1:72 Special Hobby Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet

[giemme]

I almost forgot about this....

Cockpit looking great

 

Ciao

[Azgaron]

Interesting project and good start!

 

Håkan

 

[Navy Bird]

Some progress...

 

I've drilled out the exhaust exits in the rear fuselage. The XP-56 had very noticeable exhaust pipes that came out of these holes, so I guess I need to check my supply of tubing and see what can work. The pipes were cut out at an angle, so they appear oval.

 

 

 

Special Hobby ask you to add weight to the nose, but don't say how much. I taped everything together (sans the props) and to be honest, I don't think it needs any weight at all. However, I'd rather not take the chance, so I loaded up the nose with some weights.

 

 

I also added some weight along the side of the nose gear well, because, uh, there was room. The rear bulkhead, that the prop assembly attaches to, was also added. You can see that there are five exhaust ports on the starboard side - there are only four on the port side.

 

So next up is to close up the fuselage, add the wings, and put on the vertical fin. By the looks of things, the wing root join will be fairly clean, but the vertical fin is going to need some filler.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[dogsbody]

" You can see that there are five exhaust ports on the starboard side - there are only four on the port side. "

 

Two cylinders per exhaust exit. Nine exits = 18 cylinders. P&W R-2800 had 18 cylinders.  Mystery solved!

 

 

Chris

[Navy Bird]

All the major bits are assembled.

 

 

 

Cute little guy. It has a touch or two of Me 163 about it, but I'm sure that's coincidence. Once the spinner and contra-props go on the back, that goes away. What might be more telling is that the shape of the fuselage has a resemblance to the aircraft's namesake - a bullet. Was this design intentional, as the story goes for the later Bell X-1? Not that I've been able to determine, but I haven't found a lot of reference material for the little fella.

 

I'm also intrigued by the bits on the end of the wings, as I have yet to find out what these were for. I have a photo of the second prototype up on jacks (with a P-61 in the background) and the tubes at the wingtips look hollow. That same photo also exists on the interweb in a Photoshopped version - as if it were an in-flight photo, complete with the pilot added. Something just didn't seem right when I first came across that one. It looked too nice to be an actual 1944 photo.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[dogsbody]

It's my understanding the wingtip tubes are yaw control, as the fuselage was too short for the rudder(s) to work effectively. Somewhere in my vast store of old magazines, Wings/Airpower I think, there is an article on the Black Bullet.

 

 

Chris

[dogsbody]

Wait! Found it.

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Martian]

Great to see the airframe together Bill. I think it looks pretty cool.

 

Martian 👽

[giemme]

3 minutes ago, Martian Hale said:

Great to see the airframe together Bill. I think it looks pretty cool.

 

Martian 👽

Seconded. Nice little beast

Ciao

[Silenoz]

nice build so far, as usual. Nice and intriguing subject too...

[Hamden]

 

Come together nicely love these quirky types, soon be in colour now!

 

  Roger

[Navy Bird]

12 hours ago, dogsbody said:

Wait! Found it.

 

<snip>

 

Wow, thanks for that! I spent a lot of time searching for that info on-line, but never found anything. I really appreciate you taking the time to dig that out. I thought they might be some kind of control device, but since they appeared to be hollow I couldn't see how they might work. Now it all makes sense, although I understand that the second Black Bullet still suffered from yaw problems.

 

5 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

Great to see the airframe together Bill. I think it looks pretty cool.

 

Something about Northrop designs always intrigued me when I was but a wee lad. Probably because Jack Northrop was always pushing the envelope - and, of course, he was the underdog. Gotta root for them, right? I also was a big Grumman fan due to my fascination with carrier aviation - I was so happy that Northrop and Grumman merged during the Great Peace Dividend Aerospace Consolidation of the 90s. Otherwise, they would have been gobbled up by Boeing or Lockheed, and the names would have disappeared.

 

4 hours ago, Hamden said:

Come together nicely love these quirky types, soon be in colour now!

