AAbshier

On the intake ring, I went back to my Airfix Lightning and measured between the front edge of the nose gear bay to the edge of the nose ring: 12mm. On the Trumpeter kit I'm building, with the nose gear bay moved forward, the distance from the front edge of the nose gear bay to the edge of the nose ring is 17mm, or very close to what it should be in 1/32nd! The ring, as molded by Trumpeter, is too deep, but I think some creative painting can disguise this, and it certainly beats cutting it back and making my too-short fuselage look even shorter! As for the ventral tank, I decided not to correct it. I'm pressing on. This build has already taken too long (admittedly, adding all the Eduard brass really slowed it down) and I think my Chinese overlords would like to see a review published soon. Andy

Oh yes, they did. I measured (again), using my trusty Airfix 1/48 F2 as a reference, and the Trumpeter F1A/F3 tank is too short, too bulbous, and too deep! So now I'm debating adding a plug and totally rebuilding the ventral tank. While I have assembled the fuselage halves, I could add a plug in one of the constant-section areas fairly easily--I've done it many times on airliner builds. Or I may say the hell with it and finish the damn thing. I want it off the bench by the time the Tamiya Spitfire arrives! By the time I finish my build review of this kit, Stevens Int'l is never again going to send a Trumpeter kit for me to review. What I'll be writing will be pretty scathing. Andy

You have the Echelon plans, which you said were accurate--maybe you can check for me? I really don't want to move the wings on mine, but I'm curious. Andy

I'll look at that more carefully later. With the radar tower moved forward, I think the radome positioning is going to be fine. Ah, but I have a new conundrum: the length of the main landing gear struts. The Airfix 1/48 scale Lightning struts, from the bottom to the top (but NOT including the mounting stub) measure 38mm. Trumpeter's main gear struts measure 62mm. Multiplying 38 x 1.5, we get 57mm, so it appears the Trumpy struts are 5mm too tall. So I took one of the plastic struts from the kit, cut out 5mm from it, drilled holes for reinforcement pins, put the strut back together, and checked the "sit" of the model. On my model the ventral fin practically drags the ground! After some experimenting I found that a reasonable "sit" can be achieved by cutting down the struts by 2.5mm. The strut is still too tall, but at least the sit is better. Andy

I remembered that I had a partially built Airfix 1/48 scale Lightning in my half-built stash; it never got finished because somehow half of the remaining parts for it got lost in a move. But I recalled that the model was very good on outline accuracy, so with the aid of my Airfix model and a calculator, I checked into dimensions and placement on the Trumpeter 1/32nd scale kit. All of these dimensions assume a scale conversion of 1.5:1 between 1/32nd scale and 1/48 scale; I know there's some other significant digits, but I was using an elementary school-grade ruler to make these measurements, so I figured 1.5:1 was fine. For the nose gear bay, I measured the distance between the front edge of the nose gear bay and the edge of the intake lip on the Airfix kit, and got 13mm. On the Trumpeter kit I got 23mm. Multiplying 13 x 1.5, I got 19.5mm as the actual distance the front of the nose gear bay should be from the edge of the intake lip, or a difference of 4.5mm. It just so happens that Trumpeter, if you follow the instructions, has you install the intake trunk so that there is....wait for it....a 4.5mm gap between the intake trunk and the intake ring! This is obviously wrong, but somebody in Trumpeter-land thought it was right, because they set the nose gear bay opening too far back, to line up with the too-far-back intake trunk! Fortunately the intake trunk can be slid forward so that it contacts the intake ring, as I showed in an earlier post. That's the easy part. For the rest, read on. The nose gear bay needs to be moved forward, as mentioned, so I cut sections out of the front end of the nose gear bay opening on both fuselage halves. I also cut away the mounting flanges starting at the forwardmost nose gear door notches on both sides. The results look something like this: Looking at it from the side, in what we anatomists call a saggital section, you can see how everything lines up. I didn't have to cut down the top edge of the radar tower to fit against the intake at all, but the tab on the top did need some trimming. I also had to revise the tower so that the intake ring would fit over it properly, by notching it at the top and reducing the airfoil section at the bottom so that it was even with the top of the nose gear bay: The resultant fit wasn't too shabby: Now for the crazy part, and this will explain why there is a cocktail skewer sticking out of the front of the radar tower. I set it up to fit in place AFTER the fuselage halves were cemented together. Yes, after. I wanted access to smooth out the intake trunks, and get the transition between the intake ring and intake trunk as smooth as possible. So how does it work, you may ask? Well: When I glued the fuselage halves together, I left the section of the upper fuselage forward of the cockpit unglued; this is very important, because you need a slot to get the top of the radar tower in: From the side, it looks like this: The skewer is used to help lever the radar tower into position. (Not shown is that, since I'm building a model of a British aircraft, I was levering it in with my pinky extended. ) How does it look from the front? Not too bad: OK, the fit doesn't look good right now--but that's because it's still uncemented on the top fuselage; once that apposition is made, it looks much better. Once it's in place, all I have to do is cut off the cocktail skewer, glue on the radome, and I'm good to go! The other advantage to moving everything forward is that I can at least paint the intake ring so that it looks like the right length; that will require some masking inside the ring, but that will be relatively easy with the ring off of the fuselage. Once it's installed, I can mask off the inside of the ring and go. Andy

