TheBaron

Foul evening here, gale and rain on the eves but a good fire lit in the front room to toast the hooves at whilst writing. The rotor hub is finished, mail first though. Thanks on all counts Pete. Put the rubber on my snubber earlier.... Does sound like something sassy and street out of the jazz era doesn't it? Cheers Chris: same to you mate. Most kind Steve: one endeavours to give satisfaction to the learned audience on here, knowing what they themselves are capable of. Exactly Bill. Using an axis (dotted line below) as a construction feature, it has no volume, so doesn't appear as a object. Useful for generating a circular pattern of objects for things like bolts, rotor hinges & etc., or for revolving a flat profile drawing to create things like a tyres or other cylindrical features: In Scotland you aren't allowed to refer to Joanie Love Chachi by its title on superstitious grounds; instead it must be referred to as 'the Illinoisan play'.... The flappiong hinges needed finishing before the hub and these in themsevelves have several layers of detail to take into account top and bottom. Undereneath there is this trefoil plate and bolt for example: - along with on top another couple of superimposed plates and the drum shape of the damper pack. On print orientation/support ground sI kept the hinge and damper pack as two separate parts , so added a locating peg and hole to help with construction later on: I'll also use some brass tube to fix the flapping hinges onto the central spider: The hub spider incororates a significant number of defining features so the above parts had to be as exact as possible in shape and proportion, primarily due to the curved junction between the arms and their bevelled edges, which have to follow the curves all the way around both top: - and bottom: The it was time to add the hinges back in to check the overall set of shapes against each other: With that looking Ok, it was on to drawing some profiles along the snubber strut to create its shock-absorbing materials: This was followed by another duplication around the central axis to create the other three set of snubber-rubbers: As with the damper packs/flapping links, for printing/support purposes a square hole was added in the bottom of the hub spider for the top of the transmission to fit into during assembly: All of that then fitting in turn onto the main transmission shaft: The next set of jobs then are in a similar vein, adding the rather agricultural looking forging of the pitch change arms to the left side of each flapping link, followed by the spider arms angling down from them to those rubbers sleeves at the base of the transmission. Rendered views of the current status to end on then: Put the Ferroro Rocher down. You'll spoil your tea. Tony