 

I haven't sprayed Olive Drab in, like, forever. But you can't get it wrong, right? I've read the articles about Olive Drab and its history. Plus, the colour photos of the Black Bullet show a very "splotchy" appearance. Luckily, I have several tins and bottles of Olive Drab (from different suppliers) and they're all different. I shall be having some fun post shading!  

 

Cheers,

Bill

[dogsbody]

No worries, Bill. Didn't take as long as I thought it might. Being somewhat of an anal-retentive type, I went to my room, found the list I made of all my Wings/Airpower mags and just scanned through it. Found what I wanted, scanned it with my printer and posted it here. Took maybe 15 minutes, tops.

 

 

Chris

[spiton]

I like this plane very mach. I very glad, that You do this WIP.

[Azgaron]

Looking good!

 

Håkan

 

[Courageous]

On 6/13/2018 at 1:02 AM, Navy Bird said:

Cute little guy.

Indeed it is, looks like a baby Klingon 'Bird of Prey'

 

Stuart

[Navy Bird]

I haven't forgotten this little gal, and now that my Annie is finished I can get back to work and finish this one. I decided that I wanted to show the canopy open, not only get a good view of the work done in the cockpit, but also because the XP-56 canopy had an unusual hinge mechanism. I think this picture shows it nicely:

 

 

The main canopy opened to starboard, and the location of the hinge pins was a good distance above the cockpit sill. I'm sure other aircraft had a similar design, but this is the first model I've built like this. So out came the razor saw to hack the canopy into two pieces. The windscreen was masked off, glued to the fuselage and faired in with some of my automotive red spot putty - after a fashion, but we won't go into that.

 

Next up, I attached the landing gear - she sets on all three with up-front weight to spare. I have to admit that the legs look quite spindly, but so far they've been strong enough. Fingers are remaining crossed until the executor of my estate dispenses of my model collection.   

 

The XP-56 was painted in the typical Olive Drab 41 over Neutral Gray USAAF scheme. From the following photo, it seems clear that the Olive Drab upper surfaces have faded and/or chalked in the desert sun, and that the demarcation line between the two colours is hard:

 

 

We'll do what we can to reproduce the patchy appearance of the OD. In the meantime, a base coat of Gunze H52 was applied, and I'll use post-shading to get the effect (I hope!). Gunze H52 (Olive Drab intended for WWII USAAF) has a bit of a brown tint to it, which I like for the base. Gunze H78 (also named Olive Drab and intended for WWII US armor) is lighter and more green, and I think I'll use this for the first shot at post-shading rather than trying to mix something. Anyway, here we are for now:

 

 

 

I'll worry about the Neutral Gray after I'm happy with the OD. I always thought that Gunze H53 Neutral Gray was too dark - until I had a good look at some museum exhibits both restored and not. Man, that was a very dark gray (grey). I wonder if that colour was designed to blend into the skies in my hometown, where for ten months out of the year it seems it's perpetually just about to rain.

 

I checked my tubing supply for the exhausts, and found I needed to buy more. I think this is one of the cardinal rules of modelling - you have always just run out of what you need. I ordered two different sizes of Albion brass tubing that I hope will look right for the two different size of exhaust pipes that I see in the reference photos. Good ol' Sprue Brothers got it to me in two days, and I didn't pay for premium shipping. Thanks guys!

 

It looks to me like the landing gear is painted with the Interior Green colour, whilst the wheel rims and covers are aluminum. Note how different the OD looks compared to the photo earlier in this post - a good example of how difficult it is to ascertain colour information from photos.

 

 

There is a yellow Northrop logo (triangle-shaped) on the front of the nose. This is not included on the decal sheet, but I really think it ought to be on the model. This photo shows it more clearly:

 

 

On a positive note, Special Hobby did include the nifty weather vane doohickey (yaw indicator?) on the underside of the nose on the photoetch fret. Nice.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Martian]

She looks beautiful Bill as we have by now come to expect from you.

