Air Cadets, 1/72 Sedbergh T21 Vacform

[greggles.w]

Hi Terry, I’m a late starter, now your newest follower.

 

Inspirational craftsmanship. Nice to see these skills applied to such a subject.

[Terry1954]

12 hours ago, greggles.w said:

Hi Terry, I’m a late starter, now your newest follower.

 

Inspirational craftsmanship. Nice to see these skills applied to such a subject.

Welcome and thank you.

 

I hope you are patient..... my builds OOTB  are slow, this one is more so!

 

Terry

[Terry1954]

Not mush progress on this one lately but have got around to some alterations to the cockpit. I was not pleased with some aspects of the first attempt especially the connecting rod between the two joy sticks, and the kit supplied rear bulkhead.

 

You recall this:

 

 

So after some alterations we now have a much thinner rear bulkhead with better detail behind the seats, and a replacement connecting rod. The bulkhead is deliberately higher then the original, as I decided that this is easier to blend into the fuselage behind the seat by letting it sit proud when assempled, and then sanded doen to fuselage profile.

 

 

Almost ready for painting the cockpit internals now!

 

Terry

[Terry1954]

After quite a gap, some progress has been made at last!

 

Tonight was time to get the airbrush going and make a start on the cockpit internals, in order to get the fuselage closed up. Most of what you see was scratch built.

 

Good old Tamiya cockpit green straight thinned a little with Tamiya Acrylic thinners

 

Also the very tiny, scratch built instrument panel, although describing it as such, seems a little high tech, as those who flew in these will recall!

 

 

I'll let these dry off overnight and then add a little shade with a very subtle wash, and also pick out some detail. Seat straps and possibly some seat cushions will follow.

 

While the airbrush was out I also decided to give the main wing some primer to see how it all looked including the re-scribed ailerons. I used Mr Surfacer 1200, thinned with Mr Levelling thinner.

 

Topside:

 

 

Underside:

 

 

I'm quite pleased generally although there are some areas to clean up and redo. I did also find a small crack in one of the leading edges which will need attention.

 

A reminder of how the ailerons needed re-scribing. Red is old lines, black is new.

 

 

Thats all for now. Some updates due on the Airfix Sabre!

 

Terry

[Martian]

Excellent progress!

 

Martian 👽

[Azgaron]

Nice work!

 

Håkan

 

[waylandsmithy]

Very impressive work! I was lucky enough to go up in one of these in the '80s: a proper antique by then. It's the most exciting thing I've ever been in. 

 

It wasn't great at gliding, but that open cockpit, snub nose and high wing is surely the closest you can get to being a bird: you're hardly aware of the airframe when you're up. I can still remember it very clearly, it was joyous. All 3 minutes of it.

[Aeronut]

Don't forget the one bit of colour in all that cockpit green. The bar linking the control columns was painted red to warn you not to stand on it when getting in or out.

[Terry1954]

7 hours ago, waylandsmithy said:

Very impressive work! I was lucky enough to go up in one of these in the '80s: a proper antique by then. It's the most exciting thing I've ever been in. 

 

It wasn't great at gliding, but that open cockpit, snub nose and high wing is surely the closest you can get to being a bird: you're hardly aware of the airframe when you're up. I can still remember it very clearly, it was joyous. All 3 minutes of it.

Thanks. Yes, they were exciting to fly in, although I found the T31 a little more so! Short flight times were the order of the day with winch launches and little or no hope of catching thermals.

 

Terry

[Terry1954]

34 minutes ago, Aeronut said:

Don't forget the one bit of colour in all that cockpit green. The bar linking the control columns was painted red to warn you not to stand on it when getting in or out.

Hi. Yes my reference pictures show the red bar and I have a distant memory of that also. Thanks for the reminder though!

 

Terry

[Brandy]

3 minutes? How did you get it to stay up that long?

 

Ian

[Biggles87]

The T21 had a very good high lift wing section and in the right hands ( someone who could do accurate turns ) was capable of a respectable performance in thermals  Shortly after we moved to Sealand  I want for a trip with one of the instructors who hadn't been with the original arrival party and wanted to be shown the local landmarks . We got to 4500ft and only stopped there because we were both in shirtsleeves and starting to get cold. We lost the height quickly in a series of loops.

Incidentally, I don't remember the bar between the sticks as being red, but it was a long time ago.

 

John

 

 

Edited June 23, 2018 by Biggles87

[bigbadbadge]

Hi Terry 

Good to see some paint being laid on. Your hard work will pay dividends now.   Great work. 

All the best 

Chris 

[stringbag]

13 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

 I don't remember the bar between the sticks as being red, but it was a long time ago.

John

 

They were changed to red in the early 70's John.  A few were damaged by careless feet. 

[Terry1954]

Yes, I think I can recall before and after. First flew in a Sedbergh in 69, then finished around 71. I definitely recall both red and non red.

 

Terry

[Biggles87]

I finished ATC gliding in '72 or '73 so either my memory is playing tricks on me, or perhaps ours were the last to be repainted. I do remember the spoiler handle being red though.

