Panavia CF-IDS Wolverine WIP Pics

[Modelling Mushi]

Hello all.

Wanted to bring you up to date on a build I have been doing on another forum in between other things. It has taken me longer to get here than I hoped, and I am not sure I will have this finished by Christmas .

But anyway, here goes. And forgive the length of this first post.

***** START INFO DUMP *****

Donor Kits and Roadmap

OK, here are the donor kits for the CF-IDS Tornado.



I'll be using most of both kits. It is going to be a VTOL Panavia Tornado IDS manufactured specifically for the Canadian Airforce, featuring

• 4 engines
• swing wing
• LERXes
• fully vectoring nozzles
• two seats
• fully enclosed weapons bay
• twin fins (maybe)

and more than likely sporting CF-18 or CF-104 markings (not sure which yet, still kicking around either a low viz symmetrical scheme, all white scheme, or Coke Bottle style CF-104 markings).

Backstory

In my confusingly long backstory mind, I'm basing the build upon the failure of the YF-17 to progress beyond the LWF fighter flyoff. It lost the USAF LWF fly off, and subsequently participated in the US Navy VFAX programme against the YF-16, Grumman's F-14X low cost Tomcat and others. The VFAX winner was the F-14X (in this universe actually being low cost and having commonality withthe F-14A in service). So by 1973 the YF-17 was dead, and the F-18 series still born.

So in 1977 when Canada looked to replace its Canadair CF-116 Freedom Fighters, Canadair CF-104 and Lockheed F-104 Starfighters and McDonnell Douglas CF-101 Voodoos no F-18 option was available to compete against the F-14, F-15, F-16, Mirage 2000 and Panavia Tornado. Although the then government of the day under Pierre Trudeau had initiated the decision to replace the fighter force in early 1978 an abrupt about face was made due to public and budgetary pressures and the replacement procurement cancelled. It was not until early 1987, when the state of Canada's ageing fighter fleet was of serious concern, that the new Prime Minister Brian Mulroney reopened the competition. Unlike the 1977 competition a key requirement was innovation in submissions, with leading edge technological solutions to Canadas requirements for long loiter, high speed and ability to utilise semi prepared airstrips being encouraged. In amongst the group of contenders were all the 1977 competitors, including Panavia. Panavia recognised that, when facing down the manufacturing and soft diplomacy muscle of the USA, the Tornado was at a distinct disadvantage. By 1987 the 500th Tornado was scheduled to be delivered to West Germany, and the end of the production run of ECR/IDS/Gr/ADV variants was expected to peak at just under 1,000 with final deliveries to Oman and possibly Saudi Arabia by the middle of the 1990s. In addition development of the Eurofighter and the JSF in the USA seemed to confirm the end of the Tornado's production life.

Facing what seemed to be an insurmountable hurdle with the standard Tornado, Panavia submitted a bold redesign to try to win over the Canadians. It was decided to use the Canadian process as a technology demonstration, consciously pushing the edge of the Tornado's basic airframe design and matching it with cutting edge technology, whilst at the same time paring back purchase and life cycle costs to the bone in the hope of reinvigorating the program and attracting new orders. What was presented to the Candians was a four engined VTOL development of the basic swing wing airframe, matching high speed with extended range, cavernous internal weapons bay, and the ability to "plug and play" load out and swing roles between air to air, air to surface, ECM and ELINT whilst airborne. A fly away cost of $28 million per airframe was estimated, and lucrative sub-manufacturing agreements with Canadian businesses were held out.

Although not having flown and with only the broadest of technology demonstrators available, in late 1989 the Panavia entry was declared the winner, and a contract for the supply of 150 airframes plus 25 options (with heavily punitive clauses for nonperformance) was signed in early 1990. Total capital outlay for 150 aircraft, spares and support was $4.3 billion.

The first aircraft was delivered to the Royal Canadian Air Force in May of 1992, with production and delivery of 175 airframes completed in late 1998. On commissioning the Canadians adopted Panavia's designation for their new aircraft, it becoming the CF-IDS Wolverine in service.

