Jump to content

John R

Gold Member
  • Posts

    1,714
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by John R

  1. I think that this is what it looked like originally - my model of it John
  2. As I am nearing the end of building a model of WJ965 in its early days. I have a picture of it with the colours described as ' a mix of metal tones and some sections that are painted/primed'. Does anyone know any more? In particular the colour of the primer as some parts look really dark. John
  3. Main post edited giving extra information about the F4 John
  4. At least it has them and making your own is a hassle. They start too close to the lip of the intake. The MPM Sea Hawk doesn't have them. I have one in the stash and my only quibble so far is that the box art shows WV908, that i wanted to build because it used to be on the airshow circuit, but the kit decals are not for that version. John
  5. It looks like the thing Luke Skywalker had in Star Wars. I wonder how good it was at avoiding obstacles - bushes, fences, livestock or boats if it was only used over water. Does anyone know the purpose of that 'comb-like' devices ahead of the wing? Could they eject air at high speed to enhance lift when starting off? John
  6. I love the way the pilot in the foreground is paying no attention to the a/c just off his wingtip firing rockets. Looks like a recipe for a mid-air collision. Also the a/c in the second photo - to me it looks more like the prototype, XF-84F, the one with the earlier Thunderjet fuselage with round nose intake and long pitot tube. John
  7. Paul Bradley did a review of the Xtrakit version https://ipmsusa.org/reviews/Kits/Aircraft/xtrakits_72_sea-vixen/xtrakits_72_sea-vixen.htm Somewhere else he did a 'WIP' and showed a finished build. My own experience with it was an unhappy one. Instead of ending on the shelf of doom it ended up in the dustbin. John
  8. Thank you. I have edited the main post to show a comparison between FR5 and F7 Apparently they did not use the dogtooth on the F2 because it was not the complete answer. It was later found that the CG needed to be moved forward. John
  9. My interest is in prototypes and as the Supermarine 541 was allegedly the prototype Swift this started me wondering if an Alleycat F1 conversion kit that I had could be used to make a 541 instead of an F1. The subsequent investigation resulted in some confusion before I worked out what was going on. It started when I found that the wing supplied by Alleycat had a greater chord than the 541 wing shown in Barrie Hygate’s book of British Experimental Jets. As there were two 541 a/c and the second was much more like the F1 than the first and as Hygate did not give a drawing of the second I wondered if the second had a different wing. Digging into the history of the Swift wing shape produced the following summary The 541 had the 535 wing with streamwise wingtips The F1 had the same wing as the 541 but some sources say that it was moved rearwards. The F2 had the wing root extended forwards giving a kink in the leading edge leading to pitch-up problems. One solution tried was a ‘dog-tooth’ extension to the outer section but was not adopted for the F2. F3 as F2 F4 had the ‘dog-tooth’ but confusingly the prototype F4, WK198, used for the World Speed Record did not have it. Wk198 also had wing fences. It started with 4 but reduced to 2 and these were removed for the record attempt to reduce drag. FR5 and FR7 had the ‘dog-tooth’ It has been told that the ‘dog-tooth’ on the F4 and subsequent versions was created not by extending the chord of the outer section but by cutting back the inboard section. This always seemed unlikely to me but until now I accepted it. I now believe that for the F4, FR5 and F7 the chord of the outboard section was increased and AlleyCat got it wrong in simply producing a copy of the FR5 wing with the leading edge between the root and the dog-tooth filled in. This resulted in the increase in chord of the AlleyCat wing. Edit: I now believe the AlleyCat F2/F4 is also incorrect as its tip has the same chord as the FR5 so AlleyCat has made a similar error to that of the F1. I used the AlleyCat F4 conversion when I built an F4 some time ago and in my innocence used it as supplied. The error is not obvious unless you know about it. There is a description of how the dog-tooth was created by increasing the chord of the outer wing in Guy Ellis’s book ‘WK275’ given by someone who was present when it was first done. Finally a warning. The drawing of the 541 in Hygate’s book is not quite 1/72 scale. The wingspan is given as 32’ 4” which in 1/72 scales as 5.4” or 13.7cm whereas span on the drawing is 13.25 cm/ 5.25”. Rivet counters beware, it’s 1/74! A comparison between the wing of the Airfix FR5 and the tip extension of the F7
  10. Clearly the work of someone with a serious mental problem. Bill, you should see someone about it. Happy New Year John
  11. Sorry Steve, I meant to say the Hunter's BIG brother (not bit)
  12. Looks like the Hunter's bit brother! Nice one, Steve John
  13. Mediocre? In what way - fit, accuracy or lack of details? It looks like you did a good job anyway John
  14. Curse you Ed! That's another one on my bucket list that you have beaten me to. Still this time you have paved the way. Keep up the good work John
  15. Nice work. When I built the Hi Planes version many years ago my wife thought that it was 'sweet' John
  16. I have been trying for ages to work out how to build one of these. Whether to work forward from an Attacker or backwards from a Swift without success. Well done on finding the way. John
  17. Nice work. As the builder of several Modelsvit kits I can appreciate the 'challenges' that you faced. John
  18. In some ways I feel guilty about putting people off trying to build it but I thought it wise to highlight the problems so people were warned what to expect before buying one or starting one they had. If you do start yours think very carefully about what the end result should look like when assembling the intakes. There may be a better way of getting the outer wing section to match that of the centre by using a spacer between the leading edges of the outer wing halves. I couldn't have done this because I had already glued them together when I found the problem. John
  19. Thanks Chris. I feel an idiot for realising. It's my age you know... John
  20. An interesting project brought to a fine conclusion. Well done. Would you care to enlighten us as to how you got the background for the first picture? John
  21. Thank you. Judging by the enthusiasm by which this was received when it appeared in the Rumourmonger a lot of people wanted one. I wonder how many will get finished. It was a close run thing with mine John
