Su-17M4 “Blue 42” Panjshir Valley 1989 - 26/10 update

[trickyrich]

5 hours ago, modelling minion said:

Yes I do, and I will but not for this GB though  .

Had a very enjoyable day at RAF Scampton today watching pretty red aeroplanes flying around in formation such as the one below;

 

But look what I found lurking in a hangar!

 

I now have a fairly complete walkaround of this beauty, well they only had a barrier behind it so I thought that meant that you could approach from the side and then take as many pictures as you like  .

That's a great photo, show a lot of good detail. The only one I've ever seen in real life is the one stuck on the poll at Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim. Though what a museum it is!!!

[modelling minion]

7 hours ago, trickyrich said:

That's a great photo, show a lot of good detail. The only one I've ever seen in real life is the one stuck on the poll at Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim. Though what a museum it is!!!

Thanks Rich, she really is a beast of an aircraft and you can really appreciate it when you get up close, there are hardpoints everywhere! I've been lucky enough to see them a fair few times over the years as they used to appear fairly frequently at Fairford  when they were still used by ex-Warpac nations, Poland still uses them and they brought some over a year or two  ago. 

I've not been to the museum at Sinsheim though I have been to the Luftwaffe museum at Gatow and can highly recommend it.

Interestingly enough all the stencilled writing was in Cyrillic, not a word of German on the whole airframe!

[trickyrich]

Right lots of progress on her, plus some decisions to make….

 

First off I needed to sort out how I was going to fit the new nose cone, previously this had given me allsorts of grief to get it to sit correctly. So there is a rear blanking plate for the intake, I squared this up and fitted it where I wanted it, first drilling a hole in the centre. Next I drilled a hole in the centre of the back of the new nose cone, I’d use some plastic rod to hold it all together. It sort of worked, but it was still a…… job…..to get it centred correctly!

 

 

So as you can see I drilled an fitted some more plastic rod in the centre of the intake ducts, now everything was square and centred.

 

If you look carefully you can see I originally had it fitted too far forward, plus it’s the wrong colour as well!

 

This is it in the right colour.

 

 

I also did the final setup for the cockpit mounts, trimmed some more plastic off the back and added another strip to the front block.

 

 

Speaking of which I finished up the cockpit. I didn’t end up using the Yahu IP but used the Cutting edge one with the dial punched out of the instructions for the Yahu panel…..it looks really good!

 

 

The cockpit was then fitted and the fuselage closed up (there was quite a bit of other boring stuff in between). The panel behind the cockpit was also fitted, there is some structure underneath it to hold it secularly in place.

 

 

You can sort of see the IP here, I do like the look of the cockpit now.

 

Just a light touch up of the fuselage joins and time to fit the wing inner section.

 

 

Again a lot more test fitting and adjustments and on go the wings.

 

The top wing/fuselage joins are great, very little needed here to sort out.

 

 

 

Even the lower ones that can be problematic are actually not too bad at all. I’ll be using stretched sprue to fill all these joins.

 

 

The final bit of work was the nose cowling, never the easiest thing to fit, but it’s centred and the interior joins are pretty good.

 

 

I’m toying with the idea of having the wings in their swept-back position, just for space saving reasons, they just won’t work or look right if they’re made adjustable.

 

 

I had also been playing with the idea of trying to correct (sort of) the cockpit/canopy lines and the rear hump. But these are almost a mini build in themselves and I really don’t want to get bogged down with this build. So I’ll leave this alone for now.

 

 

I’m very happy with the progress so I may put her away to continue one with the Typhoon and Sturmtiger, plus I have this horrible felling the P-40 GB is just around the corner as well!     

[Hewy]

Looking great  rich,nice cockpit

[modelling minion]

Excellent work all round Rich, the cockpit looks great and it looks like you've sorted the shock cone issues as your's is sitting perfectly.

Great job on the wings too, very little gaps to deal with on the undersides. Don't forget that the rivets on the outer wings flaps are actually raised dome headed rivets, if you want to get that detailed, I wouldn't!

[trickyrich]

Oooo raised rivets!!! I hate rivets, they won't be easy to replicate so I may just forget about them! 

 

I still haven't decided on which way to go with the wings yet.

[modelling minion]

Don't blame you Rich, I would ignore them too.

