Airfix 1/72 Avro Anson conversion- The Kit That Came From the Unknown

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

You may all know what a Zen koan is: a seemingly irresolvable, seemingly illogical proposition. One of the most known is "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

Well, my dear friend and modeling arch-enemy Sönke Schulz from Volkania, has regaled me in the past many times with such propositions, but in modeling form, in the guise of semi-built, chopped up, miscellaneous remains of kits (BOXES of them, actually).

Many of these modeling koans have been, as you know, solved (that is: built), the last one being a kit he sent of the RWD-8 that I just posted.

The koan that occupies us (or at least me) today is Airfix's Avro Anson, which Sönke kindly half-built already, leaving to me tasks such as inserting a part of the landing gear after the wing halves have been firmly glued together, and not, as the plan wisely advises since it is the only way to do it, before.

But yet again, I have solved more arcane modelling riddles in the past.

Sönke again very kindly started a merciless chopping of the roof, since my cuppa -and his'- are peaceful, lovely, charming, uplifting, colorful civil machines, and the aft position has to be deleted.

He also chopped the area immediately in front of the windshield, since his intentions apparently were to depict the slightly different windshield arrangement that the civil, passenger carrying, Avro 652 had (two prototypical machines: Avalon and Avatar).

But hear hear, that involves quite a number of changes, while just modeling an after the war civil conversion is -in a few cases- a very straightforward matter of just adding civil regs, slight changes on the nacelles, and of course the already mentioned deletion of the aft position.

Hum...what to do, what to do....

I know, I am not particularly fond of adopting "rescued mistreated models with behavioral issues", but this poor kit had such a hard start of life in Volkania...I mean, it breaks your heart.

I have gathered quite a number of images of candidates, again, pretty straightforward, even the same clunky landing gear and window arrangement, and in a couple cases no need to touch the nacelles. 

I'll see where the vapors of modeling liquid cement take me to....

 

 Here are the images of what I got already done in the package, praise Styrene, muse of the scratchbuilders:

 

 

 

To be continued?....

Edited January 25, 2019 by Moa

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

As you can see Sönke already obliterated the original bumps on one of the kit's cowls, precluding me from modeling the civil post war machines that had those, but I got other cowls in the spares bin that may allow me to build the civil variants that had plain cowls and used other engines, which is not bad given the kit's simplified "e pluribus unum" (from many one) engine/cowl one-part rendition:

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

As usual, the more you research a subject, the more you learn, and the more you have to modify things to suit reality.

If I go for any of the two early civil machines, a slight modification of the landing gear will be also needed, plus a new door and needless to say a new interior. Photos show a four seat arrangement  and a restroom opposite the access door, as it was common practice, (brochures state that four six an seven eight seat arrangements were possible). Two bulkheads separate the cabin area from the cockpit and the restroom area. There was a light on the nose tip, and the fuselage nose had a hatch that open to small cargo area (described as cylindrical in sources).

Another small cargo compartment was located in the aft fuselage accessible through a triangular door.

There were three windows on the left (one of those on the door) and two on the right (the restroom did not have a window). The windshield was different than the series machines (and therefore the kit's), and the roof a bit flatter; and actually the kit, which is not that good in that regard for the series machines, better suits the early form. The rudder can be seen in photos with and without a compensating horn.

Contrary again to series machines (and to what my dear friend endeavor to create cutting them), G-ACRM/N did not have flaps, as per brochure.

A plethora of other details could be named, but we may leave them for the following steps, if any will follow at all.

I leave you now to meditate on the nature of the koan, little grasshoppers.

Edited January 25, 2019 by Moa

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Four chairs are fabricated as per photo of civil machine:

[Eric Mc]

The main problem with the Airfix Anson is the incorrect representation of the wing surfaces. They should not really show the "fabric over ribs" effect.m As far as I was aware, Anson's had wings covered with thin plywood sheeting so should be fairly smooth with thin panel lines.

[Paul J]

I recall my first Airfix Anson before they did the 'fabric wing ' re tool. It had smooth surface but the fabric fuselage.  Shame they made the mod.

[Eric Mc]

I hadn't realised that originally they had "got it right". I wonder what possessed them to make the change?

[Courageous]

A right 'bag o' nails' you have there Moa. Your time on BM has shown me that you can turn your hand to virtually anything, even these 'waifs and strays'...always something to learn. 

 

Stuart

[Roger Holden]

Yep.....Avro was a licensee of Fokker's all-plywood wing building techniques and the Anson was the ultimate result of this. Wing should be smooth, without the faux-fabric ribbing. Sometime in the mid-60s, Airfix saw fit to add an exaggerated fabric effect to some of it's earlier kits (the Hawker Hart was another), but in the case of the Anson, this was totally inappropriate. This was in the era when it was also plastering its metal aircraft with over scale rivets.

