul A H
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Thanks Paul, just trying to give you an idea of how much is needed to correct the thing, having said that it makes up into a nice kit if done OOB!!

Yep, the set is the old L & M one, took me ages to find it, had to dig deep into the Czexh republic to locate one...( wish I'd made a few masters off it now ...Oh well , hindsight !!!)...and it's really necessary to add the required length to the kit, though again it could be quite easily scratch built if you feel up to it...

Cheers Larry, there were quite a few variants of the old Blinder.....not bad going for an aircraft the aircrews widely dreaded and dubbed ..unflyable...Until the advent of the Backfire it was the only game in town...

If reports are correct the crews found the Reece versions a lot more 'pleasant' to fly than the missile carriers, mainly due to the mission profile which required the reece birds to fly at higher altitude than the ground skimming KD's.

The R's would require a longer thinner nose and some of the earlier versions had different engines which had slimmer nacelles...

How about this for a scheme!!!

Cheers now,

Andy...

1404147.jpg

If you compare these shots you can see the difference between the noses of the recon/bomber version above ( this is actually a PD radar jamming variant) and the Missile carrying KD below..

1240765.jpg

Edited by general melchett
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No worries Andy, I appreciate the heads up. I managed to order a copy of the Sergey Burdin book from Ian Allen for a bargain £8.99, so I'll have a good nose through that before cutting plastic (thanks for the tip, btw).

I'm off to apply another coat of gloss white to my 1/72 Revell (Dragon) Su-24M now - building this one in 'wild weasel' configuration with Kh-58 missiles and a fantasmagorya pod cunningly fashioned from a Hawker Hunter drop tank... :whistle:

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Not sure if the General turned me on to it or if it was someone else, but there is a cool YouTube video clip of one at low level, Frying the proverbial chickens in the barnyard.

I too heard the plane was a B$%%^y pig to fly. Very high stick forces, IIRC. Not even sure if it had an artificial feel system.

david

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Hi David, yes twas I, you mean this one ?, not great quality but gets the juices flowing ....... Just look at the third flypast of the single KD...............How low can you go !!!!! :analintruder:

It had artificial feel only in certain regimes..there was an override but most experienced pilots chose to fly it manually at these heights even with the high stick forces!!...mad!!!

Melchie...

Edited by general melchett
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1240765.jpg

This is the version you're building, ain't it, Melchie? It's coming out real nice, General! What scale is it? Is it from Italeri or ESCI?

Edit:

Just look at the third flypast of the single KD...............How low can you go !!!!! :analintruder:

I know some Russian; from what I understood, there is a little kid shouting in fright just before the third flyby. Next you can hear the voice of a grown-up man speaking in Russian who says: "That jock's licence should be void; he just gave my son a heart attack...!!!" :rofl:

Edited by Uncle Uncool
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Hi Uncle, not quite, the pic is of a KD and I'm doing a KPD radar jammer. Basically it's the same but has the P or R bombay (no missile) and a few extra bumps and aerials around the forward fuselage. Yes it's the Revell/ESCI kit...( well what's left of it ;) )

I know some Russian; from what I understood, there is a little kid shouting in fright just before the third flyby. Next you can hear the voice of a grown-up man speaking in Russian who says: "That jock's licence should be void; he just gave my son a heart attack...!!!" rofl.gif

Somehow that doesn't surprise me.!!!!...just wish I'd been there, these are 121 TBAP KD Blinders and the footage was taken at Machulishchi air base, near Minsk, Belarus ....................apparently this was operational proceedure, with flights cleared down to 250 feet, (although the lowest recorded was 50 feet!!) the ultimate terrain following. The pilots rather trusting there own skills at this level than the TFR system .Surprisingly there were few accidents !

Is this the same kit as the ESCI?

Paul, yep one and the same...

Melchie....

Edited by general melchett
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Anyway, does anyone have, or know where I can find, any pictures of the Blinder's bomb bay? I'd like to build it loaded up with conventional bombs, with the bay doors open.
I have something for you with a hundred of closeup pictures for you.
  • Click HERE for a Tupolev Tu-22 Blinder walkaround
  • Click HERE for a Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire walkaround
  • Click HERE for a Tupolev Tu-22KD Backfire walkaround

I also send some additional pics for the weapons ejector:

tu22m_02.jpg

tu22m_03.jpg

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Looking good on those alterations there!

Being vaguely aware of the issues I did mine OOB anyway...

tu22pic3.jpg

While there's interest in picking up a 2nd copy to make a go* at the alterations I'm pretty sure I don't have the skills for it yet.

As it's a simple kit there's something to be said for adding accuracy to add 'fun'. Hopefully Trumpeter will follow up the Backfire with a new tooling, it's one of the cooliest looking birds from the cold war imo.

*ruin it horribly with butchery

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Nice video Andy, I never get tired of watching low flying jets - especially this one and the Tu-22M-3

Thanks for the links Nick, looks a good site.

Stebos your Blinder looks... well, blinding!

Here is my WIP Su-24M - I've tried to convey the weathered look on this one from the start (pre and post-shaded) as the real things can get filthy. The SEAD loadout is inspired by news reports that Fencers were used in this configuration in the recent conflict with Georgia. The KH-58s are in the paint shop!

fencerwip.jpg

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That looks great Steve, as I say OOB it makes up into a really nice model, I just wanted to go the extra mile. Funny thing, I've made 3 of these now, all heavily modified, and not one finished!!.......However I'm determined to get this one done...those new Revell 'fire breathing dragon' decals are just crying out to be used!!. I personally hope Amodel get there first, as they are so very accurate where as Trumpy...well!!! :whistle: , having said that if Trumpeter do as good a job on a Blinder as they have on the Backfire then I for one will be very happy, (and a bit miffed after all this!!)...

Paul, the Fencer looks spot on, great paint job, look forward to seeing it finished and all bombed up.......menacing looking aircraft!! : :wicked:

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I have something for you with a hundred of closeup pictures for you.
  • Click HERE for a Tupolev Tu-22 Blinder walkaround
  • Click HERE for a Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire walkaround
  • Click HERE for a Tupolev Tu-22KD Backfire walkaround

I also send some additional pics for the weapons ejector:

tu22m_02.jpg

tu22m_03.jpg

Awesome thanks for posting those links!! I am about to be knee deep in my Trumpy TU-22M2 and those shots come in very handy.

Also, I am due to receive some nice Russian FAB bomb masters to load up your 1/72 Russian hardware. :)

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Awesome thanks for posting those links!! I am about to be knee deep in my Trumpy TU-22M2 and those shots come in very handy.

Also, I am due to receive some nice Russian FAB bomb masters to load up your 1/72 Russian hardware. :)

I'm sure they'll turn out fab (he he). Any chance of a FAB 1500?

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