If there are any areas you need pics for let me know and I'll see if I have any to suit, might need to email them to you though as I'm near my limit on Flickr and haven't figured out what to do next yet.

[trickyrich]

cheers Craig.

 

I've been spending hours going through that Russian version of Google, yandex.ru. Have found heaps of info and photos of S-17's in Afghanistan, plus have my load out sorted as well. UB-32 rocket packs and KMGU-2 Munition Dispensers. Seems the Su's there were really restricted with load outs due to the altitude, a max out of around 1500kg, maybe a bit more if they were games. My load out was for "Caravan" hunting, the other was 4 of those BMF S-24 rockets! Turns out y fav gun packs were pretty useless there.

[modelling minion]

That's still a serious amount of weaponry, pity about the reverse firing gun pods though.

[trickyrich]

I know, as I've read for Ground Strafing missions (not there) the loadout was 4 of those pods! Or for just plain bombing 8 x 500kg bombs!!  My next Su-17/22 will have one of those load outs!! 

[exdraken]

nice progress!

 

yeah.. operational loadouts often differ from fancy photo load outs or kit contents....

See recent light loads in Syria for example!Harly every you see a fully loaded Frogfoot or Su-30/34/35!     

 

Hot and High conditions in Afghanistan surely did not help either!

 

 

 

 

 

[trickyrich]

On 7/17/2019 at 5:54 AM, exdraken said:

nice progress!

 

yeah.. operational loadouts often differ from fancy photo load outs or kit contents....

See recent light loads in Syria for example!Harly every you see a fully loaded Frogfoot or Su-30/34/35!     

 

Hot and High conditions in Afghanistan surely did not help either!

 

yeah, next one will be from somewhere nice and cool so I can load her up!! 

 

Not so much of an update, more rather these lovelies showed up the other day.

 

 

 

I'm still not sure if I can use (or they were used with this load out) the drop tanks, it'd take it to it's Max TO weight. From what I have read (via Russian sites) 1,500kg was the maximum and I think this was based one the maximum safe landing weight with store still on.

 

The KMGU's weighed 540kg each, UB-32-57's 264kg ea, so we're at 1600kg for this load out, so right on the operational limits.

 

So maybe they could have punched off the drop tanks first??

 

Oh and if you have some spare UB-32 rocket pods laying around and you don't know what to do with them???

 

http://armamentresearch.com/tag/ub-32-57/

[exdraken]

Nice weapons choice!

One thing I am not sure of is the color of the intake shock cone. Isn't it usually bright yellow or at least not the dielectric green,  with a green tip only?

 

Edited July 21, 2019 by exdraken

[trickyrich]

noooo.....but not quite.

 

There is actually quite a bit of variation in the colours of the shock cones. Predominately the Soviet Su-17's and 4M's especially, the shock cones are completely Radiation Panel (or Antenna Panel) Green (as in up to the splitter). That horrible bright green used on all antenna panels......though I have seen it varies quite a bit with age. At some stage Soviet Su-17's started showing up with either a band of aluminium right behind the antenna cones and some later (and they look to be quite new colour photos) the entire rear part of the shock cone is completely aluminium in colour, and the Green nose cone is very shiny in appearance. There are a couple of photos of Soviet Su-17's with this aluminium section appearing to be a reddish brown colour??? Later version/upgraded and unpainted composite material?

 

Ok Jump to Ukraine Su-22M4's and the Aluminium sections is now painted pale blue (similar to undersides), DDR Su-22M4's had a similar colour (some did). Both of these were high spec Su-22's so basically the same as the Su-17M4, only supplied to Warsaw Pact countries from what I can gather.

 

The Polish liked to be different and they painted this section Yellow on their Su-22M3's, which is probably where you've seen it, especially on the Tiger Meet Su-22M3.

 

The Peru Su-22's had the whole shock cone a Semi-Gloss Black. 

 

And depending on who else flew Su-22's there's still more variation in the colours of the shock cones.

 

I sort of know all this due to some "head banging" when I was doing research for my Su-7's, as I came across photos of them with different colour shock cones as well, which really confused me.

 

The few colour photos I've seen of Soviet Su-17M4's in Afghanistan do show the entire shock cone to be this green colour. Though there is one with this rear section painted a Grey/Green colour?? (it has some cool Sharks Teeth as well!) There are also one or two that show the Recon Su-17M3R's with what maybe aluminium rear parts instead of the green.