Good afternoon gang and hoping this finds you taking your ease. I was considering a virtuous walk earlier, but a combination of rising NW winds and the Atlantic Ocean in sublimated form: - put that off for a while and I headed into the studio for a bit more hub activity instead. Speaking of which... 😁 I've only ever seen the play once, in London in the late 80s, and still have the programme: If I recall, the helicopter maintenance sequence was a bold innovation that divided the critics... Who I immediately got confused with Scott Baio, star of that dramatic masterpiece: Joanie Love Chachi.... 🤮 Picturing you recovered... 😁 https://youtu.be/AuV3ohoEM6Q Thanks Giorgio & Ian, hope you're both getting a chance to relax. If it's a ny consolation Bill that's me every time I start up Fusion! 🤖 In discovering that robot I also discovered a 🍠 sweet potato emoji in the forum software and...just...what possible modelling circumstance warrants use of it? Mine too Alan! Fond memories of it turning upon on those late-night horror double-bills BBC2 used to run on Saturday nights in the late 70s. One of my greatest cinematic thrills would be to rock up to a drive-in movie theatre somewhere in Nevada that had a triple-bill of Them!, It Came From Outer Space, and The Thing From Another World running continuosuly throughout the night.. All made within three years of each other and still superb. You too mucker. Socks 'n all. 🤝 Isn't it Simon.? I like to think of it as just another strand in an ongoing process, which makes you think: Gawd knows what the next one will be after this! You too Adrian.!🤝 It's from that old Ealing Studios comedy: 'Highland Midges Galore!' A revisitation with fresh eyes had me back modifying the first iteration of the dag link/rotor hinge assembly, as there was even more going on structurally than previously interpreted: Essentially I pulled everything back on the timeline to the original blank for the hinge and then redrafted the subsequent designs and profiles leading outward from it. One of several reasons for this is the presence of a diagonal 'snubber strut' (effectively a shock absorber running at right-angles betwen the flapping links) - which you can see displayed in this rather fine angle of a Scout rotor head here: Image credit: Vertical Flight Society Reasoning that this feature was at 45° to the rotor axis but needing to be aure my designs were coherent, I temporarily duped the parts around the vertical transmission axis and mocked up a snubber to test the hypothesis: Those angles all look pretty good to me from above - and below, the blanks to fill in are plain to see ⤵️ Next time out I can hop back a few places on the timeline in order to block in all the missing features between the existing sides of the flapping/drag link assembly, and then complete the snubber and bases for the rotors before joining the whole assembly together as one (though with hub and hinges separate parts of course). My mind has - unsurprisingly - been exercised recently with how I'm actually going (be able) to display the rotors on the finished the model. As this is a visual replica rather than a fully-articulated engineering model, I face the same problem of any modeller in any material in terms of how far it is feasible to go down the parth of articulating various parts. In terms of having the main rotors posable between fully open and folded back into the (is it Forth or Severn bridge in slang?) clamp structure, it should be no problem to have the rotors foldable outboard of the blade extension. Where the real problems begin though are with the fact that two of the four baldes also have to angle downwards as well back, problematically requiring with two of the four spider arms to move in the vertical (in the same manner as when changing blade pitch), rather than remaining fixed. It may be possible to do something clever in brass but equally possible I may not be clever enough to do it. I'll have a look anyway. The other related issue in long, thin as the main blades is always going to be strength, in terms of both their inherent thin-ness and the concomitant need to model them with a varying droop along their length. Some time ago I noted a sentence in the Flight article that may contain a solution: If the rotors are thick enough I may well be able to design a hollow tunnel down the length of that D section into which a length of brass tube can be slipped for strength, in the manner of a wing spar. Printing droopy rotors will not be a great idea from the support point-of-view but printed straight, I know the resin can be softened enough in hot water and then shaped to the required droop on a jig. Sounds simple enough... 🙄🧖‍♂️ Two things to work out then. I hope you all got some nice pressies? Nothing modelling related here (unless you can count a warm jumper for cold days in the studio) but from Mrs B this absolute unit of a book from Cork University Press, which I'd coveted to the point of sin since it was first published: 890+ page about nothing but the outrageous confusions of water and land... More anon, peanut intak permitting....

Only one permissible response to the astonishing of this model Anthony: *inserts <peak experience> emoji and spontaneously plays 'Ode to Joy' on Stylophone.

Absolutely! This model radiates the precision going into it Tom.

Handsome looking work around that cockpit area Simon.: that masking looks particularly sharp!

You - and only you - could make rubber matting production an Olymic sport Alan. Those are simply marvelllous and look even beter in situ. Have a righteous holiday my friend, you've earned it. 🎄 In a camping vehicle? Who ever heard of such a thing?

