IAR 80

[One-Two]

Not so much time for hobby lately…I only worked a little bit on wing controls.

For some unknown reason, HB decided to mold the flaps and aileron in one single piece.

Of course this is unacceptable and they must be separated – it is just a simple cut.

 

Once the pieces separated, I was not happy with the way in which these elements are attached to the wing. If left as they are, it is only possible to pose them in neutral position. But in real life, once the engine stopped for any length of time, the hydraulic system was slowly losing the pressure and the flaps was sliding down in the landing position. Almost all pictures with parked IAR 80’s show the flaps in this position.

So I had to modify the flaps and ailerons…I completely eliminated the HB attachments, cut new spaces for new hinges/attachments…I modified a little bit the shape of the upper side of the flaps…and finally installed new attachment points on the wing, for flaps and ailerons.  

These modifications will allow me to pose the wing controls (flaps and ailerons) in any dynamic position I choose.

That’s it for now.

Thanks for looking, cheers,     

[Fin]

Congratulations for this detailed thread! You`re setting a standard for the construction of this kit and the IAR 80 in general. Plus, it`s fun to watch the construction unfold.

[Troy Smith]

On 8/2/2018 at 10:06, One-Two said:

The interior color used on IAR 80/81 cockpits is a mystery. According to documentation I have, I understand that as a general rule, the interior cockpit color was the same like the underside of the plane. So in most cases it was some sort of light blue, depending on the camouflage scheme applied on a specific airframe on a specific time frame.

But it is also clear that the very early machines had their cockpits in some sort of aluminum dope or silver dope. It is certain that this was the case of the prototype and production airframe no.1

Since I intend to represent here a very early IAR 80 first series airframe, I will go for silver dope also.

 

Possibly a British influence,  as I understand it the Romanian Dark Green and Dark Earth upper colours were the same as the British colours,  initially even being British supplied paint IIRC (sorry away from my books)  and aluminium dope was used in the most of the internals of the Hawker hurricane.

Shame Yahu didn't make the IP fit!  

A quick look at Hannants https://www.hannants.co.uk/search/index.php?product_category_id=&product_division_id=&manufacturer_id=&code=&product_type_id=&scale_id=955&keyword_search=iar+80&setPerPage=25&currency_id=

does not show much for the kit,  I'm surprised Eduard have not done a set, though I note that the SAC replacement UC legs don't correct the retraction struts! (no surprise there...)

 

I only just ran across this thread, and it's one of the best I have seen on BM in a while,  as it really is a guide to fixing up the HB kit,  which is immensely useful,  as it's very clearly illustrated and contains easy enough fixes when shown like this, I often find working out the fixes harder than doing them.

 

I have found myself becoming rather interested in the IAR 80,  and have the HB kit, a couple of the LTD kit, the Icarodesign resin and even some obscure vacform  by Wings 

 

Look forward to more updates

cheers

T

 

 

[One-Two]

Thanks guys for your kind words.

Unfortunately, I've been so busy  lately that I was unable to make any more progress with my IAR 80.

Hope I will manage to restart the build soon. 

On ‎4‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 3:55 PM, Troy Smith said:

Possibly a British influence,  as I understand it the Romanian Dark Green and Dark Earth upper colours were the same as the British colours,  initially even being British supplied paint IIRC (sorry away from my books)  and aluminium dope was used in the most of the internals of the Hawker hurricane.

Yes Troy you are right, the early IAR80 camouflage is almost certainly of British influence, via the Hurricane imports from UK.

On ‎4‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 3:55 PM, Troy Smith said:

A quick look at Hannants https://www.hannants.co.uk/search/index.php?product_category_id=&product_division_id=&manufacturer_id=&code=&product_type_id=&scale_id=955&keyword_search=iar+80&setPerPage=25&currency_id=

does not show much for the kit,  I'm surprised Eduard have not done a set, though I note that the SAC replacement UC legs don't correct the retraction struts! (no surprise there...)

Man, thanks a lot for pointing my attention to these items. I will use the kit's plastic UC legs, but I ordered those QB resin machine gun barrels and will use 'em.

I was planning to use some resin barrels designed for the new Airfix P40 kit (they somehow resemble with a FN 303 model 38 used for only a few IAR80 airframes), but the new dedicated QB set is really more appropriate.

