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TSR-2 question


jasman71

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I'm planning a future project for my second TSR-2 in 48th scale, getting all the detail sets etc, and will be adding my own detailing, opening up more panels etc.. anyway, I'm just curious if anyone has, or knows of, any photos of any of the airframes in their primer colours rather than the usual white? I have found a couple of pics in the Crowood book, which show the top sides of one of them, but I don't know if any even exist of the sides or undersurfaces in any other reference materials. I would imagine there is a finite amount of official (or otherwise) photos taken at the time, and I suspect what I have in my handful of books is pretty much the cream of he crop. TIA 

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There was a thread on here a couple of years ago discussing the state of the airframes at cancellation day.  Your photos of XR219 show the entire airframe in primer apart from fin, tailplanes and radio-transparent panels and components.,  Rear fuselages for later airframes were delivered from Preston to Weybridge in anti-flash white with serial numbers applied (there are photos of XR226 being cut up at Weybridge illustrating this).  Flying surfaces for airframes up to at least XR225 had also been painted and national markings applied.

 

Some colour images of '219 at Boscombe Down suggest that the framing of the pilot's canopy was still in primer during engine runs and taxi tests, but by September 27th 1964 it too wore anti-flash White.

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Thankyou gents, that's great. I expected I'd end up having to employ some artistic guesswork for the underside, I just wondered if the photographer had wandered underneath and snapped a few off.

 

i haven't  decided on any specific airframe yet, and I've half a mind to do it as a whiff as maybe XS660, scribbled on the side. But I'm not even sure I need to specify which one it is, as it would be kind of representative of the whole programme,  but the pedant in me will probably require I designate it in case I do another one later on. 

 

Are there any images at all of the bays below the rear cockpit (sideways looking radar?) and the port instrument bay? For the latter I bought two sets designed for the starboard one, so I'll probably end up scratch building the bay itself but I mainly bought it for the door. The only image I've seen I think showed the Duxford one with not much in it

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All the photos I've seen of the SLR bay do not have the scanner fitted so I can't help with that, the other bays are also a bit of a problem the following photos my help, I would think you will have to go with a generic look to the bays as the kit fitted would have varied with the aircraft and the purpose of the test to be performed on any given flight, so even on the same aircraft the kit in the bay could change.

mYxjQn.jpg

mYxlVs.jpg

mYxSo2.jpg

John 

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Fabulous, thanks John! 

 

When  I made my first one the CMK instrument bay pretty much seemed a direct copy of the Cosford one, so was easy to paint. I can't really install a right hand bay in the left hand opening else it would be upside down, so I'll either get the Drexel out and remove all the boxes from the shelving, or just build the bay afresh and put not much on it at all. 

 

I'm half thinking of building an engine too, having made one from scratch to go in the Sea Vixen. That would depend how long the rest takes me, and whether or not I've lost the will to live by then!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Also note that anything on the prototype airframes that is bright orange is test or trials equipment and probably not relevant to the production aircraft.  Plus None of the completed prototypes will have had a full avionics and weapons system fitted so there would have been other changes/additions on production aircraft.

 

Peter

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I saw some TSR2 fuselages at Weybridge mid 60s and they were in standard Vickers/BAC two part Yellow primer

Edited by bzn20
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According to the Tony Buttler book "Britain's Lost Bomber" they were gone from BAC Weybridge by September 1965 or thereabouts, so that gives a very specific time frame as scrapping didn't start for some weeks after cancellation for the substantially complete airframes and major components, although some barely-started rear fuselages at Preston were taken out of their jigs and cut up within days.

Edited by stever219
Clarification and correcting unwanted auto-correction.
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13 hours ago, stever219 said:

they were gone by September 1965

Coleys or Colies yard still big lumps of the TSR2, Fuselages under Tarps in the late 60s 67/68 ish. School mate came round and told me about them so we biked the 3 miles to Feltham, near the Station. Couple of miles South of Heathrow. Think they were listed in a "Wrecks and Relics" at that time , not 100% sure though.

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Coley's.  There was a photo in FlyPast long ago of the (in)famous pile of Hunters with the rear fuselages of, I think, XR224, '226 and '227 lying alongside.  What amazed me is that, unlike some of the other airframe components often illustrated, they had not apparently been sectioned between the production joints.  XR226's rear fuselage was, apparently, still substantially complete in a West Bromwich scrapyard well into the 'seventies (photo in an early 'eighties Air Pictorial with an article urging cancellation of Tornado and resurrection of TSR 2).