Local radio is dismal in this neck of the woods so I frequently surf niche radio stations on the internet whilst working. Tonight's stream is a Canadian radio station broadcasting Snowmageddon warnings in between Otis Redding tracks, religious quotations and adverts for local companies which never mention what they do/sell. The presenter sounds like Principal Skinner and they just cut to a reporter outside for a roads report and all you could hear was the wind. It's just brilliant. 🤣 Typically in the week running up to Christmas, it's been a week of forgotten tasks intruding on the things you really want to do, but I have at least broken the ice now on getting started with the main rotors this evening. More on that in a minute after a word from the sponsors... It's dead handy Ian and not a little fun to pay with as well! The only drawback is it not being a parametric process so you have do have to linearly undo back to the point the job went wrong rather than hop along a timeline. That said it's no great inconvenience. Dammit Pete that sounds awful. Best wishes that you're recovered for the weekend festivities. 🫂 Probably something ignominious involving dung-collection or quicklime knowing my luck Bill. I'm sorry I had to stop at this point helpless with laughter- this radio station has become pure-bred Partridge. They just cut to a local sherriff to talk about road safety who promptly delivered a stream of consciousness with no gaps between the words and there was a stunned silence from the studio before the anchor came back on with a rather forced: 'Thank-YOU for those words!' Cheers Ron. 😁 Uncanny... Giving Sam Beckettt a run for his money I fancy now Mark. 😁 Grazie mille Giorgio. 😄 Before cracking on to the main hub I finished the transmission shaft immediately below it by slicing off the topmost section in order to turn it into a separate part with a square peg to locate it into position correctly: Why? Well simply because there's no way of clipping the brass weight rods that run between it and the spider arm mounts below into place without damaging something, so this way those arms can be added and held in place by the top plate of the transmission. Ok: you'll be busy with your own holiday preparations so in brief, the main rotor hub is a quite complicated beast when viewed in detail. What from a distance looks like a relatively simple mixture of hub and rotors soon dis-integrates into a complext suite of forgings and parts leading from the central hub spider out to the flapping links and utlimately the blade extensions themselves. Add into this things like pitch change arms, dampers and snubber struts and some baroque machined insets and there's lots of fun to be had here. The one thing to avoid is pitching headfirst down the rabbit-hole of detail on a single section but instead, to block out the broad outlines of each feature first. Putting this maxim into practise means building just a single arm of the spider hub and associated flapping link, before going on later to duplicate it three more times around the central axis once you've gotten everything correct. Pretty unexcitingly this means starting off with a basic box shape at one of the four stations: After hitting it with a hammer a few times it then ended up looking like this: Well, it didn't end up like that straight away; this was about the fourth version as each time I thought I'd gotten it correct, I'd notice something in a neighbouring image that contradicted matters. Luckily there was a detailed labelled engineering drawing of the hub region in Ciastula's original article on the P.531, so this was a godsend in terms of undertanding the range of parts involed in this region in a way that photos alone can't reveal to the uninitiated i.e., yours truly. The two protrusions on the above are (if I've understood matters correctly) the larger one at bottom the droop stop, with the smaller one at top the flapping stop. With that roughed out, I then began to build up the intial parts for the hinge pin an d flapping link: These too took a lot of puzzling out from different angles in order to understand what was going on shapewise: Although I fully expect to have to go back several times to tweak the outlines and proprtions of the existing work here, having both those sides in place means I can get on with the job of building outwards along the drag link to the blade extension. There's a lot going on in this region in terms of details and bolts and things and then on top are those Camping Gaz-like protrusions of the damper packs. Not until I've got a single viable set of designs for all this will I start the process of duplicating these items around the centre axis to compete the cruciform design of the hub. I won't be posting anything for a few days so until next time, have a great holiday, keep warm, wear the novelty socks with pride and generally over-indulge at every opportunity. I leave you with the stunning sunset on the solstice just gone: Take care of yourelves, Tony

Please let me know when your family memoirs are collated in book form Edward - I shall be amongst the first to request a copy signed by the author. Can confirm this situation not infrequently exists at university level as well, just to cheer you up saving for fees...

Ah CC you've had a Tempestuous time of it there but carried through with your stoical humour as always - I agree with Giorgio about the wisdom of your decision. Sometimes a setback is just a detour to something better looking! Happy a Christmas to you as well, hope you're off the road and getting a chance to put your feet up.

Congratulations Mark. Superb piece of work.

Sorry to hear of the dodgy fetlock dear xenomorph but glad you're following advice and resting up. Quite frankly the thought of you with a plastic boot made me think: 'I give it two weeks tops before he attaches a gondola and fins to it...' Take care of yourself.

More of your quality modifications Jerzy - and a pleasure to witness the transformation. Lovely work.

What a wonderful finish! (In every sense of the phrase Mark). The colours/variations on both aircraft are superb.