I have a modeler friend sending me an unused F-100 straight probe that I may try to adapt for the Lightning. That said, I have a photo of my subject (74 Sqn) aircraft in flight without a refueling probe, so building mine without will be accurate, at least for that particular moment in time! Andy

I'm not sure what the situation is in Europe, but I know we in the United States are getting killed on the Euro-to-dollar exchange rate. I was all set to buy a PJ Productions Alpha Jet until I ran the numbers and discovered that my price would be US$140.00 shipped. Andy

Looks good so far! Let me give you a tip from my Eduard build: you need to glue a section of thick plastic card underneath the deck behind the cockpit. The Eduard fuselage bows out a little bit here, and unless you FIRMLY glue both sides of the back deck to both sides of the fuselage, you'll end up having a bad time fitting the rear section of the canopy. I know because I didn't do that, and had one hell of time getting the canopy installed! Also: the infamous cockpit doors are not as bad as advertised--sort of. I got one installed closed with no trouble, the other wouldn't do that at all--no big deal, since I had planned one open door anyway: Have fun with it! It's a real nice kit, as you're finding out. Andy

I reviewed the interior zoom set and exterior set on Modeling Madness: Interior: http://www.modelingmadness.com/others/deta...s/abed33031.htm Exterior: http://www.modelingmadness.com/others/deta...s/abed32227.htm Shorter version: the exterior set is very useful, the interior set, not so much. Andy

I doubt much will be produced; I think the word is getting out about how much of pig this model is, especially for the asking price! That said, if Sprue Bros. drops the price further on their F1A/F3 kits from US$87.99, I might consider getting one, now that I'm figuring out how to deal with the many issues. I suspect they will have F2A/F6s at the $87.99 price in due course. Andy

Yikes, that's a lot of contour work. I think I'll go with Airfix 1/48 for my F2A/F6! Meanwhile, another question from the F3 side: how would you compare the available boarding ladders? I see that Eduard does one, but you mention Flightpath's. I'd rather go with Eduard's mainly for ease of ordering, but if the Flightpath is vastly superior, I'll bite the bullet and get one. BTW you should see the craziness inside the front end of my Lightning. I think I FINALLY have the radar tower/intake/nose gear bay problem sorted. I'll post pics in my thread once I finish it. Andy

The saga continues..... While I've primarily been working on detailing and on structures, I have found time to get the cockpit finished. It is basically stock, but I did use the large instruments from the Eduard color photo-etch set underneath Trumpy's clear glass panel: (When I looked at this photo, I discovered that the unpainted edges of the instrument panel were visible--so I touched them up with RAF Ocean Gray, which is what I used as the base cockpit color.) The stock ejection seat came out looking rather plain: But the Eduard ejection seat details set soon put that right (sorry about the soft focus): I'm pretty happy with the cockpit. The "bones" in the Trumpy kit are good--some modeling skill and either a new ejection seat or detailing Trumpy's works just fine. Now back to structural matters. One of my concerns with the kit was the thin-walled plastic used on the fuselage. I thought it would be entirely too bendy to support the wings properly without extra support, so I made two bulkheads: (Making them was quite a rigamarole, so once I had them finished, I painted them black and made a photocopy so that I could use the photocopies as templates should I be mad enough to attempt a second 1/32nd Lightning.) Before installing the bulkheads, I cut vertical slots adjacent to where they would be located for wing spars. Once that was done, I epoxied the bulkheads in place. Next: the intake trunk goes forward. Opening of the can of worms ensues. Andy

