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Ark Royal's last cruise -Phantom FG1:Tractor and base close to completion


Massimo

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As I said a few posts back, I would go with the Frog Wessex for this build, even if I wasn't going to detail it.

 

Excellent info from bro' Perdu there!

 

One thing that bugs me with RN SAR decals is that they don't have the black outline to the 'ROYAL NAVY RESCUE' and the serial/code numbers

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10 minutes ago, Martian Hale said:

Lovely job Bill, it looks like the frog fuselage and Italeri or Matchbox detail is the way to go.

 

Martian

As long as the Italeri tail rotor direction of rotation gets reversed, some/many of its bits are useable

 

I see the high quality of its moulding and details then shudder at the stupid badness of the thing

 

:(  grr

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My Planeguard HAS1 which I thought may be of interest for paint reference.

Ignore the codes and the crest. I built it with what was in stock decal wise.  The model is the 1/48 Italeri HAS1.

 

The paints are Hataka RAF Blue Grey from the Falklands war paint set and the orange is Halfords Aerosol Day-Glo Orange sprayed over Humbrol Medium 64 Light Grey as a base coat to dull it a little.

 

Hataka paints have a variable reputation but this was mixed 50/50 with Mr.Color Thinner (400) and about 8 drops os Vallejo flow improver in 10ml of mix.  It went on lovely.

 

I think the colours are spot on, even is the decals are a bit made up.  (I'm tempted to buy a set of code numbers and correct it now).

 

resized_11c1ef10-b6c4-4418-bac7-76eae2a4

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50 minutes ago, 71chally said:

As I said a few posts back, I would go with the Frog Wessex for this build, even if I wasn't going to detail it.

One thing that bugs me with RN SAR decals is that they don't have the black outline to the 'ROYAL NAVY RESCUE' and the serial/code numbers

Looking at Perdu's pictures, the difference is very visible. The old Frog kit's shape looks more accurate.What doesn't convince me, from all pictures I've seen since Yesterday, is the windscreen and its fit to the fuselage.

I think the fuselage shape and length could be corrected easily, as well as the tail rotor.

The Frog kit doesn't look so easy to find...

Decals are an other small problm, mainly for the stencilling, which seems to be good on Italeri sheet.

I'll have to give it a thought and search on the net.

 

56 minutes ago, At Sea said:

The paints are Hataka RAF Blue Grey from the Falklands war paint set and the orange is Halfords Aerosol Day-Glo Orange sprayed over Humbrol Medium 64 Light Grey as a base coat to dull it a little.

Hataka paints have a variable reputation but this was mixed 50/50 with Mr.Color Thinner (400) and about 8 drops os Vallejo flow improver in 10ml of mix.  It went on lovely.

Really beautiful model and useful tip on the colors!!! Never heard of Hataka, but I'll find out if I can find them in Italy. Thank you!

 

 

36 minutes ago, perdu said:

As long as the Italeri tail rotor direction of rotation gets reversed, some/many of its bits are useable

I see the high quality of its moulding and details then shudder at the stupid badness of the thing

:(  grr

 

 

Very nice this yellow kit of yours!!!

I know...and it's difficult to find an explanation to this...

I've got the 1/48th model and the kit quality is superb, I don't know about accuracy, as I don't know the subject.To be honest I had noticed the steep step where thre fuselagw narrows down even on the bigger scale kit, now that the difference has been highlighted!

To say a word in favour of Italeri, I'll show a few pictures I took during a visit to their factory (not far from Bologna, where I live) in 2012, when they were working on the 1/48th Wessex. It was a nice visit and the kit moulds and prototype looked great! 

 

zFSuEig.jpg

The factory logo on the building's facade.

 

LpHo0Ch.jpg

Some reference drawings 

 

B4SF6Dz.jpg

gdjNxQm.jpg

resin prototypes and references...no sign of any tail rotor!!!

 

Am4PapS.jpg

PDuUDlB.jpg

ItoY40R.jpg

m84RfxI.jpg

sRNUOhk.jpg

some different stages fo the moulds' building process.