Almost the winter solstice and my favourite day of the year when you get to hang out in darkness for the maximum length of time.... By contrast, this spry trio appear on the power ine at the end of the garden evey morning at sunrise to revel in the first rays: That fella in the middle I call Ivor, after Ivor Cutler. He constantly hunches down amongst the others as if telling a tall story out the side of his beak. I don't know how anyone can consider birds like rooks or starlings 'common'; such dark jewels in the light and so abundant in character when watched for any length of time. Speaking of uncommon birds.... Bloke down the garden centre told me this was a genuine Nimbus part but I have my doubts... There's still room for plenty of fun on those Avons with tiny lengths of wire Giorgio! 😁 Ah Pete I sincerely hope the pipes have cleared now my friend. There's a nasty non-CV like flu doing the rounds here too. Indeed. That reminds me - have you been watching the reccent 'Foundation' series? Am curerntly on Ep.3 and in all regards it has to be the best-looking SF film/series I've ever seen! I believe this dates us both to the Caroline Munro period when it comes to timekeeping Pete.... I'd like to pretend that this is the typical result of a highly-ordered and logical mind Ian but truth be told I have to do it like this in order that I'll be able to recollect later on how it all goes together! Mother of God but this forum sound weird when read out aloud. That sounds like a sentence Mervyn Peake would have been proud of. Romney Marsh? Just the name makes me think of you wrapped in a cape out walking a perpetually sea-fog shrouded landscape to the blare of foghorns. That's probably not entirely accurate a view of the place is it Chris.... I refer you to my previous reply Mark... That's either a line from Samuel Johnson or an episode of Petrocelli, I'm not sure which Steve... 😄 Just a straightforward smartphone shot with a Xaomi Note 10 Pro, shot with manual control to expose for the highlights. Much cheaper device than an iPhone and superior image quality from its camera than Apple's in many situations. Progress has continued to be slow of late due to both tiredness and the need to spend inordinate periods of time staring at Wasp main rotor details. Prior to heading up that particular hill I noticed a component which I'd overlooked on the rear of the turbine governor, in the form of this irregularly shaped pump-type thingy: I think it's something to do with the fuel system and connects to the side of the torquemeter there at upper left in the image. on the forward facing side of it there's also a couple of connections to the electrical system: Also visible in the above are the various sockets the have been modified to have pipework added to them from metal wire/tubing during assembly due their diameters falling below the ability to print reliably. Same goes for these conenctions on top of and to the rear of torquemeter: Additionally I didn't want to embark upon building the main rotor transmission and rotor blade controls without at least a working understanding of how these respective parts are articulated in terms of interacting with each other. After poring over manual drawings cross-referenced to video footage for longer than I care to recollect (what a hobby!), I started with the conical shaft that houses the main rotor transmission: I bulit this as a shell rather than a solid initially, for reasons that will become clear with the addition of the spider. To ensure accuracy I also made sure that Nimbus, MRGB and cabin features were turned on to help judge height and scale. You can also see above that I'd added a pretty hefty axle to the bottom of the transmission shaft at this stage so that the whole rotor blade assembly can sit securely enough inside the MRGB whilst being rotated: You can see below why I started out with that tower shape as a basic shell - there needs to be space inside there for the spider piston and associated rods which control the pitch of the rotor blades: The wall thicknesses there are just over 0.7mm so should prove more than adequate in terms of structural strength. If anything at this stage I'm more concerend about the combined weight of the MRGB and main rotors sitting on the support structures which bolt it all to the deck... For printing purposes, the ribbed rubber mouldings for those spider openings need to be separate entities, so have a corresponding locating peg in the rear to assist with assembly later on: These parts were by by necessity sculpted in the 'Forms' environment - rather than done up as parametric drawings - so that all the folds and sags could be added to reproduce the effects of gravity on the flexible material: Although this is just the same part repeated four times around the central axis, I sculpted the profiles asymmetrically in order that they would look different from each viewing angle. A slightly prettier rendered version of same: The spiders themselves have to remain in abeyance until further details have been added first, in the form of compensator flyweights and their associated pitching-moment rods. There are two of these, one on either side of the rotor shaft, and turned out to be a rather lengthy job to finish due to the nature of the parts and ways in which they are angled and connected together as a working structure. If in doubt, start with mounting bracket and build out: Thendownwards to make the flyweight structures: Then adding in the mounting fixture for the control rod, with the angled bracket done up as brass PE for strength: Lastly adding in the flexible rubber moulding for the base of the flyweight rods (same scultpting process as that used on the spider arms): Again for strength, the flyweight rods will be made from brass tubing. I can't remember if that diameter is 0.7 or 0.6mm but either way it should help with structural integrity. The whole kit & caboodle to finish: I'll just keep steadily picking away at this structure over the Christmas period and avoid thinking about what to build the rotor blades out of for as long as possible... Out photographing Jupiter in the frosts during the week, with the neighbour's Christmas lighting giving what can only be described as a Marge Simpson hair-colour vibe to the trees... I have to go braise some fennel now. Take care until next time. Tony

