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NAVY870

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Hi Folks,

 

I'm making an old 1/72 FROG Sea Fury FB.11 as part of the current FROG GB and I intend (hope!) to model VR943 / R / 105 on HMS Glory in 1951.

 

I wondered if the combined knowledge and expertise of this forum might be able to help answer a few questions? I was lucky enough to find some useful pics (possibly taken on the same day?) that tell me a lot about the paint scheme and markings;

 

105 on HMS Glory_6 en

 

VR943

 

 

  1. The code R on the tail and 105 on the fuselage seem to be a typical height / style for the period, but what height are they? R about 18", 105 about 16", does this seem right? Very hard to get accurate height off a photo, was there a standard height?
  2. Underwing code VR943? Again, was there a standard height? 
  3. Paint - matt or satin? Most modellers use matt for the Korean Sea Fury, but this aircraft looks pretty new and clean. Might Hawkers have used satin paint?
  4. I am hoping to model the plane at the moment of take-off as in the  lower pic. I'd really like to include the 'Badgers'. I've looked for 1/72 figures but to no avail. Can anyone suggest a source?
  5. Lastly, I've got a set of Airfix 1/72 decals from their (ex-Pioneer) Sea Fury kit. But the roundels all seem to be the wrong size! Were the wing roundels 36" and fuselage 30"?

 

Many thanks!

 

P.S. If the Airfix 1/48 decals are correct and it seems likely that they are, R on the tail & 105 on the fuselage would both be 18", the Roundels 30" & 36" and the underwing codes 24".

 

 

 

Edited by Johnson
Checked the decals from Airfix 1/48 kit
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Hi Folks,

 

Another Sea Fury question!

 

RAN Sea Fury VX730, 109, HMAS Sydney...  RED or EDSG spinner?

 

I've seen pics of models, and profiles, with both. Apologies if this has been covered, but a look through the questions and a search didn't reveal an answer.

 

I would have thought it would EDSG seeing as it was in combat in Korea at a time when similarly marked Royal Navy Sea Furys were operating which sported EDSG spinners (but I don't believe that British and Australian carriers were in the Yellow Sea at the same time, still doing research on this and waiting for book - RN Carriers 1950-1953, in Korean waters aboard HMS’s Triumph, Theseus, Glory, Ocean, Unicorn and HMAS Sydney to arrive!)

 

The photo I've found only shows a fraction of the spinner, and I know, determining colour from B&W photos is usually a guessing game, but the fragment showing looks EDSG to me, compare it to the centre of the fuselage roundel.

 

Any definitive answers? Or opinions?

 

Cheers,

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Thanks Jordi, so hard to determine from B&W photos.

 

A bit more searching on the web and I found another useful photo of VX730 /109. The tone of the spinner is certainly different to the rest of the EDSG upper. So, I'm leaning toward RED, and it does make for a more colourful model. ^_^

 

What's also very useful from the linked photo is that the code VX730 is not painted under the wings. I bought the 1/72 Ventura decals (which doesn't  include them - though I'm still a bit suspicious of the size of their roundels, but more research needed on RAN Sea Fury roundel sizes before I get myself in trouble!) Ventura do incidentally reckon the spinner is red!

 

And of course, the AWM preserved Sea Fury  VW232 (but finished as VX730) has a red spinner, I guess they might have got it right?

 

Cheers,

Edited by Johnson
More info
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Back to the kit I'm making for the FROG GB, the Sea Fury is taking off from HMS Glory with flaps lowered for more lift (photo on post #176 above).

 

Does anyone know the angle of the flaps for a catapult launch? I could approximate it from the photo, but it would be nice to get it right.

 

Thanks,

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15 hours ago, Johnson said:

Does anyone know the angle of the flaps for a catapult launch?

Johnson,

 

I didn't find the answer to your query in any of my Sea Fury references, but I  bet @NAVY870 would be the man for that one. I did have these two references, which do not have an answer your question, but I think will make for an interesting and informative reading bonus! Hope you will find them useful! (Can't ever have too many Sea Fury references!)

Mike

 

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/Fury/Sea_Fury_Hawker.pdf

 

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/seafury-x.pdf

Edited by 72modeler
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Mike,

 

Thanks for the great references, good reading in themselves.

 

It's such an obscure question I'll be lucky to get a definitive answer (but if you don't ask...)

 

Cheers,

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10 hours ago, Johnson said:

Back to the kit I'm making for the FROG GB, the Sea Fury is taking off from HMS Glory with flaps lowered for more lift (photo on post #176 above).

