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Fifty shades .. H-19 the circle closed, ciao baby


perdu

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6 hours ago, andyf117 said:

Well at least someone had the good sense to have their undercarriages locked down, to avoid any embarrassing incidents! 🤣

Junglies never were the sharpest pencils in the box, I suppose.

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Taking the bull by the sharp sticky out hurty bits I have rounded the front of my mystery fairing and stupagooed it on

 

If its badly wrong, go sue me

 

P1010270.jpg

 

A wee bit sanding down should give me

 

P1010271.jpg

 

Now it is on I can adjust the shape that little bit to get 'the shape'

 

The shape is always in there somewhere, just have to locate it huh

 

:)

 


 

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That mystery fairing is nothing more mysterious than the the cover for the ESM cables from the rear facing heads. It's split in two with one part on the tail and the other on the tail cone to allow the tail to fold.

 

It's not badly wrong just a bit too big, but sanding to follow, so I'll hold off on my legal team...

 

Jeff

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Mr Perdu,

 

For your viewing pleasure. This is the tail end of a Mk1 folded all nice and tight to squeeze into a small Type 23 frigate hangar. Note your mysterious shaped thingy 

 

IMG-4747.jpg

 

More to follow shortly, I'm having a nice nostalgic look through my photos (that one above was taken almost nine years ago, so perhaps not too nostalgic)

 

Jeff

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2 hours ago, pinky coffeeboat said:

Mr Perdu,

 

For your viewing pleasure. This is the tail end of a Mk1 folded all nice and tight to squeeze into a small Type 23 frigate hangar. Note your mysterious shaped thingy 

 

IMG-4747.jpg

 

More to follow shortly, I'm having a nice nostalgic look through my photos (that one above was taken almost nine years ago, so perhaps not too nostalgic)

 

Jeff

My word!!!

 

Do you chaps have to have qualifications in Origami to achieve that?

 

One would imagine that dragging it out again must be equally "exciting",what happens if you have to do it in a hurry?

One bets there's far more "guiders and watchers"than do-er's for that maneuver.

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Hi Dave, if Perdu doesn't object I'll answer your question.

When the aircraft is out of the hangar, it seems a pretty big place with loads of room. However, when stowing the Merlin that space soon disappears!! There is literally inches to spare above the rotor "beany" (the aerodynamic fairing that sits at the very top and looks like a Frisbee) and the fully raised hangar roller door. To the sides there is enough room for two people to squeeze past each other and people wonder where the navy gets its "reputation"...At the nose, you have to turn sideways to pass round the front. Space is at a premium.

 

Moving the aircraft in/out uses a pulley system attached to large heavy guides

 

IMG-4446-2.jpg

 

The metal shuttles aren't physically attached to the aircraft but contact the main wheel spurs, metal rods that are attached to the wheel axle and stick out. In the photo above, the spur can be seen as a metal projection coming out from the wheel axle. This is the reason for the curved cut out in the main wheel sponson.

 

The nose wheel is enclosed between a pair of guides that pull and push the whole aircraft out. See the nose wheel in the piccy below

 

Merlin at sea

 

Moving it about the deck is an interesting experience. Most of the flight are involved and as you said, keep a good look out for anything that could go wrong. It always appears to be quite a slow system out on deck but mentally it always seems to speed up whenever it's in the hangar and what at first seemed slow and taking forever suddenly becomes too fast when inside! The speed doesn't change, just when in the hangar there's so many things to be cautious of your head spins quite quickly.

 

Jeff

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4 hours ago, pinky coffeeboat said:

How far along are you with the flare stuff? Are you going to remake them or leave as is?

 

Jeff

Jeff i have remade it now

Im glad you have explained the shiny poles on the wheels

Youll notice i have cut out the slots in the sponsons already

 

I'm about to finish up with making  the flare packs

 

 

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Nice description of handling a Merlin on a frigate deck.  I never had that particular pleasure, but I did work a 2-Lynx flight in Broadsword for a while, which had its moments - in particular, you really have to think ahead; like, when one cab is airborne and you are ranging the second... but then the first puts out a Pan call to say it's returning to Mum.  How quickly can you get Cab 2 safely stowed, especially when it’s rough, or dark, or both?

 

I also operated a Seaking from the deck of HMS Brave.  The Lynx and Merlin do at least have wheel spurs and other equipment designed to aid safe handling on deck.  The dear old Seaking has none of that, so moving it in and out of the hangar is an operation to be done with considerable care.

