neilfergylee

@adrian, @Troffa and @Duncan B, thank you all for your rapid and informative replies. Yes, here is the really frustrating thing: all the other bits (e.g. nose undercarriage leg, underwing slots, revised nosewheel door are all present but the slotted stabilators have been snipped off the sprue! I don't for a minute this this is some kind of evil anti-FG.1 conspiracy by Revell, it'll just be part of the process but just to think of all those slotted tailplanes in their recycling bin! I think I'm going to have a bash at converting the FGR.2 stabilators although I shall double-check my stash for any half-built old Esci jobs, just in case! Thank you all again Cheers, Neil

Thank you! You're making me blush! Neil

As promised, here is the original Red Dean as seen at Cosford: And here is my model of same: Thanks, Neil

While I am working to complete my Canberra (see https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235085105-wh660-in-148-scale-red-dean-canberra-that-nearly-was/), I am already thinking of my next build and a 1/48 UK Phantom would compliment my Buccaneer S.1 and, later on, Sea Vixen. I have two 1/48 Phantoms in my stash: the special edition Hasegawa FG.1 from 1987 which I'm not quite ready to build just yet and the Revell FGR.2 version available today. This is where my frustration lies: although most of the parts to build an FG.1 are present, the two vital parts that are missing are the slotted stabilators. What are my options? I can spend 1500 Yen on a pair of slotted stabilators from Hypersonic but they will have to come from Japan and I'd like to build this before next Christmas. Buying an FG.1 kit off eBay is a ridiculous option but I guess the only other option is to try and convert the unslotted FGR.2 stabilators. I cannot be the first person to face this dilemma and would much appreciate any advice and assistance. Thanks, Neil

Some significant progress last week. My main emphasis was on the missiles and I shall upload some more photos of the results shortly. The Red Dean pylons were clearly special one-off affairs but, fortunately, they are well-documented. I was able to adapt the B15/16 pylons through a great deal of carving and filing, while the rear pylons were scratch built from card. Finally, a U-shaped styrene section acted as the launch rail. Here is the starting point with the unmodified pylon on the left and the adapted version on the right. Here we see both pylons as WIP showing a trial fit of the rear pylon. Below is a reasonably well-known image of a Red Read WTV-4 test round on Canberra WD956. And here is my equivalent with a model WTV-5 round added. I have used miniature magnets as the method of attachment. Meanwhile, I want to work on the underwing serials. Using the Model Alliance set, one problem was that there was no letter 'H' in the set. Therefore, I had to perform surgery on a letter 'P' and a straight number one. And so here is a status shot showing progress. Thanks for looking. Cheers, Neil

To begin, thank you to @Tornado 01, @mark.au and @Nikolay Polyakov for your kind comments. Nikolay, I'm going to flatten-down the radome - the paint was very fresh when I took the photos! Meanwhile, while I let the paint dry rock hard for a few days, I have turned my attention to the armament: the Vickers Red Dean fully-active air-to air missile. To recap, the Red Dean was designed as a fully-active air-to-air missile. This means that it would be a fire-and-forget missile which, when its inbuilt radar locked-onto its target, it would continue to follow the target until it was close enough to explode. Now, this was a big ask: to put it in context, the original Sparrow I missile was designed to be fully-active and it was a failure, while its successor, the semi-active (i.e. the launching aircraft provided the radar illumination and the Sparrow followed its lead) Sparrow II was, eventually a success. The West didn't see an active fully-active missile (terminal phase homing) until the hugely expensive AIM-54 Phoenix, while it was only the AIM-120 AMRAAM before fully-active missiles became relatively common. The Red Dean was a brute: being 16 feet long, whereas the Sparrow / Skyflash was 12 feet and about a third of the weight. It would have been extremely 'draggy' and, dare one say, possibly not as agile as smaller contemporaries. Ultimately, the aircraft for which is was destined, the 'Thin wing' Javelin and - potentially - Avro Arrow were cancelled and so was Red Dean. There were likely other reasons for cancellation: there was some prejudice against Vickers' ability to develop a guided weapon, but technology might have been a factor. Red Dean was an early-1950s design, predating any form of miniaturisation and reliant on vacuum tube electronics. It was quite probably 'too much too soon' and it is noteworthy that the British missiles that did make it into service: Firestreak and Red Top were much smaller and used infra red homing. As an aside, the radar that the Red Dean was paired-with, the AI.18, did continue into service with the Sea Vixen and integrated successfully with both the Firestreak and Red Top. I had built a prototype Red Dean using 6mm plastic tube and plasticard. It represented a WTV-5 test round that was likely to resemble the definitive Red Dean Mk.1 Note the Firestreak for comparison. I have now begun building two slightly earlier WTV-4 Red Deans to hang beneath the Canberra. The principal difference is the rounded rather than ogival radome although the rear fins are also different. As I mentioned above, the spare intake bullets from the Alleycat intakes set could have been made as WTV4 noses! Here is the WTV5 prorotype alongside two WTV4 versions built today. Note the Sparrow, borrowed from a 1/48 Phantom kit, by way of comparison. Next will be painting the missiles: the WTV5 will be a speculative white finish, while the two WTV4s will follow the scheme seen on the two Red Deans in museums. Below is a shot by me taken at Cosford. That's all for now, more to follow. Cheers, Neil