 

ZtPl7sA.jpg

...I know it's got nothing to do with a Wessex...looks more like a Hurricane, but we taked about copper earlier on and I thought this wouldn't be out of place!!!

 

Ok, tomorrow morning I'll fly back, thus before leaving, so let's talk about serious matters!!!;)

Let me add a few pictures showing how my diet progressed along the week:

 

Haggis parcels

IoDWsv1.jpg

 

Highland burgher, topped with haggis and pepper sauce,

EBfsTok.jpg

 

some more haggis parcels,

0lOgh9Y.jpg

 

and more haggis , neeps and tatties!!!

xk9XWng.jpg

 

Now it'll be hard...I'll have to do with italian food for a while...

Ciao

Massimo

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, massimo said:

To say a word in favour of Italeri, I'll show a few pictures I took during a visit to their factory (not far from Bologna, where I live) in 2012, when they were working on the 1/48th Wessex. It was a nice visit and the kit moulds and prototype looked great! 

 

Which makes it even more of a shame that they stuffed it up so badly!   At least they got the tail rotor turning the correct way on the 1/48 version.

 

 

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I quite like Italian food but if I'm on holiday I can always go home  :)

 

I love those pictures from Italeri's factory, but how could they get it so wrong

 

They have the 'bible' of Wessex drawings from the 4+ planssheet

 

Then they got the nose filter twice as  wide as it should be, (take a look at the kit filter and the delightful drawings)

 

They got the length wrong and the steps up the side as well as the tail rotor

 

maybe they didn't get the drawings until the metal was cut

 

Still NOT my manufacturer of choice

 

But really great photos

 

I presume the copper Hurricane was for spark eroding the mould, it looks very fine

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You're both right, everything seemed to be there and ... they got it wrong... 

By the way,

  1. thanks to all much appreciated interventions  I've got an idea about what to do with the Wessex.
  2. I'm waiting for Airfix release for the Phantom and I've got the dedicated decal sheet on order.
  3. I've got the Sword Gannet ready to start and an Alley cat decal sheet to improve it. I've already cut the flaps from one wing and....I think I'll abandon the idea of depicting it flaps down and I'll go for the parking configuration,with folded wings, hook down and ladders out.
  4. I've got Machbox Buccaneer, and I've ordered from Alleycat a resin set including nose, tail cone and elevator, refuelling probe and (I think...) corrected intakes. I'll decide if I'll buy the Airwavas PEfret for wingfols ot airbrakes , but What I'm really missing is  809 Sq. decals. I think they came with the Airfix kit, atsome point, But I have no clue where to find them.Has anyone got a leftover or one you don't use? I'd be interested in buying it.
  5. What about the Sea king?Any suggestion about the kit?

Thank youall for the collaboration!!!:rofl:

Ciao 

Massimo

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Very interesting project Massimo ! I'll follow this for sure

If I may add my 2 cents worth, the Matchbox Buccaneer will need a lot of work... The Alleycat bits will help a lot, but there will still be work left for you to bring this kit to a decent level. The wings for example lack the vortex generators, something quite annoying to add in 1/72 scale. Still, I consider this kit a bit more accurate than the Airfix one and some parts are even better (the main landing gear for example). Yes, we do need a modern 1/72 Buccaneer kit...

On the positive side, if you can't find the Airwaves sheet, wingfold and airbrakes are not too hard to scratchbuild, if I could do it anyone can.

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13 hours ago, massimo said:

The Frog kit doesn't look so easy to find...

Decals are an other small problm, mainly for the stencilling, which seems to be good on Italeri sheet.

I'll have to give it a thought and search on the net.

 

 

I have a partial solution to the decal problem posting to you today (The Wessex portion of Modeldecal Sheet 18 and a Matchbox HAS.31/HU.5 decal sheet which has some basic stencil/warning markings).

 

I still have my old 1/72 scale spares box in the shed, which I'm sure has some old Matchbox Wessex parts in there also, I'll try to dig them out at some point.

