DHC-8 details

[rossm]

Please can anyone suggest a good grey for the underside of the fuselage of G-BRYG as in this photo https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1063032. Ideally in Tamiya or Humbrol. I'm tempted by the RAF camouflage colour Medium Sea Grey as I've got a gloss version to hand.

 

Also the colours around what would be the APU exhaust if G-BRYG had one which I don't think it did - it looks like yellow with a black outline in this photo https://www.flickr.com/photos/gary_morris/11630853055

 

Yes my WIP really has got this far - only 3 and a half years ! https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235005525-hobbycraft-172-dhc-8-dash-8/

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

I seem to remember the original Brymon colours being a fairly neutral grey.

 

I'll check the stuff I have from Brymon's days in Aberdeen and see if my dad has anything - he ran the Aberdeen engineering base for a while and knew the whole fleet well. They were in BA Landor by then but there might be some extant relic in a cupboard somewhere...

[Gilmore]

I can't help you by your question, but I've got another one: I want to build a Dash-8-100 from Hobbycraft, too. And always when the aircraft stands on the ground or even when it is taxiing, the elevator rudder is down. So I would like to have a photograph or drawing, what shows the tailplane rudder in that position, but as a top view. I know, it's difficult because of the height of the T-type tailplane, but maybe somebody has a helping picture. Thank you!

[Ben Brown]

I can’t help with the colors, but yes, the elevators would be in the nose-down position on the ground, due to the control lock being set. I can’t recall the checklist ( it’s only been 30 years!), but I seem to remember that you’d set the control lock upon leaving the runway after landing and releasing the control lock was part of the Before Takeoff checklist. 
 

Another often-missed detail on parked Dash-8s is the props should be feathered (turned knife-edge to the wind). You feather them before shutdown and take them out of feather after engine start, when you’re ready to taxi.

 

Ben

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

44 minutes ago, Ben Brown said:

Another often-missed detail on parked Dash-8s is the props should be feathered (turned knife-edge to the wind). You feather them before shutdown and take them out of feather after engine start, when you’re ready to taxi.

 

Ben

 

Indeed. This is Mrs Sovereign Hobbies posing in front of one of a -300 somewhere around 16 years ago. The aircraft had loaded, boarded, started up and was running at Ground Idle with the propellers feathered ready for pushback when a small tractor on the apron jumped into gear and proceeded henceforth into No.2 engine.

 

 

Camera phones then aren't what they are now, but you can see three propeller blades are mangled and there is oil bleeding from the fractured variable-pitch propeller hub. Naturally the engine was toasted and the mounts had it too. The tractor escaped with a distorted cab, broken glass and a good kicking from the line engineers.

[bentwaters81tfw]

I can do you a Dash 7, which is similar.

 

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

I used to spend weekends (prior to 11th September 2001) walking along the wings of Brymon's Aberdeen based Dash-7s with another young man with buckets and brooms cleaning soot off. Sometimes we'd get to glue vortex generators on where they'd fallen off. I once helped change a hydraulic pipe and a deicing boot on one of them. The deicing boot was with my dad's best friend who passed away from a brain tumour some time ago now.

 

I flew in the jump seat of G-BRYC up to Unst with a tool for an oil company strapped to the cabin floor with my dad and 2 ex-RAF pilots in around 1996 or thereabouts. Flying back empty from Unst showed the aircraft's amazing short field performance and we flew at fairly low altitude south of the west coast of Shetland before climbing to a sensible cruising height. The wreck of the Braer oil tanker was visible just below the surface broken into around 4 big parts and slightly bent like a banana.

 

I loved the Dash 7s actually. Shame there's never been a decent model kit of one. The bears offshore never liked it much. They thought it was noisy and generally lacked the knowledge of how comparatively safe they were in a 4 engined tank like that which could laugh off the Shetland airports' geographical challenges. They were happy to change to the BAe Advanced Technical Problem or ATR72s and regularly cook brakes, run off the end of even Scatsa's medium-size runway, and not realise they didn't have many options if they lost an engine on take off in certain wind conditions due to big hills the weaker aircraft couldn't comfortably clear if it lost half its power. The Dash-7 would climb happily with 2 engines out on the same side thanks to its huge articulated rudder - and losing 2 on one side would be a very rare occurrence indeed.