While I'm working on the fuselage, I've also been hard at work adding brass detail parts from Eduard's set 32227, covering external details. This set covers additional details for the wheel wells, wheels, struts, and the fuselage. I thought you would be interested in some before and after photos. Main gear bay: Nose gear bay: Main wheels: (NOTE: the holes on the outer hubs are not drilled out on the kit; I did that myself, and I'll be fitting a circle of plastic inside to represent the disc brake before I assemble the halves together.) I haven't finished the main gear bays yet but you can see what an improvement the set makes. I've just started work on the nose gear strut; I'll be waiting on the mains until I sort out how and if I'm going to modify them to improve the sit of the model. Andy

Hmmm. Sounds feasable, especially considering that Trumpy's metal legs look especially spindly! I might cut mine at one of the skinny parts and slide some tubing over it--I'm assuming Echelon got the appearance of the struts right, along with the height? Maybe one of us should try it out with the plastic gear before committing to metal.... Andy

Andy from the F3 build here (thanking my stars and garters that I don't have a ventral tank to rebuild!).............. Don't forget you have some space in the radar cone, if you come up short. Do you find that the fuselage is pretty rigid near the wing joins without reinforcement? I'm worried that the bendiness of Trumpeter's plastic will cause the wings to sag, so I'm planing bulkheads and spars for mine, unless you think it's going to be rigid enough.

Hi Bill, Andy from the F3 build.....is the entire nose gear bay/radar tower set too far back as Trumpeter gives it to you? I noticed you moved yours forward. I was going to cut my intake trunk to set the nose gear bay down in the gear well opening as Trumpy gives it, but is it possible that the bad sit of the intake trunk also meant that the nose gear bay placement was thrown off with it? Andy

Unfortunately moving the intake trunk doesn't change the position of the nose gear bay--moving that forward looks like a massive undertaking to say the least. I'm leaving mine alone. (EDIT: or not. See my post under Bill Clark's F6 thread.) Any idea on where to make the cuts on the Trumpeter gear to get the sit right? I looked at that myself, couldn't find a good spot to take out, and have decided for now to leave them alone, bad sit be damned. Also, the plastic struts fit a lot more loosely into the mounting holes than the metal ones, and that plus the bendy nature of the plastic makes me leery of using the plastic struts, cut down or not. That said, if I can reinforce the struts with piano wire, I'm willing to try it. With a Trumpeter kit, it's always something. Andy

As I was researching the Trumpeter kit, I read a review stating that the intake trunk, as installed, does not meet the intake ring. At first I thought the modeler had made a mistake, but it turns out, he was right on the money: Hmmm. In the immortal words of Karl Malden selling American Express traveler's checks, "what will you do. What will you do?" That's a bad gap in one of the most impossible to reach places. Simple, really: just advance the intake so that it does meet the intake ring. The question, though was would the cockpit still fit properly with the intake advanced forward? Why, yes. No problem, in fact: Thats the good news. Now the bad news: (Did I mention that this kit retails for US$189.95? Oy.) Cutting the nose gear bay opening further back on the intake trunk doesn't look too hard. Cutting down the upper splitter to fit inside the intake trunk looks more challenging, but the tricky part will be filling in the gap near the lower front of the splitter. I'm still thinking about this, and have some ideas, which I'll detail in my next installment. In the meantime, I'm wrapping up work on the cockpit and ejection seat, and will have pictures later. Andy

Hmmm. In one of my references there is a photo labeled as an F3 with the ATGB exhaust not having the flange. I went with no flange based on that one photo. That will teach me. Putting one back on looks like a lot of work to make it look convincing, so I'm going to go with what I have. Andy