Why does this look so pleasing in its own right? I mean there is so much miniature-marvellous going on in this thread to begin with that even a seemingly less-dramatic view like this is somehow just as compelling a view of the aircraft. Phantom it may be but that feels most 'real' to look at.

Habitual exceller as well as accelerator if you ask me. That last photograph just radiates quality.

Brass simians ain't it? Our youngest drove us down to the village first thing this morning to get the tyres on Mrs. B's car sorted and this was the scene at the back of Fergus' yard: The lake behind the yard well-frozen-in at this stage and a weirdly agricultural S&M vibe from tractor tyres... Telegrams first (Sam): Oooh you're good! One simply has to wiv an audience of this quality Peter. 😁 😄 It's a tough old station this modelling lark isn't it?. Clearly there are lots of of us around Anthony who unconsciusly believe: 'Life's not complicated enough already - I need an abstruse and obsessive activity to keep me out of trouble....' You are most welcome. Pretty sure she'd find it enjoyable Terry. Often too busy in the summer to make touring around a completely enjoyable experience but one of those places that has a singular charm in the Autumn/Winter months. 🤣 Brilliant! Am willing to be corrupted by corporate money if needs be Dave.... 😁 (Thanks for your kind sentiments). Saw in the news that you had a tad of the white stuff this morning down in that corner of the world Chris. Hope you didn't have to go out too far afield in it? It's why I have such an angelic* singing voice Giorgio! *If Tom Waits was a particularly laryngitic and atonal angel... 🎼 'It's beginning to look a lot like Chistmas' 🎶 😄 Almost have the oil system completed now - at least in terms of what can reproduced in printed resin form. I've been using 0.45mm ⌀ as a minimum value for all those oil pipes that I think it might be possible to get away with as a viable solution in terms of strength and flexibility. A good few of the pipes are thicker than this of course but I'm prepared for the eventuality that some of the smaller ones may not work out in printed form due to their length and fragility: it's just one of those situations where you have to see how far you can push a process and adapt accordingly if it doesn't work out. If nothing else, it will provide a data point for others working in similar situations. The last main engine-oil run involves getting from this feature at the rear of the oil tank here: - back as far as these holes in the top of the distribution block above the torquemeter inside the exhaust fork: You can see below that two pipes run back from that distribution block at the rear of the oil tank: - the top one leading to an oil stariner fitting on top of the turbine casing: - with its counterpart snaking back and down between the exhausts: Prematurely congratulating myself on getting that done I promptly noticed on the schematic an additional and more complicated run leading down fro mthe forward block to oil pump #1 🙄: Although there are one or two more bits of oily-pipery around that front region of the Nimbus, these appear so well concealed in photographs that I'm not going to turn this into a joyless piece of pedantry and reproduce everything - partly to avoid tedium but primarily because I feel at this stage that the oil system has actually gotten to the limits of being a buildable set of physical features later on. In terms of pipework up at the rear that is just too narrow in diameter for printing, I've created a series of mounting holes in various features in order to reproduce narrower pipework from 0.2/0.3mm wire and rod during assembly. Same goes for wiring up the thermocouples above and below the exhaust outlets: Anyway, here's the oil system for the engine in printed form, coded as integrated components for print output: And this is how they'll evenlop the engine: A couple of more mouting points for oil pipes to add to the rear and then it's on to the MRGB to add the remaining oil feeds/returns to the (currently missing) upper transmission section which all those lovely spider arms and compnsator rods stick out of: The 1964 Flight article has a decent graphic of what will be the next feature to undertake: Speaking of spiders - the local population thinking it's funny to mock my pipework.... Hot water bottles all round tonight I reckon. Stay safe friends. Tony

Outstanding work Alan: superfluous of me to say how gripping this is to watch develop but, well...it is! If you can't, nobody can. (And you will of course...)