 

John

[Terry1954]

3 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

I finished ATC gliding in '72 or '73 so either my memory is playing tricks on me, or perhaps ours were the last to be repainted. I do remember the spoiler handle being red though.

 

John

Thanks John. I just painted the spoiler handle pale blue, from a photo on the web, but now you mention it, it could have been red! Maybe @stringbag can advise?

 

Terry

[stringbag]

On 6/24/2018 at 1:34 PM, Terry1954 said:

 Maybe @stringbag can advise?

 

Here ya go Terry.

John is quite right regarding the spoiler handle.

 

Chris.

[Terry1954]

7 hours ago, stringbag said:

Here ya go Terry.

John is quite right regarding the spoiler handle.

 

Chris.

Thats great Chris, thanks. I've also seen a picture or two on the net where the spoiler handle is blue, and I recall 615's T-21's had black hand grips on the sticks, so I guess there were variations out there over time. The cable pull seems unanimously yellow!

 

I don't suppose you or anyone else have any shots showing full frontal of seats and harness arrangement?

 

Thanks

 

Terry

[T-21]

All gliders have the trimmer painted green  spoiler/airbrake lever/knob  blue    release knob  yellow.  Anything else is local variation. ATC Sedburghs had the control grips in black and the spoiler cross bar in a medium blue colour.

[Terry1954]

3 hours ago, T-21 said:

All gliders have the trimmer painted green  spoiler/airbrake lever/knob  blue    release knob  yellow.  Anything else is local variation. ATC Sedburghs had the control grips in black and the spoiler cross bar in a medium blue colour.

Thanks T21. Interesting. Several views on this and I suspect all are correct, given local variations. Certainly I have seen different combinations on photos on the net, which go back a few years. My model will be one of the ones I flew in back in the late sixties, early 70's in the ATC. My memory is pretty good and I do recall black stick grip, red cross bar, and yellow cable release. The spoiler lever I felt sure was blue or red, maybe I flew in different ones with different colours. Certainly I have seen a picture showing blue, so for now I am going with that. One thing you did say that baffles my memory is reference to a trimmer. I never recalled that on a T21, although my flights were air experience in the Sedbergh so I would not neccesarily have noticed that. I did my flying training in the T31 and I certainly have better memories of where everything was on that one - a life or death sort of thing!

Thanks again for you input. Hope you are enjoying the build.

Terry

[Aeronut]

No Trim on the Barge although trim did get a mention in the pre flight check mnemonic CB SIT CB (Controls -full and free movement, Ballast - fitted/not fitted, Straps -tight, Instruments - altimeter set zero, Trim - not fitted, Canopy - not fitted, Brakes - spoilers open/closed). Towards the end of my time on the 'Wood' fleet the mnemonic was changed to CB SIFT CB to cater for gliders with Flaps which of course did not include the Barge or the Mk3 Brick.

This thread has me going back through my Log Books. WB993 appears as my eight ever launch and my third at Sealand on August 6 1972 with a Mr Higgins as my Instructor.

This flight was also the first launch of my PPT (pre pilot training?) course and it lasted (or was logged at) 5 minutes to bring my total hours to a massive 30 minutes from 8 launches.

My last conventional launch before conversion to the Venture was number 254 by which time my hours had reached a total of 24 hours 29 minutes.

[Paul J]

The Mnemonic I recall was CISTRS   C ontrols  I struments  S traps  T rim   R elease  S poilers fully open and in line  Then the wings level take up slack and all out.... and away we went!

My very first flight was in 1966 in XN148 with 623GS at Tangmere. Got 17 minutes in one launch. Somehow we got in to a thermal and kept going up! My pilot who later became my instructor when I eventually got a course, demonstrated  chandelles and a couple stalls and stall turns in all that time plus  I got a bit of 'stick' time.  When we finally landed the CO/CFI ( one Bill Verling who kept a Tiger Moth, G-ASXB in the same glider T2 hangar) stomped over and berated my pilot and was grounded for the rest of the day. Felt sorry for him but it was a great trip. 

 

On a weekday summer evening we went to Tangmere as a squadron (1015) for some gliding experience, yet more, and the evening ended with same mentioned CO who aerobatted a T.21 and landed alongside the taxi way and between the bomb blast walls ending near the hangar!! It looked crazy but showed skilful flying!

[Terry1954]

Thanks for your interesting and memory stirring responses @Aeronut and @Paul J. Sounds like many of us shared similar experiences some years back. Happy days indeed.

 

Recent joiners to this thread may be interested to see my previous RFI on the T31 I built a few months ago.

 

You can find it here:

 

Terry

 

[stringbag]

6 hours ago, T-21 said:

All gliders have the trimmer painted green  spoiler/airbrake lever/knob  blue    release knob  yellow.  Anything else is local variation. ATC Sedburghs had the control grips in black and the spoiler cross bar in a medium blue colour.

I agree with the standard colour coding of the control levers as you correctly point out however many of the ATC T21s had red column grips and the spoiler lever in red.  This was not the norm by any means and several that I've been personally acquainted with have had red spoiler levers with blue cross bars.