 

Does anyone know the angle of the flaps for a catapult launch? I could approximate it from the photo, but it would be nice to get it right.

 

Thanks,

Annoyingly the flap selector is marked "Up, Take off, Max lift and Down"

Take off is 20 degrees and is only used for unassisted take off.

Max Lift is used for cat shots and is 40 degrees by the rigging chart in the maintenance manual.

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19 hours ago, NAVY870 said:

Max Lift is used for cat shots and is 40 degrees by the rigging chart in the maintenance manual.

 

Thanks Steve, that's great. I would have guessed a few more degrees from the pics, so good thing I asked!

 

On 2/4/2018 at 11:39 AM, NAVY870 said:

To get things started here's a couple of shots of a NOS Mark 4E gyro gunsight as fitted to the Sea Fury. This is the bit Airfix missed

 

The pic you put in your very first post doesn't appear, is the link broken?

 

Cheers,

Edited by Johnson
Grammer!
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Double Stacked (or Two-Tier) 3" Rockets - rail or no rail?

 

Airframe Album - The Hawker Sea Fury (a good book but not without it's errors) has a useful section on weaponry which states that 'when the two-tier system was used the connecting bar between the two posts was removed'. But I'm not sure that that was always the case.

 

The only decent pics of two-tier rockets mounted on a Sea Fury that I can find both appear to show the rail in place. Here's a photo of a RAN Sea Fury on HMAS Sydney being loaded with two-tier rockets, and it looks as if the rail is in place. The other pic which appears to show a rail in place is on page 104 of Sea Fury by Tony Buttler (an excellent book, best photo coverage I've seen yet) but I can't post that pic here due to copyright reasons.

 

Before I glue them in place (or not), can anyone offer any guidance?

 

Many thanks,

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Rubbish

The connecting rod is part of the rp launch rail and is always fitted.

The second tier connects to the upper rocket, not the rail.

I'll post something out of the manual after my work day is done.

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Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

 

The same book (Airframe Album - The Hawker Sea Fury) in the 'Engine' section has for a caption for a photo showing the exhausts which states:

 

'A nice view of seven of the exhaust outlets, which go out of the starboard side; there are two banks of eight, but one exhaust from each bank goes out through the underside of the airframe'

 

The caption is under a photo clearly showing all nine exhausts nicely lined up as one might expect for a 18 cylinder Centaurus engined Sea Fury.

 

I wonder what aircraft Richard A. Franks was imagining when he wrote that?

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1 hour ago, NAVY870 said:

I'll post something out of the manual after my work day is done.

Be interesting to see what’s in your manual. In fairness to the book, it does have a diagram (Crown Copyright) from ‘the manual’ depicting two-tiers of rockets without the rail and a photo (Hawker Aircraft) which also appears to show a two-tier rocket load, again without the rail.

 

’With the carriers in Korea’ by John Lansdown mentions problems with two-tier rocket operations. Is it possible that mods were made and both setups were tried at different times?

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4 hours ago, Johnson said:

Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

 

The same book (Airframe Album - The Hawker Sea Fury) in the 'Engine' section has for a caption for a photo showing the exhausts which states:

 

'A nice view of seven of the exhaust outlets, which go out of the starboard side; there are two banks of eight, but one exhaust from each bank goes out through the underside of the airframe'

 

The caption is under a photo clearly showing all nine exhausts nicely lined up as one might expect for a 18 cylinder Centaurus engined Sea Fury.

 

I wonder what aircraft Richard A. Franks was imagining when he wrote that?

Front and rear cylinders share a common pipe. The rear cylinder connects to a "Y" piece on the underside of the pipe.

As its very hard to see, some fairly wild assumptions have been made in the modelling world.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just a snippet for your information, an interesting reference from the book I'm reading 'With the carriers in Korea’ by John Lansdown'.

 

This may be useful for anyone modelling the 1/48 Airfix Sea Fury with the drop-tank camera.

 

Chapter Eight, HMS Glory 6 Feb - 29 April 1952. Page 223.

'Lieutenant Commander Bailey tried out the new Sea Fury drop-tank cameras with success, where a 45 gallon drop-tank was modified to carry both a forward and a rear facing camera. This gave a far better picture of attack results than the normal vertical camera, since photographs could be taken in the attack and in the pull out. Admiral Scott-Moncrieff subsequently remarked that the oblique photographs taken with camera mounted thus considerably helped in the difficult problem of accurately locating well camouflaged targets, ...'