Trumpeter 1/32nd Lightning F3: construction gets underway! Fuselage improvements, part I I decided to do my Lightning as an F3 of 74 Squadron, 1964-65; here's one of the photos that inspired me: The Trumpeter kit only provides the short cable conduits (the long bulge on the lower part of the fuselage) as used on the Lightning F1A and F2. It's kind of a silly ommission, since they molded the front of the cable conduit as a seperate part, and thus could have included the longer length! I measured the diameter of the conduit by holding the radius of the conduit front inside a circle template; then I searched through my straight sprues to see if I had a sprue of that diameter. It turned out that the sprue used on the wing parts is the same diameter, so I cut off a section of it, then halved it. To smooth the joining surface I sanded the longer conduit section on some sandpaper held to a flat surface. To grip the conduit part, I put little pieces of double-stick tape on the ends of my fingers: After repeated test fitting and sanding with the conduit parts, I got this: I still need to fully fair in the longer conduits, but this was an easy (and no-cost) solution. Trumpeter would have you cement the speed brakes into the open position. I have never seen a picture of an actual Lightning with the speedbrakes open on the ground, unless it was actually rolling out from a landing. To cement them shut, I thinned down the ribbing detail inside the speedbrake, then used AquaMend A+B pool repair putty (Poor man's Milliput) to hold the speedbrake in place, without having any glue smears. How did it come out? Not too bad: The Lightning F3s and F6s using the more powerful engines had additional scoops on the side of the right fuselage. Trumpeter missed these completely, so they should be added. I first carved out the scoops from sheet plastic just a little undersize. I then used 3 thousandths brass foil and a burnishing tool (a blunt dissection probe) to "buck" the foil over the scoops I had carved. I had to do some tweaking with pliers to get them close to the right shape. What you see here is NOT the finished product, but it gives you an idea of how it will look. The nickel-finished metal parts forward and down from the brass scoops are from the Eduard exterior details set. Now to our next thing: the APU exhaust on the left rear fuselage. This is the prominent opening seen on the left fuselage, above the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer: Trumpeter gives you this for an APU opening: WEAK. Fortunately, the fix is easy, and as close by as your neighborhood Arbys! You'll need a drinking straw from Arby's, which just happens to be the perfect diameter for this application, and the usual modeling tools used to open holes. First, drill out the APU hole. On the inside, "flute" the hole so that the straw will fit at an angle: Scuff up the straw where it will be glued using 220 grit (or so) sandpaper, then epoxy the straw into place using 5- minute epoxy. It should look like this from the outside: And from the inside: Once the epoxy is dry, cut the straw flush with the fuselage: (NOTE: the Trumpeter kit has a "flange" on the aft end of the APU opening. This is correct for the F6, but not the F3, so cut that flange off.) Sand the straw flush to the opening, finish with Metalizer Exhaust (which I haven't done yet), and cap off the inside with a fan disc or something resembling it. Easy peasy, and it improves the look of this area considerably. Next: before and after photos using the Eduard exterior detail set. Andy Alton IL

They do! I can scratch it, but was just hoping I could be "lazy". What about the missile markings? Any luck there? Andy

No, actually I appreciate your work, because I'm about to get going on a 1/32nd Lightning F1A or F3 (still deciding on variant and markings). The fuselage stretch doesn't look too hard, if it's done at a constant-section point. Looks like what I had to do to the Anigrand B-32. Fixing the metal struts looks intimidating; I may go with the plastic ones in that case. SHAMELESS SOLICITATION WARNING Question: does the kit include both the short and long cable ducts? If you're building an F2A, I could use your unused long ducts for my F3, if I decide to go that way. I can also use extra Red Top or Firestreak markings so that I can decal two of the same missile, instead of one each; I can send my extras to you. Andy Alton IL

Two questions: 1. Does it include both short and long cable ducts? 2. Does it have enough markings to build two of the same missile type (instead of one of each in the F1A/F3 kit)? Thanks Andy

Hi folks, I just recieved my 1/32 Lightning F1A/F3, and saw that Trumpeter managed to give missile markings for only one each of the Red Top and Firestreak missiles. If anyone would like to trade their unused missile markings so that we have two sets of decals for two identical missiles, please contact me. I'd like to build mine with Firestreaks preferably, but Red Top markings would be OK also if there are no takers for my Red Top markings. I'm in Alton, Illinois in the United States. Contact me: aravm98[at]yahoo.com Thanks Andy