[rossm]

26 minutes ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

I flew in the jump seat of G-BRYC up to Unst with a tool for an oil company strapped to the cabin floor with my dad and 2 ex-RAF pilots in around 1996 or thereabouts. Flying back empty from Unst showed the aircraft's amazing short field performance and we flew at fairly low altitude south of the west coast of Shetland before climbing to a sensible cruising height.

I remember one take off in a Dash7 from the short runway in Plymouth. There was a southwesterly gale and I'm sure we took off backwards! The person next to me was ill before we got to Newquay!

[Ben Brown]

My previous employer had several Dash-7s (Quad Otters 😜) in addition to their Dash-8 fleet. A light Dash-8 could fly pretty slowly, but the 7 was another story. I remember landing at DCA behind one and having to do S-turns to keep from running over him! 

 

Ben

[SodaCitron]

my company used to fly Dash 7 to Courchevel. Pretty steep runway and low approach speed.

[janneman36]

13 minutes ago, SodaCitron said:

my company used to fly Dash 7 to Courchevel. Pretty steep runway and low approach speed.

You must have flown the Tyrolean Dash 7 then...or not? Great plane by the way.😎
 

cheers, Jan

[stevehnz]

On 3/16/2020 at 7:12 AM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Shame there's never been a decent model kit of one.

Not sure what there is but there must be something as old models does a sheet for a 1/144 Newmans Air Dash 7. I worked for the group that flew them before they became Ansett NZ, was on hand when the first arrived in Nelson on its delivery flight from Canada & was at the Glentanner Park (near Mount Cook) airstrip (gravel) when it landed with the first load of tourists on board. Its one I'd be keen to do.

Steve.

[rossm]

Welsh Models do a 1/144 kit http://www.welshmodels.co.uk/skyliner.html

 

Kit numbers SL228 / SL236 / SL241 depending on livery.

[Ben Brown]

6 hours ago, rossm said:

Welsh Models do a 1/144 kit http://www.welshmodels.co.uk/skyliner.html

 

Kit numbers SL228 / SL236 / SL241 depending on livery.

I built one when it was first released. It’s a pretty good representation of the airplane and I enjoyed building it. I reviewed it at Modeling Madness: Link

 

Eastern Express recently released an injected one. I don’t have the kit but it looks like they did a good job with the shapes, based on photos I’ve seen. I can’t comment on the fit, but the Short 330 and 360 kits were a lot of work.

 

Ben

[stevehnz]

7 hours ago, Ben Brown said:

Eastern Express recently released an injected one.

We might be at cross purposes Ben, as a result of the thread drifting into discussion of Dash 7s rather than 8s & me helping it along.  Ross was helping me out with a source for a Dash 7 kit, something I'm going to have to stump up for.  I've got the Oz models kit of the Dash 8/Q300, the advantage being it came with decals for the AirNZ Link version that my son works on at the local maintenance base.

Steve.

[Ben Brown]

11 hours ago, stevehnz said:

We might be at cross purposes Ben, as a result of the thread drifting into discussion of Dash 7s rather than 8s & me helping it along.  Ross was helping me out with a source for a Dash 7 kit, something I'm going to have to stump up for.  I've got the Oz models kit of the Dash 8/Q300, the advantage being it came with decals for the AirNZ Link version that my son works on at the local maintenance base.

Steve.

I think I was helping to de-rail the thread! 😁  In that vein, the Welsh Dash-7 looks pretty good. I have one in my stash, but haven't built it, yet.

 

Based on photos, it looks like the Oz Mods -300 got the shapes right, too.

 

Ben