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1 minute ago, stever219 said:

Coley's.

There were loads of bits of airframes there. We ended up chasing scrapyards all over after reading wrecks and relics. Lasham in woods near the airfield had well over a 100 aircraft, Italian Stinsons , Sabres (can't remember the Air Force) Lost my  note pad years ago, can't remember half of what we saw. We were by ourselves nobody about and no fences, the good old days !

Coley's was a scrap merchant, didn't matter to them how they were sectioned I suppose.

Years later,2000 I was selling villas etc. in Spain and the wrecks and Relics Author/publisher families (Midland something? I forget)were looking for properties. I took them round. Spent more time talking about Aircraft than the size of the Cucina rustica !

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Is it a fibreglass / dielectric panel ? Looks like a suction/curing mat.

Edited by bzn20
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4 hours ago, canberra kid said:

yes, and it's an interesting pattern on the skin where it is plugged into the aircraft

John 

It looks as though some of the primer has been removed, the finish on the air brake immediately forward appears pristine.  Apparently there were problems with paint adhesion where surfaces had been contaminated with hydraulic fluid, but there's little or nothing in that area that would produce an area of contamination Like that without penetrating the skin which forms the outer wall of number 3 fuel tank.  For that reason alone, plus the fact that the tank has a pair of chuffing great, quite warm jet pipes running through it, I very much doubt that there would be a fibreglass/radio-transparent panel in that area.  Maybe the box has something to do with tank pressure testing?

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14 hours ago, stever219 said:

For that reason alone, plus the fact that the tank has a pair of chuffing great, quite warm jet pipes

Probably right. Those Jet pipes are heavily insulated anyway ,the fuel tank you mentioned is close to them.The Fibreglass I was talking about is really thick, honeycomb sandwich made with Paxolin or Ally ,even sheet ally with a H/comb sandwich (not for dielectric obviously) Those skins/panels were probably Primary structure too.

 

Those pics have vanished so can't check for tank blanking that's required for a tank pressure test. That's a good guess of what they were doing although the electrical connection is a puzzle, we pressurized (1.5 PSI max), the complete VC10 fuel tank system or could isolate one wing, didn't need electrical power just hangar air and vent blanks,0-5 PSI gauge fitted to a spare modified tank panel. We even Vacuumed the tanks to just under 1PSI too using another bit of kit. Pity I can't see that pic again.

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1 hour ago, canberra kid said:

TSR.2 had struck again

Silly Billy Dennis Healy came back complete with the nest of vipers he called eyebrows ?

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Many thanks chaps. I made a start a couple of weeks ago, have got a load of photos logging the build (what are folks using now Photobucket are playing silly buggers?)

 

i have opened up both instrument bays, though for the port one I had to scratch build a lot of the stuff as the starboard bay insert is just for that side alone: grinding out all the detail of a £13 resin piece was not done with much love, but needs must..... I also opened the port camera bay and filled the gap with the relevant air con detail. Last panel I opened was the Cumulus bay. I've found a couple of photos of it, but not a clear one of it installed on the door, so I'll use some guesstimations when I build it. Half a mind to leave the nose cone off and do the Doppler too, but that's a fair way off yet. 

 

I bought a bottle of  Alclad zinc chromate primer to try out. It appears a slightly different shade to the Xtracolor version, which is fine, but I plan to do a few variations of the colour anyway. 

 

Still no no definite decision on which one to do, though will probably not be technically accurate as I doubt they would still have been in primer with virtually everything else completed...with a tow hook attached! Half thinking of doing XR221, so more perhaps of a whif than fact, but a whif based on fact, as it were. 

 

The Crowood book is wonderful. I also got a cd of pilot's notes which has several diagrams of controls etc in them, but alas not really extra goodies that I'm looking for. 

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21 hours ago, bzn20 said:

Silly Billy Dennis Healy came back complete with the nest of vipers he called eyebrows ?

I can't remember where I read it, but apparently he was adamant that he did NOT order the destruction of the construction jigs. Well somebody did, very much like the Avro Arrow situation too (though I heard that was more because of rumours of KGB infiltration in the work force).

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On 12/09/2017 at 6:49 PM, canberra kid said:

yes, and it's an interesting pattern on the skin where it is plugged into the aircraft

John 

First impression was it looks like 222 after it's strip down during it's restoration. Don't think it's 220 as that has the extra struts on the main u/c bogies

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