Wow: those look absolutely fabulous Jerzy!

Took a quick look online and Solidworks seems to have T-Splines as well Alan? I reckon Steve's on the money with the above - or if you're as lazy as me just draw the vertical bellows profile and use the 'Sweep' function around a rectangular path to do it in one go. Then get all fabulous weaking out fabric folds at line and point level.... Loving the tide of detail sweeping around this vehicle now!

Opportunity and energy levels have had this thread in abeyance for the past while I'm afraid, to the point where it took me a day or so to work out what I'd done last! For the same reasons I haven't gotten round to your own updates in a while so will rectify this in coming days too. Never having been there before I found myself in Killarney at the start of the week with Mrs. B for an event and found the place utterly charming; lots of dark irregular laneways spangled with Christmas lights and some fantastic seafood courtesy of Cronin's restaurant. I hadn't realized just how close the mountains were that ring the city - aided by strong tea there was the sheer pleasure of watching the city wake up from our hotel room window as the dawn clouds rolled down from the hills: Only a night there but enough to want to go back. At this stage I'm geting rather sick of the whole oil system for the Nimbus: it's such a sprawling tracery around the main core of that Nimbus that I'm convinced Bristol Siddeley missed a trick not naming the engine Laocoön instead: You'll know yourself that there is always a genuine temptation at such times to pick up a different job for variety's sake and tell yourself you'll come back to this part later: I'm pretty sure if I did that in this instance though I'd simply lose the mental map of the oil system and lack the enthusiasm to recover its details later on. Nose to the grindstone then and picking up at the oil pipe which runs from this output into the junction of the oil cooler: It seemed to be such a straightforward run that I wondered why I hadn't simply added it in last time but then I remembered that there are some components bolted to that side of the compressor casing that it has to angle around to avoid. If I borrow this image you can see what I mean: Image credit: Nye Thermodynamics Of the two compnents concerned, the lower of the one is an 'inlet guide vane actuator' whilst tucked directly above it the air filter for same. The actuator turned out to be a quite horrible mixture of lumps and bumps and protrusions: - with the airf filter not far behind in the 'most irksome' category: Part of the problem with jobs of this kind is not just the obvious of getting things to look appear as a reasonable representation of the part concerend, but also making sure youre designs incorporate a way of realistically joining all the parts together as physical entitities later on. Bristol Siddeley's approach on these occasions (much like the fuel filter over on the stbd side) seems to have been 'we'll just bolt it to a bit of folded sheet steel and job done lads', so this is my brass PE interpretation of their effort in this instance: Aside from the slots to allow the parts to be correctly registered in relation to one another, I did some fancy-schmancy design work on that rear folded section that slots into the compressor casing so that the front section folds downward to meet it at the correct (non 90 degree) angle. With that sorted out I wcould then mount the parts and build the pipe run around them: Pipes...pipes... It's bloody pipes all the way down.... Outside of a few more runs of pipework up front associated with the main rotor gearbox there's a nasty looking bunch spidering round between the exhausts at the rear but if I have a good crack at it over the course of the next week I'd like to think that can be the oil system finished with. Doubtless very cold where many of you are tonight but last evening here there were Lovecraftian phantoms rearing into view from the Western horizon: Looking over toward the Atlantic from our house there's a peculiar apricot quality to the post-sunset sky that is at its most intense at this time of year, an almost spectral quality to the reamining illumination which silhouettes any rising storm cells in quite dramatic fashion. I hope this finds you warm and content tonight. Tony

Delicious colours and textures Johnny; the yellow tonalities in that penultimate photo are just so wonderfully rich. 👏

I think that skylight is my favourite bit so far and there are exquisite enhancements going on all over the place here Alan. Have you mentioned how this is going to be displayed at the end? I'm sure I can't be alone here in hoping the work extends to folding tables/chairs and some 3d printed Highland midges....