 

Martian 👽

[giemme]

Beautiful indeed, Bill

Looking forward to the post-shading, the real thing looks well faded.

 

Ciao

[Hamden]

 

Coming together nicely now Bill, not to far to go now

 

    Roger

[Navy Bird]

Let's see, where was I? Right, more paint. First up was some somewhat random splotches of Gunze H78 Olive Drab, thinned about 60:40 in favour of thinner.

 

 

 

Next, some very rapid swaths of Testors Faded Olive Drab ANA 613, thinned about 75:25 in favour of the thinner - this lightens everything up and decreases the contrast between the first two colours somewhat:

 

 

 

To make it easier to see the effect, here is a combination showing the progression so far:

 

 

I think this is OK for now, so once this has cured for a day or so, I'll mask off the underside and see what I can do with the grey. I suspect that once the stickers are on I'll do some additional touch up with Gunze H95 Smoke Grey, one of my favourites for weathering. The real aircraft doesn't look too dirty in the photos, just beat up a bit for spending all day long in the sun.

 

I should have included something to show the scale in the photos. The length of the fuselage on the model is just 85mm, or a wee bit over 3.25 inches. Maybe next time.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Off to the warbird show tomorrow with my son-in-law and 2 year old grandson. I don't expect the little guy will last the whole day, but he should have fun. He's always pointing out anything flying overhead. We had 10 Blackhawks fly by in formation the other day while he was here, and he loved it.

[Azgaron]

Nice paint job! Turned out looking great with tones like that!

 

Håkan

 

[giemme]

Very convincing fading effect, Bill  

 

Enjoy the show!

 

Ciao

[CedB]

Beautiful painting as usual Bill, very effective  

Have a good show!

[Navy Bird]

The Black Bullet is inching towards the finish line.

 

I shot some Gunze H53 Neutral Gray on the undersides and did a small amount of post-shading with a lighter gray. The bottom wouldn't have faded like the top, and would be more likely to have other forms of weathering like oil, hydraulic fluid, etc. But since I have no photos that show the underside well, I'll have to just guess when I get to that point.

 

Next I added the yellow band to the top of the vertical tail, popped the torque links onto the landing gear legs, and gave everything a coat of Gunze H30 Clear Gloss. The links on the main gear legs are located midway down the length of the strut, and not closer to the wheel as is more common. You can see this in the reference photos if you look close enough - Special Hobby have this wrong in the instructions. The wheel covers were painted with Gunze H8 Silver and the tyres with Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black.

 

 

To be honest, I think the main gear struts are quite simplified on this model as opposed to what was on the actual aircraft. I've read that the main gear was not unlike that on the Grumman F8F Bearcat. But I'm not too worried about that. Now that I've glued the main tyres on, I'm thinking that I should have done something to represent the brakes - for sure the inside of the main gear wheels did not have a hub cap! There should be some detail there. Maybe I have something in leftover photoetch...

 

The contra-rotating prop was next on the list. The prop blades are quite small in this scale, and really needed to be pinned to make a secure attachment. But my Lilliputian friends on are holiday this week and not available to help me out. So the blades went on with a bit of superglue and an old fashioned butt joint. The first set of blades (non-cuffed) at least had a tiny round depression in the spinner where they attached. The cuffed blades simply had a small engraved line showing where they go - ugh. On the actual aircraft, the pitch pivot point for the cuffed blades had a separate fairing that was proud of the spinner itself, but this is not represented in the kit. Putting this together might have been the most nerve-wracking part of the build.

 

 

The worst part is that you have to pick it up by the blades, there's just no other way to do it. Once it's on the model I'll feel a bit better about it, but there is probably no way one or all of these blades won't get knocked off at some point.

 

So, she's ready for stickers! All six of them.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. What do you guys think is the best way to cut tiny brass tubing? I usually just snip it off with photoetch shears, and then use a needle to open it back up where the shears flatten the tube. Kind of brutal actually.