De Havilland Heron 1 SABENA - using the Airfix 1/72nd kit

[stevehnz]

Yes, I reckon so. Nznac only operated these till about 1957, when an up graded Rongotai airport (Wellington) made them redundant. I was only 2 then, maybe only about 18 months when I flew in one hence no recollection, I'd still like to give one a crack one of these days though.

Steve.

[Mr B]

nice work so far

Lovely aircraft only wish that the Dove is readily available......some how

Rgds

[nimrod54]

Apologies for the lack of updates, I am just trying to wrap up a couple of small builds for the GPW group build and should be back on this soon. The decals arrived from 26Decals last week so I can get on with formulating a plan to sort out the poor window fit ready for when I restart.

​I also received this set of Air Canada decals for an Airbus A319 which I would like to do for this GB, if I have time to squeeze it in.

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

That Sabena scheme looks rather nice!

[nimrod54]

I like this particular SABENA scheme Ray and was torn between this and the BEA Red Square option. However, the few BEA aircraft I have are 1/144 scale so I would like to keep that option open for this aircraft type. I think this will look good when it is finished though, and will be yet another reminder of days out with mates collecting aircraft registrations from the end of the International Pier at Ringway Airport back in the mid - late 60's. A whole days fun for about 1/6d (7.5p for the youf) ​plus bus fare

[keefr22]

I like that scheme too John, & was also torn between it & BEA Red Square for my 'when I get round to it' Heron build! I almost bought another Heron on Flea Bay to save making the decision, but sensible head won that time!

I like the Air Canada minibus scheme too - I have the kit, paint & decals to do a 320 in the same basic scheme - yet another to get around to one day...!!

Keith

[nimrod54]

I decided it was time to try and get some more done on the Heron and after looking at the windows came to the conclusion that there was a bit to much sanding to get them looking right. I would probably have been better leaving them out and filling the openings with Glue 'n' Glaze or Kristal Klear at the end, but too late for that now so I filled them in with Green Stuff and sanded to shape.

It does leave me with the issue of representing the windows once the decals go on and the solution I have come up with so far is to paint them in using a suitable colour, maybe grey or silver. I thought that by using a B&W photocopy of the decal sheet I could cut some masking templates for on top of the primer before painting the top colours. Bit of a pain masking off for each window though, so my alternative would be to paint a stripe of colour behind the cheat line. Other suggestions on the best approach are welcome.

I also managed to get some DSG sprayed over the cockpit, I didn't want to go with the yellow floor as per the instructions although I will add the Light Grey suggested for the seats and bulkhead. I have some old Reheat seatbelts somewhere and will add some of those, that should be enough to liven this area up. I have added the nose wheel door to one half of the fuselage along with a strip of plastic to fill some of the remaining gap left by the missing section that is attached to the nose leg. This has been left proud so that I can blend it to the fuselage shape before I start to add the fairing for the nose wheel.

The small box in the photo below contains a fishing weight and some Liquid Gravity and I hope that this will reduce the chances of this being a tail sitter. After glueing this in position I adopted a belt and braces approach and added a chunky section of sprue, and I hope that should be enough to stop the thing rattling about should it come loose.

Once the cockpit detailing is finished I can get on with closing up the fuselage.

[nimrod54]

I didn't manage to find the Reheat belts mentioned in the previous update, so I cut a strip of lead foil into short lengths an made some from this. Painted up blue they don't look too bad.

 

 

This was the last job I had to do before I could close up the fuselage and ,as you can from the clamps, that job has now been completed too. That will be left overnight and then I can make a start on fairing in the nose wheel.

 

 

 

[Hockeyboy76]

Looking nice John. 

I'm pretty sure I saw one of these in Royal Navy markings at the aviation museum on St Mawgan earlier this week. 

[nimrod54]

I wouldn't be surprised if you did see one there Mike. The Royal Navy had some Series 2 aircraft converted to Sea Herons and there are photos showing that several were still flying in the 80's, so they probably have a preserved aircraft, not sure where or how many though.

[Hockeyboy76]

A font of all knowledge. 

Edited September 16, 2016 by Hockeyboy76

[alancmlaird]

Excellent choice. Glad to see its still a worthy moulding - nobody will produce another, I'm sure. I built a Mk1 years ago and finished it in the then current 'Speedjack' livery with 'Scottish Airways' above the cabin. This of course was before the days of aftermarket decals for just about everything - so Letraset 'futura' was modified for the font with 'Univers 57' for the reg lettering. Can't remember how i did the rest! I'll see if its still in (mostly) one piece in the loft - and post a pic.

My own airliner project will probably be BEA too (but with fewer engines!), so I'd love to see a Heron in the earlier scheme.

[nimrod54]

Alan,

I see that you are new to the forum, so welcome on board and I'm glad that you like my choice of kit. I've come across a couple of photos of a Heron in Scottish Airways markings and 26Decals produce a set of decals for G-ANXA and NXB in this scale. There are also kits available by F-Resin and Welsh Models in 1/144 scale and they both have BEA Red Square and Scottish Airways Speedjack options.

The Welsh Models version will probably be my choice for the Red Square scheme when I get around to doing that in 1/144 but for this 1/72 version I have decided to go with SABENA.