Work In Progress Pics

First up I managed to sort out the rear underside of the fuselage. The transition was worrying me, in the end I used the lower nose of the second kit as a donor (blue arrow) and plasticarded the gap to the weapons bay bulkhead. The bulkhead is square, so that leaves two little triangular bits which will be perfect for chaff and flare ejectors.



I'd extended the fuselage a bit behind the original wing rotator cuffs, so I had a gap between the fin and the fairing; again, donor kit 2 to the rescue with an insert (blue arrow) below. You can also see the reworked LERXes and smoothed down fuselage / wing join (dark blue arrow).



I managed to sort out the end wing rotator cuffs for the two twin engine outboard power pods. Originally I was going to have rotator cuffs to account for the swing wings and also pod rotator cuffs to swivel the powerplants vertical - horizontal and back. Ont his last bit it got too tough so I settled for a cruciform hole in the pod (red arrow) and a straight plate in the cuff where it meets the pod, so the things have 2 positions - straight up and straight down.



So I taped the major bits together to see how they look. I have put one pod in cruise position and one in hover, they don't slide fully in yet I have to finesse that after the painting etc. So in high speed she looks a bit like this from the top



and this from the bottom



and in low speed flight / hover like this from the top



and this from the bottom.



A bit of an update recently, including some details.

So the back end is really starting to take shape, the under fuselage fairing and extensions back to the fin getting there and the little PSR issues around the LERXes being (I hope) resolved.



I've scratched up the four compressor faces from plastic card, little bit larger than the normal units would be, they seem to look OK.



Managed to work out how the wingtip engine pods will be built up, photo below shows how the components will slot together (no effluxes yet). At the rear you have the main engine housing (outside edge facing up) onto which a keyed plate will be loaded that holds the two compressor faces, the outside edges of the stock air intakes (that will have extensions coming across to fill the broadened gap) and the centrally mounted and long protruding fuel tanks courtesy of old Airfix 144th Soyuz boosters (destroyed in the infamous "House shift of 2011").



Finally the modified full weapons load that fits in the internal weapons bay. Some modifications to fins have been made, just need to tidy up the rear of one or two and do some work on the AIM9s that may look more like Shafrirs when done.



I now have a handle on the undercarriage (mentally anyway).

***** END INFO DUMP *****

Thanks for your patience! I'll post a further update when some more progress is made.

[tc2324]

Looking good.

[Sir T]

That's a very interesting idea, strangly not unlike an aircraft type I've had in my head for several years. Great work on the conversion so far and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

[Modelling Mushi]

OK, back after a fair break away from everything. Some small progress with some detail added to the weapons bay doors and bay centre divider, plus turbine faces atached to blanking plates.

Thanks for looking in.

[Alan P]

How's this going? Looks like a scaled down Barnes Wallis Bluebird.

[Modelling Mushi]

Nlhbap, it's going slowly, VERY slowly . Apart from nightmares in the cockpit (fixed now) swmbo has had me making a cat skyscraper so thats sucked a bit of time. Hopefully in the next month I'll make more headway.

Ciao

[tc2324]

Will look forward to the next update.

[Dermo245]

Brilliantly bonkers in a what if way...looking forward to more!

[Cookenbacher]

Yes, looking forward to more of your scratch work after the cat is happy.

[Mass]

Guys

Long  time between posts and in the meantime my PhotoBucket account went west - so all the previous pics have gone

 

Anyhow, I've started her back up. She's a 1/72 Italieri IDS Tornado that is being converted to a Canadian VTOL long range ship. Won't bore you with the dramas re the wings and my first attempt at setting them in, suffice to say the wings are now fixed in position.

 

Pics below show where she is up to, ready for first major PSR sessions. One top view, one under view, and one showing the wing tip mounted jet pods (pick the Vostok components  )

White bits are plastic card and filler.

 

 

 

 

Hopefully, now the cat tower is done and the mojos back, more progress to follow.

Ciao