The best Destroyer/Frigate helicopter in history

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I should perhaps explain why the stunning Black Dog engine doesn’t quite cut it in my eyes.  

 

To repeat a previous picture, here it is as out of the box (it no longer looks exactly like this!):

 

And here is a Rolls Royce drawing of a Gem (easier to understand than a photo):

 

The output coupling, reduction gearbox & air intake are on the gearbox side of the firewall, so irrelevant for this purpose.  The bits that are most obviously missing are the oil cooler and associated fan, all driven off the accessory gearbox; this photo (really useful angle, as it is taken by someone standing somewhere on the gearbox platform, looking downwards, backwards and to port) shows the top of that fan, as well as the cooling vent for the starter/generator (a black vent next to that puke green box in the foreground; you can just see the top corner of it at the very bottom of the photo, next to those two black wires/pipes). These match up to the holes visible in the engine bay door... which manifest themselves externally as the streamlined vent on top of the aircraft when the door is shut.  (This photo is of a Dutch Mk.27, which is equivalent to the HAS2).

 

Again to repeat a shot I have already posted (of an RN Mk.3), you can see below that the top left as we look is dominated by accessories, including the fans.  The resin version has something there... but nothing like the real thing - ideally I’d love to be able to move some of those details backwards.  The large prominent oil pipe(?) that runs along the top of the resin engine has already been removed; it will eventually be replaced by several thinner pipes - the bright orange ones in the photo (the orange stuff is fire-retardant cladding).

 

I think it is doable, but I also think it is necessary, because even a cursory view of an open Lynx engine bay shows very prominent rectangular air intakes and vents on the top, and bright orange oil pipes running across the top and down the side of the engine - and both of those are absent from the resin casting.

 

I will also add the HEIU (high energy ignition unit - see drawing!), which is the cream coloured box visible in the photo above.  That’s easy.

 

It might sound as though I have a downer on the Black Dog version.  I don’t; I think it is a fantastic piece of work, and it will save me hours of measurement and scratch building (including of the firewalls etc.).  But at present it doesn’t look right, and so it wouldn’t satisfy me... so I’ll modify it.

 

Not for the first or last time, this illustrates that having intimate knowledge of the aircraft you are building can be a two-edged sword.  Yes, I know lots about the Seaking & Lynx, which helps hugely... but it also means that I feel unable to settle for “good enough” in the way that I almost certainly do with aircraft of which I know much less!

 

More soon

 

Crisp

Edited March 1, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Martian]

I heartily concur about the double edged sword bit Crisp. I have a passion for research which from a modelling standpoint, lands me in the brown and smelly every time. Add to that the ability to do much finer detailing that my prescription magnifying spectacles give me and I am positively drowning in the stuff. 

 

Martian 👽

[perdu]

And please permit me a ditto on this topic

 

Its the research that can overcome my ability to get accurate these days

 

But it is what drives me 😕

[giemme]

11 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

[Note to passing Italians; exquisiosity is not a real word.]

 Oddly enough, the term you made up is very similar to the actual Italian word we would use ("Squisitezza"), so no damage or trouble was caused to fellow Italian modellers ...

 

And I can totally see your point about your last post (the two-edged sword) - Come to think of that: seeing that I know nothing about helicopters, I could try and build one without incurring in the detailing curse...   

Ciao

 

 

[Terry1954]

Another in agreement here Crisp, in that I am certainly not a rivet counter, but when portraying detail it does need to look "about right" to the trained eye. Certainly on these matters of Lynx (and Seaking) detailed paraphernalia, you no doubt have a very well trained eye indeed!

 

Love the detail pics of the real thing btw.

 

Terry