Getting much colder here the last couple of days so that the 'intermediate woollen blend' socks have been deployed in teams of two. Whatever 'intermediate woollen' means - is that like 'we're fairly confident it was a sheep' ? Anyway, let's see what the smart set are wearing this season: You don't work for Adobe do you Adrian? Deeply kind of you Serkan. 😁 And yes, I tremble to think of the lake of resin which this will devour....! From now on a gargoyle on every support structure and the parts aligned E-W in the box.... You are a very kind man Keith. I've the next run of Vixens on printing in the background as we speak and have to get the vacformer out at the weekend to huff some more canopies into shape. The Saturn 2 printer I got back in September has certainly made a huge difference in terms of quality and workflow speed compared to what I used to produce those two builds I did myself at what you say was a geological rate! Now, would I do that to you Anthony? 1/32 may well provide the best compromise in terms of retaining maximum detail/strength on a helicopter model with this singular suite of features. Having done a couple of test-reductions last evening to examine implications of scale, shrinking the Wasp down as far as 1/48 will I'm afraid wipe out too much of the the design work which has gone into this already - in terms of both resin and brass features. Even if I had a lot of time to commit, that's not in all honesty a process which holds much appeal. Much of the unsupported pipework around the underside of that Nimbus won't reproduce in terms of structural strength as resin at 1/32 of course, but with an accurate core of printed features there would for example be plenty of scope (I won't necessarily use the word 'fun'! 😁) for custom work with plastic/metal tube and wire of the quality which you're routinely bringing to that Phantom anyway. I won't raise any hopes falsely at this early stage in proceedings; there are simply still too many variables and unforseen future issues that require careful examination before I have enough information to make a realistic decision about turning this into a 1/32 kit, at least one which I'd consider of a good enough quality and depth to share with / inflict upon others. That said, I know this helicopter enjoys enormous affection in the aviation and modelling communities, so it would be pleasant to help sustain that enthusiasm. Stay tuned is all I can say right now! That is a great site Ced - thank you! Even I could understand that Ben! (Sorry for the dispiriting vibes about 1/48 my friend) 1,622 sketches Steve... (That's the 'nervous laugh' emoji by the way, used only when you suspect this will only be a fraction of the total.) Ey, he mentioned 'the Scottish novelist'... 😁 You should see what happened when I typed 'Wasp helicopter' into an AI image engine recently! Lovely bodywork but hard to to believe that having the tail rotor built into the skid never took off as an idea isn't it? Progress being made on coding up the Tube map for printing and assembly purposes: All clear except on the District line at Earl's Court where a busker with an acoustic guitar is being attacked by a swan on Plat. 2. This is by public request. Basic idea here is that: a) I'll remember which pipe is which later on. b) To indicate which pipes/pumps should be printed as a single unit (intervening distances permitting). c) Wasp must look fabulosa! I want to try and CAD up some kind of cage with thin sacrificial planes built across it at angles in order to hold many of those pipes in position during printing, but from which they can be cut free afterwards for assembly with a limited capacity for breakage. It might be an impossible ask to achieve entirely but...well. you have to ask don't you to find out? Updating the .stl parts library bit-by-bit as well and particularly impatient to see how sections like the front of the reduction gearbox will turn out: Things'll proceed on like this for while whilst I organize the housekeeping in advance of the next wave of activity around the engine deck. Now that you mention it, yes I do have a picture of Mars rising above the local sports ground. If I'm not mistaken that streak in the lower centre part of the sky is actually @Martian returning from a visit to his homeworld... Up until recently I've never bothered messing around with the long exposure photography on a smartphone but have to admit that propping one up against the fence for 30 seconds the other night to get this rather surprised me at how far they've come on: still way too much colour noise but then it is only a cheap Xaomi job. If anyone else has photos of forum members re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, please feel free to share. Horlicks tonight I think. Tony

And in some style Chris! Wonderful to see such crisp clean workmanship. That Venom is the business.