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Re the Sea King, Massimo, you can find lots of discussion about converting Revell HAS6 or Airfix HAR3 to HAS2 standard:

I have never built the Revell kit, but I have crawled all over both the Airfix HC4 and HAR3 kits (not built them - not my scale of choice - but a neighbour's kid has them both).  The modern Airfix tooling is extremely good in a lot of ways (and of the two, pretty obviously the HAR3 would be the one because of radar, undercarriage etc).  In either case there will be a fair amount of modelling to be done.

 

Don't get me started on why we should have a modern tooling of a variant of which only a handful were built (HAR3) but NOT of the primary version which dominates the production and the type's service (HAS in its various forms); it rather defeats me.  I suspect that the answer lies in a certainly Royal SAR pilot; that would probably be enough to tip the economic balance in favour of a Mk 3.  

 

Still, us Pingers live in hope that one day we'll see at least one good quality RN ASW helicopter kit - they only have Whirlwind, Wessex 1 & 3, Sea King 1, 2, 5 or 6 and Merlin 1 & 2 to choose from...

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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6 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

The wings for example lack the vortex generators, something quite annoying to add in 1/72 scale.

...if you can't find the Airwaves sheet, wingfold and airbrakes are not too hard to scratchbuild, if I could do it anyone can.

Hi Giorgio,

You're absolutely right the vortex generators can be a real pain...

...UNLESS I DRILL SOME HOLES ON BOTH WINGS AND TRY TO PLANT SOME VERTEX GENERATOR SEEDS!!!:rofl:

Perdu's having some real fun with them...I think I'll try with plastic strips, much easier to glue,even if I don't know about strength ...I'll see.

The wing fold system can be scratch built and may result even stronger, but it all depends which option I choose for my Bucc, among:

  • landing pose,
  • ready to launch ( but that will be also the Phantom's pose, thus...)
  • parking pose (wings folded and airbrakes open)
  • on the lift nearly levelled to the deck ( which intrigues me, but I don't like very much the open radome.)

And finally ...YESSSSSSSS.... a PLASTIC 1/72 Buccaneer is strongly needed!

 

4 hours ago, AntPhillips said:

I have a partial solution to the decal problem posting to you today (The Wessex portion of Modeldecal Sheet 18 and a Matchbox HAS.31/HU.5 decal sheet which has some basic stencil/warning markings).

I still have my old 1/72 scale spares box in the shed, which I'm sure has some old Matchbox Wessex parts in there also, I'll try to dig them out at some point.

 

4 hours ago, Scimitar said:

PM me with your address and I'll post them out.

...well...what can I say...this is going to be a teamwork!!! I've already had some precious info from most of you guys, and now ....decals too...I'm really touched!!!:smile:

 

3 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Re the Sea King, Massimo, you can find lots of discussion about converting Revell HAS6 or Airfix HAR3 to HAS2 standard:

I have never built the Revell kit, but I have crawled all over both the Airfix HC4 and HAR3 kits (not built them - not my scale of choice - but a neighbour's kid has them both).  The modern Airfix tooling is extremely good in a lot of ways (and of the two, pretty obviously the HAR3 would be the one because of radar, undercarriage etc).  In either case there will be a fair amount of modelling to be done.

 

Don't get me started on why we should have a modern tooling of a variant of which only a handful were built (HAR3) but NOT of the primary version which dominates the production and the type's service (HAS in its various forms); it rather defeats me.  I suspect that the answer lies in a certainly Royal SAR pilot; that would probably be enough to tip the economic balance in favour of a Mk 3.  

 

Still, us Pingers live in hope that one day we'll see at least one good quality RN ASW helicopter kit - they only have Whirlwind, Wessex 1 & 3, Sea King 1, 2, 5 or 6 and Merlin 1 & 2 to choose from...

 

I'll start from here for my search of a model and decals.I see the new tooling Airfix kit has no floats for the main wheels...that's not bad for a start!!! I'll have to do some homework.

I may try to shrink those from my  Hasegawa RN kit in 1/48...but I don't think it'll work!!!:headbang:

About the certain Royal SAR pilot...you might be right!!!:giggle:

For a start, I think I'll go with the Gannet while I improve my knowledge!!! 