What a fascinating build! Loving your gun ports and other detailing and you have stimulated me to go out and get a Seahawk! Cheers, Neil

Hello folks, my apologies but just a quick update this weekend although I hop you like the result: painted and varnished. My garage is tidier than it appears here! Next up will be a few development Red Deans. Cheers, Neil

It looks like it did have the short, pointy ones. Here's a picture of WH660 taking-off.

That picture you mention is such a sorry one! Now, regarding the inteke bullets, I think I've got it. In the Alleycat intake set, there are two sets of bullets: a pointy pair and a rounded pair. I gather the rounded ones apply to some B(I)8s and the PR.9s, while the pointy ones for most of the others. However, earlier Canberras had short pointy bullets and later ones, such as the B(I)6 had longer ones reflecting a later version of the Avon engine. What I have done is shorten the Alleycat bullets, so I think I've got them right but I'll check again. As an aside, the rounded bullets are perfect as noses for easly development round Red Deans! Meanwhile, I'm starting to mask-up for the camouflage. Two days masking and two minutes spraying! Cheers and thanks, Neil

Thank you! I'm looking forward to adding the camouflage pattern.

Another Sunday night update. To begin, thank you to @Tornado 01, @Head in the clouds. and @exdraken for your kind comments. Those Model Alliance decals are indeed still in stock at Hannants and I'm ordering a set now. Thank you for your help! Preparation and painting is underway. I did a fair bit of detail filling and then primed the airframe. I am trying for a better finish than usual, so I have been rubbing-down religiously between coats and I'm encouraged by the effect. Here is the model after priming using Halfords' spray primer. And here it is after two coats of Mr. Color Medium Sea Grey applied using an airbrush. It's pretty hard to tell because it's only marginally lighter than the primer! Note the Alleycat intakes - they really are worth the expense. Finally, a couple of shots of the pilot's position before I closed-up the canopy. It benefitted from Airscale dials. Hopefully, next weekend the camouflage will be complete! Cheers, Neil

I am just gobsmacked.

These are the ones: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/combat-decals-cd72-005-british-test-and-development-aircraft--942650 Unfortunately, I think they are discontinued. Neil

@Tornado 01 Tim, here you go! Every model has a moment when it starts to come-together. Last week, I had assembled the fuselage and whilst most evenings I was diverted onto other things, this weekend I found some time to get things moved-on. It would be wrong to say that nothing happened in the week. I did work on the fuselage to smooth-down the fuselage joints and add a coule of coats to primer to check the appearance, while I played "Alleycat delivery roulette" and managed to receive a pair of their superb resin Canberra intakes pretty much by return post. This weekend I addressed the wings and this did mean tryiing to showhorn-in a pair of rather lovely resin mainwheel bays. Now, we all know that you might need to do a little cleaning-up but it was clear that the wing wasn't going to close over these inserts without a struggle. The 'top' did have rather a lot of material availble to remove, but even when I had thiinned it down to almost paper-like thickness, it wasn't working. Therefore, I had get the Dremel out and thin the upper wing surface. Fortunately Airfix did provide a lot of material to go-at but in one case I did slightly overdo it and came through the wing. Take a look at the photos below: the mark on the port wing is filler that I needed to add to rectify the situation. Last weekend I did have a crisis wth the resin nosewheel bay. You might recall that I filled the front end with sufficient ball bearings to mean the model has its ovn gravity field but, unfortunately, the nosewheel bay 'slewed' and I'm left with a wee bit of a disaster that is almost impossible to rectify. This aside, I fitted the tailplane with the patented @canberra kid modification and placed it in a position equivalent to the control column having been pulled back. Well, if you've done the work, you may as well show it off. This done, this weekend the wings were assembled (including the Alleycat intakes) and attached to the fuselage. Finally, it's coming-together, The next work will be the tedious filling and smoothing phase but then it gets interesting again: missiles and pylons! Finally a question: who does white RAF serials of sufficient size to do the underwing serials for WH660 please? I don't think Xtradecal do anything that large. Best wishes, Neil

They're aftermarket - I'll check which ones for you.