 

Hope to bring new updates soon.

Regards,

Edited June 8, 2018 by One-Two

[spiton]

Fantastic work !!!! 

[One-Two]

After a long time away from the hobby, I’m trying now to restart the IAR80 project.

 

I made some preparation work on the transparencies.

First, I installed the red handle on the inside of the canopy.

Then I moved to the windshield, but here it is much more complicated, because of the IAR80 particularity of the antenna mast.

As seen in the b/w pictures attached, the antenna mast was protruding the windshield through the upper-right corner (from pilot’s perspective) at a certain angle, and was continuing through the horizontal shelf behind the IP.

However, according to HB, in order to represent this, one should just stick a small piece of plastic on top of the windshield and that’s it. Terrible inaccurate.  

So I decided to modify a little bit the windshield. First, on the left side (pilot’s perspective), I installed some sort of ventilation pipe that was characteristic to the IAR80 series (it was deleted on later series of IAR81).

Then I drilled a hole through the upper-right corner of the windshield, using a 0.4 drill and then enlarged it to 0.5. This is where the new antenna mast will be installed. Great care has to be taken during this process, because there is no room for error and the hole must be drilled at the right angle, in order to be sure that the antenna will reproduce the attitude and angle of the real thing.

I think I’ve made it, but I wouldn’t like to repeat the process:)

The antenna (and the venting pipe also) was made on 0.3 brass tube from Albion Alloys. Now this stuff is expensive but this is really good sh#t. I really like it.

Then I installed the first piece of the gunsight, on the support struts just behind the IP. The first airframes of the IAR80 were provided with old school gunsights, composed of a metallic grill installed outside of the windshield and a sighting piece just inside of the cockpit, between the windshield and the IP. I installed the inside piece, I’ll be using the metallic gunsights provided by a dedicated Eduard PE set.

That’s it for now, hope cu come back soon with new progress.

Cheers,

Edited June 11, 2018 by One-Two

[Azgaron]

Interesting kit, and very nice work so far!

 

Håkan

 

[One-Two]

The windshield is glued in its place. In order to fix it in the right position, I applied glue only after it was aligned with the antenna (the right angle for the antenna mast) and with the rest of the canopy.

Probably due to the modifications performed (IP, antenna mast, etc.), the fit of the windshield was not great. I had to use some very small plastic pieces in order to fill-in some empty spaces here and there. I have to apply some putty and then some fine sanding in order to get a smooth contact area between the windshield and fuselage.

The antenna is not permanently installed, it can be removed.  It also had to be shortened a little bit, but I think it captures the shape and attitude of the real thing much better that wat was in the box.

I will permanently install it only in the final stages of the build.

Thanks for looking and cheers.

[Silenoz]

Nice work, a serious masterclass with regards to this aircraft... splendid work so far...

[One-Two]

Hi Guys.

Only some minor progress…I decided to install at this stage the main exhaust pipes, although normally this must be done in the final stages of the build, for the ease ok masking/painting.

However, the shape on the IAR 80 forward fuselage/cowling was such that from certain angles of sight, the exhaust manifold could the seen through the space between the cowling and fuselage, even if the cowl flaps was in close position.

This exhaust manifold is not provided by HobbyBoss and I just scratched it from some evergreen bits (half-round on the upper part and normal strip on the rest) which were sanded to the desired shape.  

Then I attached the main exhaust pipes on the lateral of the forward fuselage, which had to be blended-in somehow with the rest of the exhaust manifold (small plastic bits, Mr surfacer 500, sandpaper). This would have been impossible to do once the cowl was installed.  

Also for anybody interested in a similar build, please be advised that installing the main exhaust pipes as requested by HB is wrong – this would result in the pipes being somehow too close to the forward fuselage lateral walls – in reality, as you may see in the b/w picture above, the main exhaust pipes were installed pretty outward of the fuselage.

 

Thanks for looking and cheers,

 

[Azgaron]

Nice work! Looks great!

 

Håkan

 

[One-Two]

Ok so finally I managed to paint the exhaust manifold. I elected this solution (paint at this stage) because once the engine cowling installed the manifold will be partly covered and inaccessible for painting.

