Legendary Blackbird - Part 0: Genesis... (3D Printing)

[woody37]

I don't think I've made comment on this yet, but have been watching it as it's progressed. Simply brilliant!

 

[Serkan Sen]

Last two weeks I was working on cockpit and instrument panel improvements of all A-12 variants (including TA-12 and M-21). Here are the TA-12 front (same as A-12 prototype cockpit) and rear cockpit areas:

 

 

 

Next step is to complete serial production A-12 and M-21 cockpit & instrument panel details.

 

Serkan

 

[Serkan Sen]

And here are the A-12 and M-21 cockpit tubs and instrument panels:

 

The front fuselage including cockpit tub, windshield and canopy:

 

Next step is to print all updated and new parts, and perform fit tests.

 

Serkan

[heloman1]

Outstanding work. I wasn't aware the Blackbird has a weapons bay. I always thought they were recognisance only. You learn something every day!

 

Colin

[Serkan Sen]

19 minutes ago, heloman1 said:

Outstanding work. I wasn't aware the Blackbird has a weapons bay. I always thought they were recognisance only. You learn something every day!

 

Colin

Many thanks Colin. You are right, neither SR-71A Blackbird nor A-12 Oxcart has missile bays, but YF-12A "The Thing".

To carry Hughes targetting radar the nose shape is ogive and the chine is not extending up to pitot tube. 😁

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

Now all new parts are ready to send to the printer. The clear parts such as wind shield and canopy will be also printed with grey resin to check if they fit properly before printing with clear resin.

 

While the print job is running I can spend a bit time on preparation of instruction sheets. 🙂

 

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

Yesterday I had a bit time to work on engine model. Some bits and bobs and fuel pipelines have been added to afterburner can but not complete yet:

 

It will be a long process to add most of the engine details. But at the end it will worth all these effort.

 

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

I decided to pause the work on engine detailing and started to model D-21 Drone. This makes more sense after finishing M-21 Mothership rear cockpit:

 

As usual, the modeling started with best available 3 view drawings:

 

First of all the basic sections have been generated to model the surfaces. Also the entire duct from inlet to exhaust has been modeled:

 

The next step is to create upper and lower surfaces.

 

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

The rough drone surface generation completed. Also panel lines were added to the model:

 

The camera bay on the lower surface and the louvers at the both sides of intake and upper surface were added to model as well after creating the starboard side.

Next step is to create the vertical fin which should be relatively easy.

 

Serkan

[Fritag]

Serkan, you continue to impress, delight and inspire in probably equal measure.

 

The geek in me would love a bit more detail on how you managed to generate such a delightfully smooth flowing body surface  

 

 

[Serkan Sen]

11 hours ago, Fritag said:

Serkan, you continue to impress, delight and inspire in probably equal measure.

 

The geek in me would love a bit more detail on how you managed to generate such a delightfully smooth flowing body surface  

 

 

Many thanks Steve. I do my best to model this unique aircraft with all derivatives and accessories.

The secret of generating smooth surfaces is to model the geometry as simple as possible and use basic geometric shapes like lines, arcs and surfaces rather than complex nurbs and splines:

 

The tangencies between the lines, curves, arcs and surfaces have to be maintained wherever it is required.

Also the number of sections should be used as minimum as possible to generate smooth and nice surfaces. D-21 drone fuselage and wings have been modeled only with two sections and some guide curves:

 

Serkan

 

[Alan P]

12 hours ago, Fritag said:

how you managed to generate such a delightfully smooth flowing body surface

Good diet and moisturiser? 😉

 

Serkan it's great to see your skills getting more and more precise and hopefully marketable 👍 fabulous work!

[Serkan Sen]

1 hour ago, Alan P said:

Good diet and moisturiser? 😉

Definitely not with botox and liposuction! 😁

The secret is  "model it as simple as possible!"

1 hour ago, Alan P said:

Serkan it's great to see your skills getting more and more precise and hopefully marketable 👍 fabulous work!

Thanks for your kind words Alan. Although I am modelling all these things for my own builds, I have received significant amount of requests for the parts. Many people became the member of this forum to be able to get in contact with me. It seems that there is a great potential in the market. 🤑

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

The fin and intake cone have been added to model as well:

 

Next step is to add nozzle and antennas to complete the D-21 model.

 

Serkan

[Neffan]

10 hours ago, Serkan Sen said:

L'aileron et le cône d'admission ont également été ajoutés au modèle :

 

La prochaine étape consiste à ajouter une buse et des antennes pour compléter le modèle D-21.

 

Serkan

Hi Sekan, it's a master's job 😉 

[Serkan Sen]

And finally the engine nozzle (the rest of the engine will be modelled later), probe and antennas have been added to the model:

 

There are some details to be added but in overall I can say that the D-21 drone model has been done. Now I can focus on YF-12A cockpit details.