  22. Best of British to you! Seriously drop me a PM if you need help. The difference between the centre and outer wings is the worst bit. It might be possible to get away with a load of milliput. You don't have to worry about losing the panel lines as the real wings were extra smooth. They did not use roundels in case they ruined the smoothness John
  23. With many of my other experimentals so you can see its size This was the future – once upon a time. The AW 52 was originally conceived as a bomber during WW2 but afterwards this was changed to a 6 engined airliner. It was preceded by a glider but as this had its limitations a twin engined version was designed to investigate the higher speed area of the flight envelope. Two prototypes were built. The first had Nene engines and the second had Derwents. The first, TS363, first flew in November 1947 but was lost in a crash after suffering uncontrollable pitch oscillations. Apart from investigating the flying qualities of a tailless aeroplane it was also used to investigate the possibility of maintaining laminar flow over much of the wing surface. To try to achieve this a special aerofoil was used and boundary layer air was sucked into a slot ahead of the elevons but without success. As for the model as soon as I learned of its existence I had to have one. As they say, be careful what you wish for! It has its good points. It’s a kit that I never expected to see and it makes up into fairly accurate model. The engine nacelles and main u/c should be located further outboard and the aerofoil section bears no resemblance to that of the a/c. The downside is that it is a nightmare to build. It is overly complicated with much internal detail that cannot be seen and almost nothing fits. I cannot believe that anyone tried to assemble one before it was released or if they did it was with the cynical attitude that idiots like me snatch at something that they knew would be unlikely to come along again. Some specific points… Starting with the cockpit interior one is directed to fit a component that does not exist. The hole in the floor for the control column is in the wrong place. The seat is too low. It is modelled without the support structure underneath. I didn’t know about this structure until later on after I had solved the problem by glueing it to the upper fuselage section instead of the cockpit floor. If glued to the floor the pilot's eyeline would be about level with the edge of the cockpit. There is a lot of PE for the cockpit instruments and also some 3D decals which appear to do the same job and the instructions are not much help. It's all a waste of time anyway as none of it can be seen. Joining the wheel halves together it appears that one half should have spigots that fit in to holes in the other half. It doesn’t. Both halves have holes. There are two quite detailed engine models to be assembled but only enough combustion chambers for one. It doesn’t really matter as only the front section is visible if you look down the intake. If you can think of a way to fit the engine nozzles after painting the model it would make life easier Fitting the pieces that make up the internal portion of the intake involved much cutting, Milliput and bad language. There was a CAD drawing of this in the Rumourmonger section showing the parts fitting neatly together so how it got so wrong in real life is beyond me. The cockpit, engines and wheel bays fit into the lower half of the centre section and the upper section is then fitted…except it doesn’t. Several things prevented this and so I took my sanding block and ground away at the internals until it did fit. The wheel bays were the worst culprit and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had not gone through to their internals. Once that is done you have to fit the outer sections to the centre section and become aware of two problems. The first is relatively trivial in that the wing section bears little resemblance to that designed by the RAE but the second is close to a showstopper. The wing sections of the centre and outer wing do not match, and not by a small amount either. The outer section is much thinner. (At this point it was all too much and the project was consigned to the shelf of doom for several months). I got around this by cutting away the rib at the inner end of the outer wing until just the wing surface was left. I then replaced the bits I had cut away with several ‘pillars’ cut from thick sheet which forced the upper and lower surfaces apart until a reasonable match was obtained with the centre section. The wing surfaces have some nicely engraved panel lines which have to be filled as the real aircraft had very smooth surfaces to try to achieve laminar flow. There should be slots ahead of the elevons but there are none. I thought that cutting these would be beyond me and settled for decals instead. There are a couple of problems with the canopy. This is offset to one side so it means that one side of the cockpit is longer than the other but for the model a ‘normal’ one is provided which means some careful scraping of cockpit and fuselage followed by filler to get it to sit without it leaning. I do not think that the rear of the canopy is correct. One last problem presented itself. The u/c legs have spigots to fit into mounting holes but there are no holes for them to go into. I was most surprised and relieved that it required no adjustments to sit level after fitting the landing gear - about the only thing that went right. I discovered this website that has a lot of pictures of the aircraft and a copy of the article about it which appeared in 'Flight' in December 1946 https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/armstrong-whitworth-aw52.49979/ Thank you to Dave Swindell and David Womby for providing information about the seat. It is here for anyone who needs to see it https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235101803-armstrong-whitworth-aw-52-cockpit/ Finally - despite all its issues it does make up into a nice model which looks 'right'. The finish is Halfords 'Appliance White'. It needs as much weight as you can pack into the nose. All I have to do now is find somewhere to put it. It is rather large. (edit: picture added to show how much space in takes up in my display cabinet) Time for a lie down in a darkened room Edit: Jan 2023 I have seen another one built. The builder said that he did not bother with most of the internals as they were completely hidden once assembled. He also fitted the outer wing panels to the centre section before joining them as I did. This left a gaping hole along the leading edge which was then filled with Milliput. John
  24. The decals show provision for TG306, the one in which Geoffrey De Havilland lost his life preparing for an attempt on the World Speed Record John
×
×
  • Create New...