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KP Convair XFY-1 Pogo, 1/72


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Day two of Nomore Shelfspace's posting blizzard. This is probably my best aircraft model, a Convair XFY-1 Pogo from the KP kit. This a/c was a VTOL concept designed to provide the fleet with a point interceptor that could be carried aboard a warship using only a helicopter type landing pad. In practice it was difficult to land and overpowered with its twin YT-40 turboprop engine! The pilots seat swivelled to give a better position for take off and landing. Despite some positive results the project was terminated in 1955. One example survives.

This is actually the second Pogo I did - the first one was the KP kit built straight from the box. Then I bought the Naval Fighters Number 27 monograph... which proved the kit was only accurate in outline, more or less. So I got another one and started rebuilding it. Mods include totally new cockpit, reshaped spinner, re-scribed panel breaks, new air intake under the fuselage and a scratchbuilt lower landing gear structure - the fairing over this was removed for test flights.

One material I used for this was Alteco, a cyano putty made by mixing slow-setting superglue and a white powder - it's Japanese and I no longer have any, but it was good for filling/rescribing because it was fairly thin in consistency, making it easy to apply to flat surfaces, and didn't crumble when worked on, although like all putties it needed a primer coat/sand before painting. I think the paint was straightforward Humbrol sliver, could be wrong - it was made over ten years ago! Decals were half kit, half from spares - the stars and bars on the sides were too big, as were the Convair logos - I had no Convair logos that were the right size so I hand painted them!!P1010184.jpg

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That's a really good looking Pogo! I've got the KP kit in the stash but shelved it every time, because of the (unnecessary) inaccuracies – the single prototype is available at the NASM!

Good for you to make such a good looking replica out of it!

I see that you didn't bother with reshaping that overly bulbous kit spinner. Of course, it would have necessitated removing the prop blades – that's one of the things that put me off it, "until"…

Slick modelling!

Kind regards,

Joachim

P.S. One of my very first model kits was the Lindberg XFY-1 in 1:48th. It's still available and notwithstanding the empty cockpit, the gimmicky working contra-rotating props and somewhat overstated surface detailing, it's still a very nice kit, and basically accurate, too.

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That's a really good looking Pogo! I've got the KP kit in the stash but shelved it every time, because of the (unnecessary) inaccuracies – the single prototype is available at the NASM!

Good for you to make such a good looking replica out of it!

I see that you didn't bother with reshaping that overly bulbous kit spinner. Of course, it would have necessitated removing the prop blades – that's one of the things that put me off it, "until"…

Slick modelling!

Kind regards,

Joachim

P.S. One of my very first model kits was the Lindberg XFY-1 in 1:48th. It's still available and notwithstanding the empty cockpit, the gimmicky working contra-rotating props and somewhat overstated surface detailing, it's still a very nice kit, and basically accurate, too.

I did try to reshape the spinner, but there was a limit imposed by the thickness of the plastic. Photos show it to be much more tapered. What I did was an improvement though! I've seen photos of the Lindbergh one. There was also a vac form by Airmodel but that was many years ago.

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