 

Ciao

Massimo

 

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4 hours ago, massimo said:

I see the new tooling Airfix kit has no floats for the main wheels...that's not bad for a start!

The HAR3 has floats and radar - which is why you definitely shouidn’t use the HC4, which has neither!

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40 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

The HAR3 has floats and radar - which is why you definitely shouidn’t use the HC4, which has neither!

I've been searching and found a Revell kit 04427 which they say is an MK41...would that be better? I could have found one,s-l1600.jpg

 

Bought it!

Edited by massimo2
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You could do an HAS1 or 2 with this kit as it gives the smaller radome.

Don't know if it also includes the bigger one for the 5 and 6 

The nose dome shown is a separate part so not an issue.

The sponsons are undersized I believe .

That's my halfpenny's worth..a certain Sea King driver will be along in a minute though.

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This has blossomed into a fascinating thread already Massimo. I hope you don't mind me settling down on a corner of the deck for the long haul to watch how you progress?

Kind regards,

Tony

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looking at the pictures I've found, it should be ok, then there are for sure some interventions to be done,but this is what we're here for!!!

Now I'll look for some drawings to understand what are the features of this version.

A few years ago I got started with this: an HH3F from a Sea King, but that was in 1/48, my favourite scale and was then left aside

245ykif.jpg

30kbr7b.jpg

This could be another challenge!

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This morning my flight from Glasgow airport left at 6,00 and once home, my treasure was waiting for me...

 

BntwFFj.jpg

this was tonight's priority!

Anyway she's in bed now, so after a week of "talked modelling" I thought I had at least to remind all of us talkers that this ws meant to be a modelling thread, so, inspired by Perdu's last updates on his Gannet nose, I thought a nice little job before going to sleep would be to  open the engines' air intakes,just to be timed with Perdu!!!

 

l1kzSBg.jpg

So I started by filing the back of the intake, which was taller than the outside circle, until it was levelled with it.

When the file started touching the outside, I went on with a curved blade knife, scratching the intake borderuntill the thin plastic layer left came off.

 

Sgax896.jpg

BE6WEIP.jpg

IktYyov.jpg

I then cleaned with a needle file and fine sand paper, but just a little, because it's late and I got up at 3,30AM!!!

 

SKPEvAI.jpg

m2F1sWT.jpg

At the end I tried a dry fit, just to add a couple more pictures, to emphasize what I did!:rofl:

Tomorrow I'll compare it with the pictures in my possess and those in Perdu's thread and I'll check what's the best way to increase the intake's depth.

Night night!

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More air

 

She neeeeds more air

 

But a very good start, do compare with the picture James posted in my thread and you will get a very good idea of how much more the outer edge needs opening

 

AEW3

 

I really am going to have to, next year maybe

 

:)

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15 minutes ago, andyf117 said:

That one will work to do an HAS.1 like mine - for a '78 HAS.2, you'll need to add a six-bladed tail rotor to mods 1, 2, 4 and 5 described here:

Although for mod 1 that issue doesn't provide the blanking plate - it's on the additional sprues of the later releases, as detailed here:

 

Very well, I suspected the pictures I saw tonight might not be the same as they were taken in 1973.Tomorrow I'll relax and have a go with your very welcomed link!!!:yes:

 

13 minutes ago, perdu said:

More air

 

She neeeeds more air

 

But a very good start, do compare with the picture James posted in my thread and you will get a very good idea of how much more the outer edge needs opening

 

I know she needs more air,but I'm really done!!!I needed some contact with some plastic , but tonight I would do some damage if I go on!!! I'll watch carefully your pics tomorrow and get along with it!:rambo:

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13 hours ago, massimo said:

This could be another challenge!

 

13 hours ago, massimo said:

1/48, my favourite scale

Scratch built Ark Royal with working folding wings and rotors on the Gannet,Wessex,Phantom and Buccaneer ?

Might just fit in if you move the Christmas tree :D

 

5049675235_a505bda686_z.jpg

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