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1/72 RarePlane Super King Air - Irish Air Corps - MOVING ON


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Morning all,

Decided to give this one a go which will be my first Vacform kit - eeek!

 

When Ireland entered the European Community in 1973, a 'nautical economic zone' was set around the island at 170 miles, later extended to 200 nautical miles. This covered a total area of 132,000 square miles. In order to patrol it, the Government of the time initiated a tender for a suitable aircraft and after evaluation, the Super King Air was picked. This was the first turbo-prop aircraft in Irish military service and only the second US-built one - the first being the Lockheed Hudson which was also used for Maritime Patrol & Reconnaissance during the war.

 

The first Super King Air entered service in 1977 with the second joining in 1978. Both were operated by Maritime Squadron, No. 1 Support Wing in the fishery protection and maritime surveillance role. A third joined the fleet in 1980 but was used for pilot conversion & training, Air Ambulance and no surprise, Ministerial Transport 🙄

 

In the Maritime role, a typical flight lasted approximately 4 hours, covering an area of 10,000 square miles and flown at altitudes around 5,000 feet. If anything needed closer inspection, the a/c would descend to 500 ft or lower, which over the wild Atlantic in winter probably didn't make the for nicest of journeys for the crew of four - two pilots and two observers. Super King Airs also acted as top cover for SAR missions. Two of the more notable missions included the Fastnet Race disaster in 1979 and the search for an Air India 747 which crashed 100 miles S.W of Ireland in 1985 after an inflight explosion.

 

The airframe had a lifespan set at 5,000 hours given the low level flights and Atlantic conditions. A/C 232 was retired in 1990 with 5,322 hours on the clock while A/C 234 followed her a year later with 5,229 hours. The third plan A/C 240 soldiered on and did get to fly the Atlantic in 2003 when it commemorated the 75th Anniversary of the first East/West flight of the Atlantic by pilots Herman Kohl, Baron Von Hunefeld and navigator James Fitzmaurice of the Irish Air Corps. You can read more about this remarkable man here.

 

The Maritime Patrol duties have now been taken up by two Casa CN 235s which entered service in 1994.

 

Thanks to Joe Maxwell & Patrick Cummins for all the background info on the Super King Air, from their excellent book - The Irish Air Corps; an Illustrated Guide.

 

32223001358_673c8aba9c_b.jpg


 

Edited by Dermo245
Forgot text!
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An interesting choice – good luck with the build.

 

I haven't yet tackled a vac form kit, but I must admit to becoming somewhat vac form-curious.

 

Regards,

David

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Nice one Dermot, I have a resin King Air build stalled (though not in this scheme) and I might finish it one day.

 

Hope you have a fruitful experience with your first vac form build. I have decided on my entry and it will also be a part vac form build, hope it goes smoother than my last attempt.

 

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Good man Dermot

 

I am delighted you have chosen this Group Build to lose your Vacform Cherry :blush:, lots of people on here have built vacforms before, so there is lots of advice to be had if needed. My first vacform was much more modest and also a Rareplanes kit, which are one of the best as they contain a lot of detail.

 

Don't get concerned if something doesn't fit correctly, it just takes a bit more thought and ingenuity to build the kit than the "boil in the bag" injection kit. A lot of Rareplane kits didn't come with decals, do you have the correct ones for your aircraft ?

 

Popcorn at the ready with you all the way  :popcorn:

 

cheers Pat

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  • 2 weeks later...

I flew King Air 300s and took a whole load of detail photos with a view to building a similar kit. If any of that is relevant to the one you're building I'll happily send them to you. The pics are of a mid 80's 300 which I flew up until a year ago.

 

Ian

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On 12/13/2018 at 3:02 PM, limeypilot said:

I flew King Air 300s and took a whole load of detail photos with a view to building a similar kit. If any of that is relevant to the one you're building I'll happily send them to you. The pics are of a mid 80's 300 which I flew up until a year ago.

 

Ian

Cheers Ian - any pictures of the interior cabin would be great.

Won't promise I'll be scratching a full interior though - just keen to see what it's like!

 

Many thanks,

Dermot

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PM me your email and I'll send them to you. There are too many to post here.

 The interior will certainly be different as ours were set up as 9 seat commuter airliners.

 

Ian

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On 11/29/2018 at 1:03 PM, Dazey said:

An interesting choice – good luck with the build.

 

I haven't yet tackled a vac form kit, but I must admit to becoming somewhat vac form-curious.