 

So short answer, it varies greatly from airforce/aircraft to airforce/aircraft, so you really need to carefully check your references.

 

I suspect originally from the factory they were all Green and with later upgrades or refurbs things started to change. 

 

I cannot recommend highly enough the Russian search engine/browser, Yandex.ru, use Chrome with it and it'll auto translate. I've found so much more info there than I have with Google, they only seem to go to English sites and not the really cool Russian forums where all the good info is. Plus if you can use the Cyrillic spelling for aircraft in Yandex you'll get even more results.

 

The photo probably makes my shock cone appear a bit dark and dull....though it is a home brew colour! I have since got the right one, but mine is a very good match. I'll probably have to re-paint mine again as I've already knock some paint off......that won't be an easy task at all!

[modelling minion]

Nice choice of weapons Rich, those resin UB-32's look excellent.

I would have thought your aircraft was good to go with that weight of weapons, I'm sure they would have found someone worthy of their attentions so would be landing lighter anyway.

And a very comprehensive guide to Su-17/22 shock cones!

[trickyrich]

from what I've read the U/c could have taken the punishment of a heavy landing, it was pretty much indestructible! I have read reports of aircraft dropping +5m on landing (newbie pilots) and not even blowing the tyres and aircraft undamaged! They built them tough......unlike those toy F-35's!!  

[Jabba]

Very much an impressive aircraft, and you are certainly doing it justice. The extra resin and PE parts are well worth the investment.

[trickyrich]

thanks, I do love these old Fitter models, they're really fun to build and pretty easy to update.

 

Though I still dream of someone finally doing a proper model without basic errors (same goes for an F-111).

[Hook]

Lovely work. I have a couple of 1/72nd Swinging Fitters in the stash - pulling up a chair!

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[modelling minion]

44 minutes ago, Hook said:

Lovely work. I have a couple of 1/72nd Swinging Fitters in the stash - pulling up a chair!

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

You are more than welcome to build one for the GB, there is plenty of time  .

[trickyrich]

... and a quick update from the South Pole...... well it feels like it here, it's only 12C!!!! 

 

ok some goodies were hating for me when i got home......along with the infamous paint order!

 

Hopefully this'll be the last extras I need but can't promise for now. (that's right, I still have a crew ladder to come, and then that's it...............)

 

 

I've already had a wee play with the new bit and found there will be some work required to get them to fit nicely. The new A/c intake forward section has a slightly smaller spine profile so I'll need to redo the kits spine where it meets........will probably now re-profile the whole thing. I hadn't planned to but seeing I need to do a wee bit at the rear of the spine I may as well do the whole thing......what could go wrong! 

 

 

The new tail antenna unit does fit quite a bit better, just some tweaking required to get this to work, is does look much nicer.

 

 

 

I'll put these away until I get the Sturmtiger done....nearly there.

 

here are the infamous paints, I waited nearly 3 months for these.....and I'll probably not use them on the Typhoon! The Blue is for my Tamiya 1/12th Tyrrell 6 wheeled beastie, an ultra long term project. 

 

 

.......and a new cockpit for my Tornado ECR, I've even found a different set of Tiger Meet decals for her just incase the originals are no good.

 

[modelling minion]

Looks lie you've given yourself some extra work with that a/c intake Rich, mind you it is much better looking than the kit part.

The tail antenna looks nice, and looks like it will fit better.

Good to see that your paint order has finally arrived, I hope they turn out to be worth the wait.

Nice looking cockpit for the Tornado, which kit have you got Rich? I notice you mention building a Tiger striped ECR and wonder if you've got the Hobby Boss kit.

[trickyrich]

I've got the revell 1/32nd beast, seemed o be the best model out there of a Tornado so I decided to go large. There are still more goodies to come for this one, but the build is a year away so plenty of time.

 

 

If you've ever seen the box it comes in (which is typical revell huge) well the decal sheet for it is the same size as the box!

 

 

The only issue is that they're a bit old looking and I'm worried how they'll go on so I've got another set from the second release of this model on the way.

[Hewy]

You've very much got this under control, looking good

[modelling minion]

That 1/32 Tonka is a big beast Rich, and you're right that the decal sheet is equally huge, even though it might be older Revell decal sheets are usually very good. Either way I'll be really interested to see the build when it starts.