@petetasker @zebra I'm really glad the pictures were of use and indeed their source because I was darned if I could remember where they come from! I modelled Martin Baker's black Meteor last year and below are some shots. I was not entirely satisfied with the result as I botched the combing around the rear cockpit. So you are aware, the forward cockpit canopy came from an old Matchbox Meteor 14. Cheers, Neil

A bit of an update since the Chrismas break. Progress has felt a tad glacial over the past couple of weeks but closing-up the fuselage last night did represent a bit of a milestone. I had worked on the cockpit, tailplane and canopy to get the model to this stage and in addition to the inevitable filling and blending, the next steps will be to complete the tailplane and then move onto the wings. The latter aren't a simple assembly job as I need to add pylons for the Red Dean missiles and camera pods to the wingtips. Cockpit Having taken a few interior shots in the past (Solway Aviation Museum and Boscombe Down Collection), I had a fair bit of material to go-with. The forward section of the cockpit (bomb aimer section) had to be removed and I didn't go crazy with the rear part of the cockpit as very little is visible. However, I added some wiring looms and even a piece of fabric to represent insulation on the pilot's side of the cockpit. In turn, I shall be adding a resin pilot's seat while sticking to the kit seats for the guys in the back. One significant addition was some instrument dials courtesy of Airscale. You might need the eyes of the proverbial outhouse rat but they make a difference. Here is a view of the cockpit prior to installation. I also did a quick preview of how it will look: Canopy I wish I could travel back in time and accommodate the quite wonderful Alleycat canopy but it incorporates a large chunk of upper fusealge and I bottled it and decided not to follow that path. Next time, perhaps. I did try and cut-away the Alleycat canopy from the assembly but it proved a bigger task to mate it to the fuselage than I would have liked. Now I know why Alleycat did what they did! I did purchase a Mastercasters canopy but was rather unimpressed: it didn't seem to offer any real advantages over the kit part and seemed a bit undersized. So, I took the kit part and rubbed-down both direct vision panels (as I'm sure you all know, you only get two on a T.4) and replace one with a sliver of tube. This had the advantage of correcting the shape of the DV panel: the kit interpretation is oval, presumably as a funciton of the moulding process. Here is the corrected canopy. Not bad but I'll try for the Alleycat part next time: it looks better. Tailplane A bit of progress here, working on the patented @canberra kid conversion. I must stress that I did straighten-up the rear of the tailplanes before commiting them to the glue! Assembly of the fuselage So, closing-up the fuselage is a bit of a milestone as it means such things as the bomb bay and the cockpit are pretty well finalised whether you like it or not. Having heard the horror stories about tailsitting, I added a mix of WhiteTac and about 50 ball bearings. Weighing-in at 10 ounces, it ain't going nowhere. However, I might treat myself to a metal undercarriage! And so with a ton of adhesive, I attached the fuselage halves and then the resin nose. So, I think progress might start to accelerate hereon in. Do let me know what you think. Cheers, Neil

Absolutely! It's hardly a precision implement but it does the job.

Thank you! Fuselage glued-together a few minutes ago: I'll publish details tomorrow.

Round and small, see below.

Take a look at my link above,

Hi @petetasker, I modelled one of the Martin Baker Meteors a couple of years ago. As part of my homework I came across an earlier airframe, WA634. I cannot remember where the pictures came from but I have uploaded them for you here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/26690797@N02/albums/72157717749592221 Cheers, Neil

A little more progress. Following @71chally's suggestion, I have been working on the tailplane by following the instructions in the thread below. At the same time, I have marked-out and separated the tailplane trim tabs and scored some detail ont the horizontal stabilizers. Cheers, Neil

Following-up on the comments by @Rabbit Leader, the Airfix F.5 model has sufficient parts to build pretty well any RAF version of the Hunter. Cheers, Neil