 

Note that Lt. Commander Lansdown refers to forward and rear facing cameras. The Airfix model part only has a forward facing camera, presumably because that's all we can see in the photo of WJ236.

 

WJ236 detail

 

Looking at the photo, I think the drop-tank has been chopped at the rear as well.

 

Another detail that I noticed is the hook - banded.

Edited by Johnson
typo
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  • 1 month later...

@NAVY870 and anyone else with RAN knowledge: there have been a couple of Sea Fury warbirds in the USA with a light grey, rather than EDSG, over Sky paint scheme. It’s quite attractive and I’m contemplating it for a model project, but is it historically accurate at all? N260X/WH587 is the example I’ve seen most often.

Edited by k5054nz
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7 hours ago, k5054nz said:

@NAVY870 and anyone else with RAN knowledge: there have been a couple of Sea Fury warbirds in the USA with a light grey, rather than EDSG, over Sky paint scheme. It’s quite attractive and I’m contemplating it for a model project, but is it historically accurate at all? N260X/WH587 is the example I’ve seen most often.

Not accurate but I figure if your spending all that money on a warbird you can paint it what you like.

Edited by NAVY870
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  • 6 months later...
21 minutes ago, gareth said:

Has anyone got a paint match/recipe for Hawker (Yellow) Primer, i've seen it discussed but never a paint match or mixing ratios published. 

  

On 09/02/2018 at 01:30, NAVY870 said:

Humbrol 74 is pretty close to Hawker yellow.

I did discuss with Airfix and supply them with references.

on page 1 of this thread.

 

Tip - the site search isn't very good, but adding Britmodeller into a search term searches the site well.  

I did know a match had been posted, and who had posted it and it was Humbrol though, which makes it a lot easier to find, 

this is what I searched "britmodeller hawker yellow navy870 humbrol" 

 

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The primer that is referred to as "Hawker Yellow" looks very close to commercial aircraft primers that I have seen on many new civil and military aircraft, especially those manufactured in Europe. I did some searching and came up with a yellow epoxy primer PWC-201, applied to modern Hawker/Beechcraft aircraft, but that would most certainly not be what was used on Sea Furies. Using the best period color photos I could find, and keeping in mind the minefield of mixing paint to a color photo, I came up with what looked to these tired old Mk 1a eyeballs as a pretty close match; the FS equivalent was FS33711; if you have a set of FS595 color chips, you could examine that and see what you think. I'm thinking maybe @NAVY870  or @Troy Smith might be your best bet. FWIW, see the link below and scroll down to see this primer applied to the cowling panels of an unrestored Sea Fury- it might be helpful. Help us out, @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies and make this primer available in your outstanding paint line!

Mike

 

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/50807-sea-fury-question/

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Hi Gareth,

 

12 hours ago, gareth said:

Has anyone got a paint match/recipe for Hawker (Yellow) Primer, i've seen it discussed but never a paint match or mixing ratios published. 

 

The colour of Hawker Yellow is a much discussed subject. I've looked through my saved bookmarks and these may be useful;

 

http://www.aussiemodeller.com.au/pages/Reviews/acft kit/Long Airfix 1-48 Sea Fury.html

This is an article by Steve Long @NAVY870 and has a very useful section on 'Hawker yellow, a brief note' with unrestored examples of paint in the nav light covers that had been left covered undisturbed and therefore unbleached by daylight.

 

The Sea Fury walkaround here on BM has some good pics, especially of the wing fold area on the T.20 WG655, but this is a restored aircraft;

 

Scroll down on this Large Scale Planes thread and there are some excellent pics of the yellow primer inside the engine cowls;

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/50807-sea-fury-question/

 

The older unrestored examples the colour of the primer combined with my personal experience (peering up into the wheel wells of the Sea Fury in the FAA Museum at Yeovilton) lead me to think that the Hawker Yellow primer is a bit paler, less bright and garish, than Humbrol 74 'Linen', more like a mix of RAF Sky and Humbrol 74 (not that I'm recommending that mix, though I might experiment with it).

 

As Mike @72modeler says, possibly, if we ask him nicely, Jamie @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies may give us what we need and put us out of our misery. And hopefully before I commence my 1/48 Airfix Sea Fury with the nice AM Barracuda wheel wells!

 

Cheers,

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Humbrol 74 is near as spit to Hawker yellow.

In reality it bears very little resemblance to sky and is quite different to YZC or its modern equivalents. 

Unfortunately it doesn't photograph well, at least not with my bodge skills

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