 

Your mention of Letraset took me back to my early days in Production Planning. All of the production programmes and monitoring charts were produced using Letraset - a very time consuming process. A short while after starting we went Hi-Tech and started using Rotring pens and stencils which sped things up no end.

 

Feel free to post a photo of your Heron here if you wish. I am always keen to see other peoples work of the same model, because quite often there is something they have done that I haven't thought about. No pressure though, only if you want too.

[nimrod54]

After removing the clamps late last night I added some filler and gave the seams a quick clean this morning. Then I decided to check that I had added enough weight, so to test this I used some Blue Tack to hold the wings on temporarily and as you can see from the following photo no tail sitter.

 

I checked the seams over and noticed a couple of little problem areas just in front and behind the cockpit and applied some super glue to these. After that I decided it was time to get on with adding the fairing to the nose leg.

 

I started by adding the forward section of the kit undercarriage door and then checked the fit of one of the side that I had made earlier in the build. After a bit of fettling, this was glued in position with the rear portion angled back to the centre line. The process was then repeated for the other side and this was followed by packing the gaps around the leg with sections of plastic to thicken the sanding area, it was left to set up before starting any reshaping of the fairing.

The fairing has had the initial shaping work done and now needs further sanding to smooth it off along with any filling that may be required before a final sand and polish to finish this area.

 

 

 

 

 

Once this work is completed I can start to rescribe some of the main panel lines and then think about attaching the wings.

[keefr22]

Very impressed with that nose leg John, really neat scratchbuilding!

 

Keith

[Hockeyboy76]

Looking good buddy. The wings look huge. 

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Very nice work on the nose gear

[nimrod54]

Thanks for the comments re the nose gear fairing fellas.

Last night I was looking for references so that I could start re-scribing some panel lines and came across a front on shot of the nose leg, one thing that I had missed up to this was the fact that the bottom of the fairing is pinched in around the leg, so I did some more work this morning to get it looking something like it should. My only concern was had I got enough material there to work with, but in the end I think that I have just about managed it.

 

 

I was able to start the re-scribing work last night and got most of those that I wanted to add to the fuselage done. The last ones to go on are around the nose which are a bit trickier to sort out because of some panels/hatches that are there. To get around this I have created a Fritag-esque template for the Port side, so should you venture across to the dark-side that is the Group Build sub forum Steve, thanks for that handy tip.

I can reuse the small square one for the forward panel on the Stbd side of the nose, but the two larger ones are different shapes and so a second template is required.

 

 

 

As for your comment about the wings H, like you the wingspan came as a surprise. I hadn't appreciated just how large it was until I tried to take the photos for the previous post, it took some fiddling about to fit it in.

 

 

 

[nimrod54]

I finished the rescribing of the fuselage today and then added the rudder and the tailplanes and elevators. There are some gaps around the elevators and rudder joints that will have to be dealt with, so a bit more filling yet. The final job for tonight was to add some hinges to the various panels and doors using some stretched sprue, I've also added a handle to the main entry door, I'll tidy them up tomorrow when the glue has set up.

 

 

I have ordered a set of 26Decals vinyl masks for this, so that should make things easier when it comes to sorting the windows out when I start painting. 

 

[nimrod54]

Last night, I did some work to scribe in the panel lines on the wings and then glued them on. After leaving them for a little while I decided to see how things would look once it was resting on the undercarriage only to find that, despite previous efforts to avoid it, I had a tail sitter.  The last time I checked everything looked as though it would be OK, but I hadn't fitted the rudder and tailplanes at that point. Fortunately I hadn't fitted the canopy either and whilst it was a bit of a squeeze I was able to drop some fishing weights down past the instrument panel and into the nose followed by a few drops of cyano to hold them in place, the upshot is that she sits on the end that is pressed down, but I will accept that result over a tail sitter - I just hope that the paint doesn't make a difference.  

 

 

The canopy and wheels are not fixed in place at the moment and I still have some more clean up to do yet, but I feel that I am starting to make some good progress now. The next time I update I hope to have some primer on and if everything looks good it will be time for paint.

 

Thanks for dropping by.

[keefr22]

Props look like they're are forward of the CoG John, so their weight should help counteract all the heavy paint on the tail....!! 

 

Looking really good now!

 

Keith

[Hockeyboy76]

Good save John. Hope looking forward to seeing some paint on her. 

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

It is looking good, I was going to mention the props as well but Keith beat me to it.

 

Were the engine nacelles hollow? You could drill holes in them and add some more weight into the cavity?

[CliffB]

This is looking very nice indeed

 

[nimrod54]

Progress on this project has been similar to my A319 build, seam checking and sanding etc although this has had a first coat of primer. This has highlighted that the fuselage seam on the underside requires some more filling and the windows also require further work. I intended to leave a ghost of an impression around the windows to help with painting those in, but what is there at the moment is a little too much - so more filling and sanding there too. Once those areas are sorted out I can look to getting on with the painting, anyone got a good match for the Sabena Blue, the decal instructions suggest Middle Blue.

 

 

One thing that I am quite pleased with though is the way that the nose leg is beginning to look, it has turned out much better that I thought it was going to.