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

11 hours ago, Eric Mc said:

The main problem with the Airfix Anson is the incorrect representation of the wing surfaces. They should not really show the "fabric over ribs" effect.m As far as I was aware, Anson's had wings covered with thin plywood sheeting so should be fairly smooth with thin panel lines.

 

3 hours ago, Roger Holden said:

Yep.....Avro was a licensee of Fokker's all-plywood wing building techniques and the Anson was the ultimate result of this. Wing should be smooth, without the faux-fabric ribbing. Sometime in the mid-60s, Airfix saw fit to add an exaggerated fabric effect to some of it's earlier kits (the Hawker Hart was another), but in the case of the Anson, this was totally inappropriate. This was in the era when it was also plastering its metal aircraft with over scale rivets.

Thanks Eric and Roger, that's a very important "detail" I was not aware of.

The Special Hobby kit has it right, then.

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

The nacelles of the two early machines are noticeably more bulbous than the series'. This is not insurmountable, but is not a pleasant scratch at all, especially in situ, and the option of removing the nacelles partially or completely and inserting new ones is just a bit too much for my patience today.

The scale is more and more inclining to a post-war converted civil machine.

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Does anyone have a clue on the colors on this one (besides the aluminium parts)?

Some Australian BMs, perhaps?

The CSIRO logo nowadays is blue, but I am not sure if it was so then.

Here is a link to the Getty images archive:

https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/news-photo/rain-makers-csiro-div-the-radio-physic-of-the-csiro-new-news-photo/1080095468

 

[Andwil]

Hi Moa,  look at www.adastra.adastron.com>anson>VH-WMA (sorry I’m doing this on my phone and don’t know how to post the link). It has the history of this aircraft including its time rain making with the CSIRO.  There are a few photos including one in colour.  The trim at least looks to be a dark shade of blue.  HTH.

 

AW

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

1 hour ago, Andwil said:

Hi Moa,  look at www.adastra.adastron.com>anson>VH-WMA (sorry I’m doing this on my phone and don’t know how to post the link). It has the history of this aircraft including its time rain making with the CSIRO.  There are a few photos including one in colour.  The trim at least looks to be a dark shade of blue.  HTH.

 

AW

Thanks, I already had looked at it and even did some tweaking on that image with a graphics program to clean it, but couldn't decide between dark blue or dark green.

I appreciate and am grateful for your comment, though.

Cheers

[Andwil]

The previous service with Australian National Airlines would certainly mean blue and I doubt the the CSIRO would have bothered to repaint it apart from adding their logo.  Even in those more enlightened times I doubt their budget would have stretched that far.

 

AW

[Courageous]

Sorry I can't be of any help but I really like that livery, what ever the colours are.

 

Stuart

[Brandy]

This looks very interesting, and I too love that livery. I'll be watching from the bar!

 

Ian

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

15 hours ago, Andwil said:

The previous service with Australian National Airlines would certainly mean blue and I doubt the the CSIRO would have bothered to repaint it apart from adding their logo.  Even in those more enlightened times I doubt their budget would have stretched that far.

 

AW

Thanks!

we are now in more certain grounds, appreciate your post!

Cheers

[John Aero]

With what you have, without a lot of work you're really limited to a post-war civil machine. The two earlier civil types also had smaller tail planes and the rear fuselage turtle back was slightly higher than the military machines. By the way the name Avatar for RN was quickly changed to Ava because the name Avatar was apparently very rude in someones language.

 

You should be able to remove the wing ribs by sanding down as Airfix just machined into the original mould.

 

John

 

I found this in my collection, As schoolboy enthusiasts we would write to the various aircraft manufacturers such as Gloster, Avro and Hawker, and they would send us half plate real photos of their historic stuff. Note it has the smaller tail plane.

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

1 hour ago, John Aero said:

With what you have, without a lot of work you're really limited to a post-war civil machine. The two earlier civil types also had smaller tail planes and the rear fuselage turtle back was slightly higher than the military machines. By the way the name Avatar for RN was quickly changed to Ava because the name Avatar was apparently very rude in someones language.

 

You should be able to remove the wing ribs by sanding down as Airfix just machined into the original mould.

 

John

Thanks for your very useful comments John. They add important information.

So it is decided, not the civil 652 in their first incarnations.

I just acquired another kit that will be easier to build without having to reconstruct some of the affected areas in the gifted kit.

I will use the gifted kit for sanding practice and may be other attempts without the risk of botching everything.

Cheers

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

The wings' ribbing detail is therefore sanded away:

 

 

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Elevators are separated from stab:

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Speaking of elevators, in the two early civil machines the elevators were not inset, and run to the tip.

 

[John Aero]

A poor photo from my collection of a couple of post-war Anson freighters of Transair Croydon.  All over Silver but I don't know the trim colour. My guess is Red. Note, no windows.

 

John

 

Or Air Service Training Usually Silver and Black.

 

 

[pinky coffeeboat]

Adding another photo of a windowless Transair Anson, below this a window version.

 

 

Jeff

Edited January 28, 2019 by pinky coffeeboat