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

Yesterday evening I had a bit time to work on YF-12A front cockpit and here are some pictures of the result, As always I have started with the instrument panel layout I have found in operators manual and I have added each details one by one:

 

After few hours search in internet and reference books I realised that there are some differences between the operational and NASA YF-12A instrument panels. NASA has removed all instrumentation which was part of interceptor mission. Here is the comparison of both instrument panels:

 

Next step is to model YF-12A rear cockpit details.

 

Serkan

[billn53]

I’m amazed by your research skills as I am at your modeling abilities!

[Neffan]

On 02/12/2023 at 18:50, Serkan Sen said:

Yesterday evening I had a bit time to work on YF-12A front cockpit and here are some pictures of the result, As always I have started with the instrument panel layout I have found in operators manual and I have added each details one by one:

 

After few hours search in internet and reference books I realised that there are some differences between the operational and NASA YF-12A instrument panels. NASA has removed all instrumentation which was part of interceptor mission. Here is the comparison of both instrument panels:

 

Next step is to model YF-12A rear cockpit details.

 

Serkan

🧐👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[Serkan Sen]

Recently I received many questions about the correctness of the fuselage section. This question was always on my mind and I did checks in the past several times but without any documentation. I went through all these checks and I did the following comparisons.

First of all I have compared the 1:72 and 1:48 Blackbird kits' fuselage sections. The bottom row shows the 3D printed fuselage sections:

 

It is very interesting that  both Revell and Italeri kits in 1:72 scale have better cross section shape than 1:48 ones.

 

The second check was the comparison of available reference pictures with the kit and 3D printed sections.

 

The A-12 and YF-12A sections are exactly same on upper surface and have differences only on lower surface as expected:

 

SR-71A and A-12 sections have differences on upper surface curvature. SR-71A has less concave surface than A-12 which is most probably to have more space for the chine located cameras:

 

I have also compared new Revell Blackbird kit's section with above ones. It was really big surprise to see that Revell fuselage circular section was undersized:

 

Therefore my conclusion is, without doing significant surgery/modifications on 1:48 Revell kit (for Italeri it is even worser) it is not possible to do A-12 conversion. For 1:72 conversion less effort is needed. For a pain-free A-12/TA-12/M-21 build fully 3D printed kit is the solution:

 

Serkan

 

[PeteH1969]

Wow

 

Thank you for showing the differences between the aircraft it must of taken you a long time to collate all of the reference to be able to design a kit.

 

Pete

[Paperback writer]

Just picked up (nearly put my back out) Paul Crickmore's new Lockheed Blackbird book from Osprey. 520+ pages, bigger than A4 and full of amazing information, much of it new and stories from past aircrew, ground crew, etc. If you are a Blackbird fan, put one on your Christmas list. A bargain at £60 and I'm not kidding. - Alan F

[Zorglub]

I'm still in awe of all this research and 3D design work.

I'm learning a lot as well: thank you very much.

[Serkan Sen]

Many thanks for your encouraging replies @billn53, @Fritag, @Alan P, @PeteH1969, @TheBaron, @Neffan , @Back in the Saddle, @Hoops, @Zorglub, @Courageous, @Iceman 29, @Gondor44 . I am doing my best to complete this huge project as soon as possible. But it seems that it won't be possible within next few years! At first glance I can list the following tasks to do;

• A-12/TA-12/M-21 Ejection Seat (90% completed, the seat harness is missing)
• YF-12A (95% completed)
• Engine bay details (10%completed)
• Engine details (20% completed)
• SR-71A/B/C (modified chines, nose variants, new cockpit layouts, new ejection seat, long tail modification) (0%)
• AG-330 Starter cart (90% completed)
• Engine Dolly (70% completed)
• D-21 Drone (90% completed)
• Drone Dolly (0%)

My plan is first to complete the YF-12A rear cockpit details and missile bay doors. After then I will work on the early ejection seat harness (which will be very hard work).

 

YF-12A instrument panel model has been completed. It was really challenging task to find most appropriate reference pictures to create entire panel. Each YF-12A has some different panel layout than the other one. Also NASA did their own modifications both in forward and rear layouts. Here is the model I have created:

 

 

Next step is to finish cockpit tub layout.

 

Serkan

[Serkan Sen]

Yesterday I finally finished the cockpit tub details. It was again a bit painful to select most proper side panel layouts. Here is the result:

 

And both front and rear cockpits together:

 

And finally placed in front fuselage:

 

In overall I am very satisfied with the result although there are few points to be improved. Now I can start missile bays doors modelling.

 

Serkan