I also tried not to make it too rusty, since from the IAR 80 pictures I saw that the exhausts were maintained pretty clean.

Then I installed the engine and its cowling on the airframe.

Few words about the engine cowling: I was very pleasantly surprised to see that Hobbyboss had succeeded in capturing the complex shape of the IAR80 engine cowling. This was not just a cylindrical cover of the engine…it was narrowing and somehow becoming of oval shape towards it rear-end.

The problem is that when I started work on this kit, first pieces that I glued together were the 2 cowling halves. Indeed the HB instructions stated that the cowling should be put together only when the engine is already installed in the fuselage – but hey, who cares about instructions!

Now at this stage I realized that it was indeed a good reason for the mounting sequence proposed by HB – once the cowing pieces put together, given their specific shape, the engine cannot be introduced anymore through the rear-end of the cowling. So if the engine would be glued to the fuselage, the engine cowling assembly, as a whole, would be impossible to be installed.

Luckily, I discovered this issue while dry fitting…so I was able to introduce the engine (only the cylinder rows, no engine crankcase) into the cowling first…the engine was introduced sideways and then in the wider portion of the cowling was turned into its normal position…then the entire engine/cowling assembly was attached to the fuselage.

The first of them to be committed to glue was the cowling, because of it must be carefully aligned with the fuselage.

After the cowling was secured in the proper position, the engine was also aligned with the cowling ant then glued in place (I applied glue through the center hole of the engine).

Another word of caution for the engine cowling: there are only 2 attachment points with the fuselage, so the bond between the fuselage and cowling will not be the strongest.

Anyway in the end I am quite pleased about how the cowling/engine/exhaust manifold assembly looks. Exactly as I intended, the exhaust manifold can be seen through the space between cowling flaps and fuselage, even if only from certain angles

That’s it for now.

Thanks for looking and cheers. 

[mahavelona]

Some seriously fine work on this model, you are taking it to the next level with these details. It's a shame you don't see more IAR 80s built as it is a lovely aircraft. 

[Biggles87]

Nice work on the engine/cowling /exhaust fitting, I remember having quite a few problems in that area on the old LTD kit.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

John

[Azgaron]

Beautiful work with the engine and cowling!

 

Håkan

 

[One-Two]

Thanks Guys.

 

Next step was to install the compressor air intake.

Now HB is also wrong here…First, they provide the engine air intake assembly in it’s final (IAR80 late) form, which is not applicable for an early machine. Secondly, they molded this assembly in a single piece, which is again wrong, since it was composed from 3 distinct parts.

So I just cut the assembly in the 3 parts.  A little bit out-of-focus here, sorry bad pic.

On the air intake itself I added some internal/external walls which were not figured. The pat which should come in front of the air intake is not applicable for this IAR80 variant, but is useful anyway, since the air outlet piece, which should be located immediately behind the intake, is wrongly shaped anyway.

That’s it for now.

Thanks for looking and have a nice w/e.  

[One-Two]

Not much progress, only some small details.

I installed the insulator through which the antenna cable was protruding the fuselage (right-side of the windscreen), the cockpit ventilation slot (in front of the windscreen) and the compressed-air filling-in port (left side of forward fuselage, just bellow the exhaust).

 

[One-Two]

The next step was to install the aerodynamic controls.

As far as I know there was no blocking system for the controls in the cockpit, therefore on parked IAR80’s, the elevators were in dropped-down position. I also wanted to represent them in this way, but at the time when I closed the cockpit, I forgot about this and the stick is almost in the neutral position. Consequently, I was forced to put the elevators only in slightly dropped position (in real life, they should be on maximum negative), in order to correspond with the position of the stick from the cockpit.

Also the flaps of the entire IAR80 series were dropped completely down on stationary aircraft. This was because the hydraulic system was slowly loosing pressure after the engine stopped running. At the early IAR80’s, the maximum position of the flaps was 45 degrees, and this is how I tried to represent them.

Another characteristic of the early IAR80’s was that the ailerons were synchronized with the flaps. On later machines, this synchronization of the ailerons with flaps was abandoned.

However my IAR80 is a very early machine (serial aircraft no.2), therefore when the flaps were in dropped-down position (meaning all the time when the aircraft was parked with engine stopped), the neutral position of the ailerons was correspondently lower than usual. This is how I posed the ailerons, in the lower neutral position, as forced by the dropped-down flaps.