 

Regards,

David

There are vacforms and vacforms.  I wouldn't even think of trying a Combat Models or ID Models kit due to still having rather limited scatchbuilding skills even after decades in the hobby, but something like Dynavector's Wyvern is eminently buildable.  Some would consider building a vacform in preference to some short run injected items.

Edited by JosephLalor
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5 hours ago, JosephLalor said:
On 11/29/2018 at 11:03 PM, Dazey said:

An interesting choice – good luck with the build.

 

I haven't yet tackled a vac form kit, but I must admit to becoming somewhat vac form-curious.

 

Regards,

David

There are vacforms and vacforms.  I wouldn't even think of trying a Combat Models or ID Models kit due to still having rather limited scatchbuilding skills even after decades in the hobby, but something like Dynavector's Wyvern is eminently buildable.  Some would consider building a vacform in preference to some short run injected items.

Thanks for the advice. I think I know what you are getting at with the variability in "short-run" kits, but I find myself leaning toward that style of kit a bit more, at least when they have finer engraved details.

 

Regards,

David

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/23/2018 at 9:54 PM, JOCKNEY said:

Come on Dermot, stop being such a tease 

 

Show us your bits  ! :winkgrin:

 

Whoops that didn't come out well, I didn't mean to pinch one of your chat up lines :kissing2:

 

cheers Pat

 

 

 

Finally, a photo of me 'bits and pieces to keep Pat happy! Have already outlined all the parts with a felt tip pen.

 

32757104308_bd543726ee_b.jpgRarePlane Beech Super King Air (2) by Dermot Moriarty, on Flickr

 

White metal u/c and a couple of vac-form canopies.

 

45716784305_23979f19fd_b.jpgRarePlane Beech Super King Air (3) by Dermot Moriarty, on Flickr

 

Scoring, cutting more scoring, (some cursing!) and finally getting parts out

 

46579058692_f8d59c483a_b.jpgRarePlane Beech Super King Air (4) by Dermot Moriarty, on Flickr

 

Cheers,

Dermot

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Interesting - mind if I tag along? It’s a while since I saw a Rareplanes vac form being built.

 

I was a guest of the IAC one day in 1983 and snapped away quite merrily that day. I hope these pix of 232 may be of use?

 

46579943982_2cfb283f79_b.jpg

 

45717666235_acffb88063_b.jpg

 

31690959017_bb2015521c_b.jpg

 

39667349373_3c6c1e5d27_b.jpg

 

Trevor

 

 

 

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Anyone got advice for this Vacform Virgin on cutting the parts out?

 

Wings or anything with a straight-ish edge is ok but for the more complex shapes I'm a bit stumped...

 

Also - is Rareplanes plastic normally so tough? Seems to take forever to get through it to a point where i can gently snap the excess off...

 

Many thanks in advance.

Dermot

 

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Can’t help with the practical side of obliterating the 100% flash around the parts, but Rareplanes had the reputation of using plastic that was thick enough to be sturdy when assembled.

 

Trevor

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1 hour ago, Dermo245 said:

Anyone got advice for this Vacform Virgin on cutting the parts out?

 

Wings or anything with a straight-ish edge is ok but for the more complex shapes I'm a bit stumped...

 

Also - is Rareplanes plastic normally so tough? Seems to take forever to get through it to a point where i can gently snap the excess off...

 

Many thanks in advance.

Dermot

 

Dermot

By the look of your progress shots you are doing what u need to do; long straight edges score and snap and small complex parts get up close and personal with the old Xacto knife and score and break them off - sand down the excess after removal from the backing sheet. There are not that many complex shapes in the kit anyway and white metal parts cover the smallest of  them. For the internal bulk head you could always just make them up out of Evergreen instead of killing yourself getting them off the backing sheet? A quick outline on paper using the vacuform as guide and you can make up the parts out of sheet easy peasy and details will be sharper. 

 

BTW have dug out my copy of this kit and have started to cut out everything so this is all your fault. I did cheat thought as I also picked up the Mach 2 not-so injected kit which probably needs more clean up than the vacuum form kit. Also the Rareplanes has 2 copies of the cockpit windshield which will come in handy on the Mach2 kit as the clear parts are horrible.      

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Cut them out the same way as the rest, you don't need to get close to the part at this stage. Once they're released from the main sheet you can trim the excess off and sand the backing down until you reach the black marks. By then any excess will have been removed too.

 

Ian

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