raschi Posted December 12, 2017 Share Posted December 12, 2017 Built OOB, only added FODs on intakes. Used Agama alcohol based colors. 25 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted December 12, 2017 Share Posted December 12, 2017 Im a Fan of all the X-planes so i like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cookenbacher Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 Wonderful build, I must admit I'd never heard of the X-4 until this RFI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Dot Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 that's really neat. Good Job Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John R Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 Nice job. I built (wrestled to the ground!) this one from Airmodel. Only when I had finished did I discover that MPM had issued one. Drrr! John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Mc Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 (edited) Nice X-4. The X-4 flew quite well, unlike the British DH108. Edited December 14, 2017 by Eric Mc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_W Posted December 14, 2017 Share Posted December 14, 2017 Very nice build. Never heard of this one before, so did a bit of Google. Essentially a jet engined Me 163. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Mc Posted December 14, 2017 Share Posted December 14, 2017 Sort of. The 163 demonstrated that a fairly well behaved and high speed tailless design would work. The US decided to investigate this with a design of their using a jet engine rather than the dangerous rocket motor of the 163. Bell did a good job and the X-4was actually a nice little aeroplane to fly. In fact, I think the two built all survived to end their lives in museums. Britain had a similar idea ( the DeHavilland DH108 Swallow) but, for budgetary reasons, used an existing design (the single seat Vampire) a the basis for their tailless project. This didn't work out so well and all three 108s built were destroyed in fatal crashes. Eric Brown refers to the 108 in his books in two simple words - "a killer". 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatbox8 Posted December 14, 2017 Share Posted December 14, 2017 3 hours ago, Eric Mc said: Sort of. The 163 demonstrated that a fairly well behaved and high speed tailless design would work. The US decided to investigate this with a design of their using a jet engine rather than the dangerous rocket motor of the 163. Bell did a good job and the X-4was actually a nice little aeroplane to fly. In fact, I think the two built all survived to end their lives in museums. Britain had a similar idea ( the DeHavilland DH108 Swallow) but, for budgetary reasons, used an existing design (the single seat Vampire) a the basis for their tailless project. This didn't work out so well and all three 108s built were destroyed in fatal crashes. Eric Brown refers to the 108 in his books in two simple words - "a killer". As I understand it the X-4 was designed to investigate the tailless configuration's handling at high speeds approaching Mach 1 without, as you say, the dangers of using the Walter rocket motor and its unstable fuel components. In this it was successful because it amply demonstrated that this configuration was completely unsuitable at those speeds and, like the DH.108, suffered from severe oscillation and other instability issues at around Mach 0.8. Unlike the '108 though it managed to do this without causing any fatalities. It seems the X-4 showed that, with the flight control systems available at the time, the tailless configuration with swept wings was a bit of a dead end, designers instead moving on to the very successful delta configuration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatbox8 Posted December 14, 2017 Share Posted December 14, 2017 On 12/12/2017 at 7:24 PM, raschi said: Built OOB, only added FODs on intakes. Used Agama alcohol based colors. A great looking model of this interesting design. A very nice, smooth finish. I always find these X Planes fascinating. It would look great parked next to an Me163 and a DH.108 for comparison. How did the kit go together? This is one of MPM's older kits isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raschi Posted December 14, 2017 Author Share Posted December 14, 2017 4 hours ago, Meatbox8 said: How did the kit go together? This is one of MPM's older kits isn't it? Yes, it is typical older MPM short run kit, that means not very well fit, thick sprue gates, often unusable small parts, but usually an interesting subject that could be built into decent model with some effort (MPM had grown in quality during years and its successor in category "not very good (but acceptable) kit of unusual subject" is IMO other Czech company - the AZ model). This X-4 I built some 8 years ago, so I do not recall much from building progress, but definitelly there was some problem with intakes thus I rather made FODs. Thanks all for watching and comments 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bearmatt Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 Beautiful X-4! The canopy is crystal clear and looks very thin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesP Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 I built this kit as part of a 24hr Blitz Build and is makes a nice model. Like all X planes the markings appear to vary between every photo taken. Very neat job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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