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Ray's 1/72 RAAF P-8A - 11 Squadron


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And the winner is the P-8A

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Decals by DekLs

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The Welsh kit is made up of vacform, resin and white metal parts

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and some instructions and decals supplied in the kit

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I will be building A47-007 which was on static display at the 50 Years of Orion operations and 10 Squadron family day I was at on the weekend. It is also the newest aircraft in the fleet, 008 will be delivered early next year

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I will be following this build. I have started on the kit myself, however progress is slow....

 

 

My kit has a set of Ronin Decals included - very nice decals. I will build a Norwegian aircraft though, and since these are not in service yet (not even manufactured) I will have to wait to see the final colour scheme.

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2 hours ago, zebra said:

Great choice Ray, looking forward to this. Really like the look of this, it'll be an impressive model when done. Quite fancy one myself (but would probably go for a Wedgetail first).

I have the wedgetail as well which will make an appearance at one of next year's group builds at this stage

2 hours ago, Vingtor said:

I will be following this build. I have started on the kit myself, however progress is slow....

 

 

My kit has a set of Ronin Decals included - very nice decals. I will build a Norwegian aircraft though, and since these are not in service yet (not even manufactured) I will have to wait to see the final colour scheme.

Thanks Nils, I recall you thread and the fuselage extension required. I won't be keeping mine simple as I will attempt to make a weapons bay for mine.  

1 hour ago, Robert Stuart said:

Looks like a good choice Ray

 

Relates well with your Adelaide trip

Sure does, it flew a fabulous low-level handling display, I could not resist.

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57 minutes ago, Romeo Alpha Yankee said:

I have the wedgetail as well which will make an appearance at one of next year's group builds at this stage

Thanks Nils, I recall you thread and the fuselage extension required. I won't be keeping mine simple as I will attempt to make a weapons bay for mine.  

Sure does, it flew a fabulous low-level handling display, I could not resist.

I have been thinking about opening up the weapons bay myself. As well as doing some cabin interior, with an open cabin door and extended staircase. I may come to my senses before before I get this far, though....

 

Nils

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13 hours ago, busnproplinerfan said:

Ths will be quite the plane. I want to get a civvy version. What are the dimensions of the kit?

Length and fuselage are both about 52-53 cm. A civil 737-800 will have slightly shorter wing span.

 

Nils

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This will be my second attempt at a Welsh vacform, the first being the 737-BBJ from a couple of years ago. I learnt a lot from that and hopefully, this build goes a lot smoother and faster!

 

The resin for the wings is broken down differently, the BBJ had 2 parts for the wing and fuselage fairing whereas this one has 4. It will also require some scratch building as the first release (this one) missed some items like the fairings on the wings for the weapons pylon attachment points.

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22 hours ago, Vingtor said:

Length and fuselage are both about 52-53 cm. A civil 737-800 will have slightly shorter wing span.

 

Nils

Thanks, just noticed there's no winglets, wonder why they wouldn't have them.

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2 hours ago, busnproplinerfan said:

Thanks, just noticed there's no winglets, wonder why they wouldn't have them.

 

While winglets and raked wingtips are both drag reduction devices NASA has found the raked wingtip can reduce drag by higher amounts (up to 5.5% compared to 3.5% for winglets). The additional reason the USN went for raked tips on the P-8A is the fact that because it is level with the rest of the wing it is easier to deice when operating at lower levels and the fact they did not have to worry about a span increase which affects airport operations particularly at the gates for their civil brethren.

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I decided to put the forward a rear fuselage halves together, Welsh would have you join the two forward and read halves together as separate assemblies (as I did on the BBJ) but since I am attempting to add a weapons bay I thought I would make up each half first.

 

I forgot how thin the welsh moulds are compared to other vacforms and had some damage removing the moulded in 'bulkhead'

 

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Because it was so thin I had to beef up the inner surface with some 10 thou strip (2 layers)

 

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Then the sections were brought together, glued and clamped

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Off to do some measuring and design the weapons bay

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This is the right way to do it, Ray. Assemble the fuselage halves first for smooth joins.

 

I am looking forward to your opening of the weapons bay, and the construction of its interior.

 

Nils 

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Being on leave for the Christmas break has given me some time to figure some things out.

 

The kit supplied bulkheads were installed

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...thought the plastic is thin on the fuselage sides and a little melting occurred

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I started on the weapons bay, using some pictures I had taken during a squadron family day when the P-8 first arrived here.

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 drilled out the sonobuoy dispenser tube locations and backed them with some tube

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And began to create the weapons bay

 

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There is more detail to go into the bay which I will plod along with. Starting to look the part.

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But still, a ways to go

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