That’s it for now. The next step will probably be priming. The undercarriage legs are only dry-fitted.

 

Cheers to all,

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Great thread.....Fascinating subject and some seriously impressive modelling. 

[Azgaron]

Nice work with all the small details!

 

Håkan

 

[One-Two]

Now  the painting begins...first I used some silver from Mr.Hobby for the interior color of the canopy/windscreen frames.

Since the first IAR80's used some sort of aluminum/silver dope as interior color, thought that the interior of canopy frames should be similar.

 

Then I sprayed Mr. Surfacer 1500 black all over her...

 

Now she looks darker than the blackest night fighter ever:)

Apparently, there is no need of corrections, after applying the primer.

 

Thanks for looking and cheers,

[Azgaron]

Nice work! Always nice when all is set to go!

 

Håkan

 

[One-Two]

I started the painting stage with the underside color.

Although the exact colors used on IAR 80’s are some sort of a mystery, it is most probably that the first IAR-80 wore a 3-color camouflage scheme of British inspiration.

This British influence/origin for the paints used is clearly visible on pictures but is also supported by the fact that pre-war Romania had acquired from UK some Hurricanes and Bleinheims, which came with the standard RAF three tone camouflage of sky blue/dark green/dark earth.

Another peculiarity of the first IAR 80’s was the fact that the upper-side colors of the camouflage were applied also on the underside of the rear fuselage (the so-called wrap-around camouflage scheme) – consequently the underside color was applied only on the wings, tail planes and engine cowling.

 

This is my first attempt in using the black basing technique.

Marble coat:

And this is how it looks after the blending coats:

 

That's it for now.

Thanks for dropping by and cheers,

Edited July 26, 2018 by One-Two

[Troy Smith]

13 hours ago, One-Two said:

This British influence/origin for the paints used is clearly visible on pictures but is also supported by the fact that pre-war Romania had acquired from UK some Hurricanes and Bleinheims, which came with the standard RAF three tone camouflage of sky blue/dark green/dark earth.

Not sure about the Blenheim's, but the Hurricane's underside were Night/White/Aluminium, and stayed in those  colours in Romanian service.

Can't remember what the Romanian Fighter Colours book says was the pale blue used was, and it's not too hand.

 

Very neat work, and looks good from the few colour shots I've seen.

 

Cheers

T

 

[One-Two]

10 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

Not sure about the Blenheim's, but the Hurricane's underside were Night/White/Aluminium, and stayed in those  colours in Romanian service.

Can't remember what the Romanian Fighter Colours book says was the pale blue used was, and it's not too hand.

 

Very neat work, and looks good from the few colour shots I've seen.

 

Cheers

T

 

Hi Troy,

 

Yes you are right about the Hurricane underside color. When I gave this example, I was thinking of the British influence on the camouflage scheme used for IAR 80's and I completely forgot about the particularity of the Romanian Hurricanes.

 

The exact color used on IAR 80's is not known with certainty and the discussions about this issue are never-ending. 

However, the British influence on the general colors used on the first IAR 80's seems to be a theory pretty widely accepted.

The issue of the underside color is also very tricky. From B/W colors, this pale blue is very difficult to determine with any degree of certainty.

Applying the same British similarity logic, it looks like common sense that the underside color must have been something like a RAF light blue.

This hypothesis is also supported by memories of some veteran pilots, who described the underside color as having some sort of "duck-egg blue". Or at least being a light blue with duck-egg shade.

 

The panting instructions of the decal sheet I'm using (Radu Branzan) is recommending Lifecolor UA515 "RAF Sky Blue" as underside color for this particular airframe.

I think that it is a very plausible and probable interpretation.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find this Lifecolor UA515 in my local hobby shops and since the other colors I'll be using (for topside) are from Gunze Mr.Hobby, I decided to use for the underside also a Mr. Hobby paint - and the one closest to RaduB recommendation that I could find was Mr.Hobby H314.

It looks that is has more of that duck-egg shade in it, when comparing with the LifecolorUA515 - but hey, nothing is definitive or sure about this issue.

 

Thanks for looking and cheers,