 

The Mother of all challenging deck arrangements is probably a tie between the Tribal class Wasp deck (where the hangar was underneath the deck - someone even older than me will have to explain how on Earth you got it in and out) and the County class Wessex deck (the one with the hangar door round the corner on the port side because of the gigantic Seaslug radar where the hangar door would have been...).  I imagine getting ranging / stowing the cab in either of those ships must have been not for the faint-hearted!

 

The joys of non-diversion flying from a small ship.  Fly Navy

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Fly Navy

...and Land on the Sea!

Judging the wind whilst alighting on a surface moving violently in all three dimensions is pure sorcery in my book Crisp. I see now why this is called a Merlin. 

18 hours ago, perdu said:

The shape is always in there somewhere, just have to locate it huh

Leave my waistline out of this.

 

 

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Aint it grand being here in BM where we get live commentaries on things we mere mortals could only dream of

 

Fabulous interjects again from Crisp and Jeff

Who knew this stuff but they who did it for real?

 

I seem to recall Chris Parry describing the vagaries of operating from Antrim (maybe?) whilst heading Down South

 

Just wow

 

Anyway, less wow but equally pleasing for me

 

I drilled the weapon pylon mounting from Richard's donated pieces and was thrilled to find the pylon mountings exactly matched the pick up points I had made from U section extrusions

 

And have posed one of the resized AN/ALQ frames for consideration

 

I think they will do now

 

P1010281.jpg

 

Much more to do now but I feel I'm getting the greeblies nailed on OK

 

Next?

 

ZH847's FLIR mounting bracket

 

Deep joy...

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1 hour ago, pinky coffeeboat said:

Have you started the turret mount?

 

If not hold on...

 

Jeff

standing by

 

This is only to do ZH847 because there seem to be several (and I have the Tiger's head ready) types

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I sometimes forget how nice early Frog mouldings were

 

P1010282.jpg

 

This set of rocket projectiles was from my elderly Frog Typhoon which didnt need  the rockets because I built her as a car door Bombphoon, first time out back modelling after thirty odd years

 

 

Typhoon mk1B

 

Typhoon mk1BTyphoon mk1B

 This is to be one of six

P1010283.jpg

 

Luckily I have a few, two sprues/runners of them

P1010284.jpg

 

These are destined to be the forward mounting fairings on the Defensive Suite attachment points, once they have been suitably carved

 

P1120994.jpg

 

When the gear is mounted they sit proud of the racking and so they need to be fitted, so does the brace at the back of each rail too


I have lots of U section of various sizes


Do you see the various extra carbuncles along the sides, teardrop shaped doohdahs?

 

Busy making those at the mo' too, whatever they are they need to be seen

 

Anyway, laters chapses

 

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2 hours ago, perdu said:

standing by

 

This is only to do ZH847 because there seem to be several (and I have the Tiger's head ready) types

Ok.

There were two types of installation. I won't go too much into details but the first installation was a "strap-it-on anyway you can" modification. The various parts of the EO/IR (colloquially called "Wescam" because that's what it's called) were scattered throughout the airframe leading to various quite prominent looms running along the underside of the fuselage from the turret to the master computer unit located in the tail, This was the Mk1 standard. The aircraft had an additional dedicated GPS aerial for the Wescam. This lead to there being two tail rotor drive shaft fairings with GPS aerials fitted.

 

IMG-0134.jpg

 

IMG-0135.jpg

 

IMG-0138.jpg

 

IMG-0141.jpg

 

Note the black electrical loom on the underside. This is the connection from the turret to its computer - like I said, it was an after thought!! 

 

IMG-4005-2.jpg

 

With the Mk2 and a whole better standard (though that's debatable ...) of system integration and spare capacity allowing newer equipment and add-ons to be "easily" fitted, the design of the installation was altered. The equipment was relocated removing the external looms. The turret mounts are fiited to the existing right hand weapons hard points. The turret on the Mk2 features a cover over the connecting electrical cables on the top - merely weatherproofing the connections. I will refrain from showing the Mk2 installation, suffice to say that the most visible difference (from a modelling perpective) is the black loom seen in the pictures above go into the airframe just beside the turret mount and don't run along the underside to the tail. The turret mount is different being smaller in size.

 

Another edit, I really must think before pressing the submit button. There is a RAM screen fitted to the corner of the airframe in the area of the radome - obviuosly to prevent the turret being fried by the radar. Again two types are available. In the upper pictures the RAM strake is a simple flat "board" but on the Mk2 it's a bit different being thicker in size and much more aerodynamically shaped.

 

No doubt I'll edit again as I read this post..

HTH

 

Jeff

 

Edited by pinky coffeeboat
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