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It's fast! It's British! It's a Lightning!


giemme

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9 hours ago, keefr22 said:

I thought there was a zombie apocalypse going on in the first pic when I scrolled down to it G....!! :)

 

K

Don't fret Keith, there is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just not in Italia, here instead...

 

A Silhouette Cutter, you are leaving the ranks of ordinary folks now Giorgio.

 

Seamless intakes, who knew of such?

 

The T4 crew are going to astound us I know, stay cool until you can.

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10 hours ago, keefr22 said:

I thought there was a zombie apocalypse going on in the first pic when I scrolled down to it G....!! :)

 

K

:rofl:  And it was going to be, but luckily a light storm passed by last night and the heat backed up, so they may get some proper flesh tone and come to life .... :winkgrin: :D 

8 hours ago, CedB said:

Nice cutting Giorgio - stay cool, if you can! :) 

Cheers Ced, thank you :thumbsup:  As I said today's a lot better

44 minutes ago, perdu said:

A Silhouette Cutter, you are leaving the ranks of ordinary folks now Giorgio.

 

Seamless intakes, who knew of such?

 

The T4 crew are going to astound us I know, stay cool until you can.

I did use them in my F-4C build - @Gene K provided me with a pre-cut set back then.

And thanks for the vote of confidence on the crew painting, I'm a little rusty at that (and to think that I prepped a long time ago a 75mm Vicking figure... he is still staring at me from my workbench, ready to get painted .... ), so fingers crossed :) 

 

Ciao

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16 hours ago, giemme said:

Then I decided it was time to install the Curio and start playing with it ... . 

Great first cut - you have the Magic Touch (and Smarts). Was your prior experience using cutters to make stencils helpful?

 

Gene K

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1 hour ago, Gene K said:

Was your prior experience using cutters to make stencils helpful?

Somewhat, even though so far I've only used the Brother Scan'n'Cut I have at work - and while I did all the designing myself with Inkscape, for the actual cut I relied on the experience of the guy who's normally using it rather than trying myself to play with it; we have of course discussed settings for the Oramask vinyl film, but the Brother's software is fairly different from the Silhouette one (and so is the cutter), so other than a basic understanding of how the process works I can't say I learned much.

 

For the F4 intakes, I just opened your file, adapted it to the Curio cutting mat size and tried with the Cardboard cut settings - I guess I got lucky :winkgrin: 

 

Ciao

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On 03/08/2020 at 21:52, The Spadgent said:

Great first results with the cutter. 👍

Cheers Johnny, thanks! :thumbsup: 

1 hour ago, PlaStix said:

Fantastic work on the display elements of your project Giorgio!

Hope you are keeping well.

Kind regards,

Stix

Thanks Stix, glad you like it :thumbsup: We are keeping well, thanks - I hope you are too :) 

 

Sorry for the lack of updates guys, but we are again in the middle of a heat wave, albeit not as strong as the previous one. I did start painting the crew and pilots, and I should hopefully be able to post some progress during the week.

In the meantime, I also washed with soapy water the part trees for my next build , I'm about ready to start with that.... :winkgrin:

 

Ciao

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What!! Next build? Have you already mentioned that?

I know what you mean about the heat. My man cave is staying between 22 and 23 which is not bad, but the humidity has gone up  again and I seem to have lost my mojo at the moment, just faffing about (  good english expression ) but not actually achieving anything.

Cooler days and some rain coming after Wednesday say Meteo, we shall see.

 

Stay safe.

 

John

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15 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

What!! Next build? Have you already mentioned that?

I think I left some hints here and there, not necessarily and not solely on this thread ... :whistle: :D  And I guess it'll suit your taste, 'cause it's gonna be a propeller and in 1/48... :) 

 

Ciao

 

 

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1 hour ago, Biggles87 said:

The hints were probably too subtle for me. As for suiting my taste I’ve just started a Hunter and I’m also looking at my collection of Mirages at the moment, I haven’t built any jets for a long time.

 

John

It's  an Italian Stuka :)

As for the taste, I'm glad to know you're into jets too :thumbsup: I was referring more to the scale, though - I have this memory that you prefer to build in 1/48, or am I wrong about  this?

 

Ciao 

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On 7/8/2020 at 9:19 AM, Fritag said:

Just one of life’s little twists of fate Giorgio :doh: 

 

The same month I arrived at Binbrook, July 84, one of the two seater T5’s (XS416 I think) had an undercarriage collapse on landing, and for a while after that all of the two seaters were restricted to flying with the undercarriage down (praps one of the lightning buff’s on the forum might know more about this incident?).

 

Anyways it was decided that I couldn’t learn to fly the lighting in a two-seater with the undercarriage down.....and I suppose it’s fair to say that not much of the lightning’s flight envelope was below gear limiting speed!  :D 

 

And so after only a few hours in the lightning simulator - and having wasted my bribe of the examiner (good spot Ian) but enjoyed the long lunch breaks (good spot Crisp) my embryonic career as an air-defender was over (or more precisely it was over once I’d successfully argued against being then sent to fly the F4...’please Sir, I don’t want to be in air-defender - I want to fly a single seater’....).

 

IIRC the two other guys on the course, who were former lightning pilots undergoing refresher training, did carry on.

Regarding the undercarriage collapse I recall a number of incidents on T5 while I was at Binbrook (1980-87).

One did involve XS416, apparently caused "one of the crew" selecting u/c lever instead of brake parachute (they were pretty close together). IIRC XS416 was returning our SENGO from RAFG following his part in the investigation into the crash of XS920 (I think) in which Flt.Lt Dave Frost lost his life. (RIP Frosty). Another  occurred on XS417 which had a single leg collapse a few seconds after touchdown, which resulted in all T.5's flying around with u/clocks fitted. 

I also remember a remarkable incident with an F3 that demonstrated the RAW POWER of the EE Lightning. 

Due to their lightweight nature and lack of fuel (compared to F.6) they didn't normally use reheat for takeoff.  On this day the take off run didn't go to plan as the undercarriage was retracted slightly early with the result that the  Lightning settled back onto the runway. A very rapid selection of reheat  by the pilot (and maybe a squeaky bottom) resulted in the aircraft dragging itself of the runway!!!  We were outside at NAAFI wagon when we heard State 1 (crash) declared and looking up saw the a/c climbing away trailing smoke/fuel vapor from the belly tank. It made a  couple of circuits  then landed safely. It came into ASF for heavy landing checks, (all good) and with the ventral tank replaced was returned to 11 Sqdn a few days later. The ventral tank went into the skip, having had at least 6 to 8 inches removed of the bottom  by the runway acting much like a file. The a/c was BN painted in the dark sea grey with low demarcation and LAG undersides. Unfortunately I can't remember it's Serial No.

Happy but busy days as any engine man on Lightnings will tell you.

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Binbrooksumpy, thank you for the insight, much appreciated! :thumbsup: 

 

Here's a quick update, everybody: as I mentioned, I started painting the pilots and crews - and the FOD guard and the boarding ladders. First off, I airbrushed a base coat of Tamiya Flat Black, thinned with cellulose thinner

 

diorama7

 

diorama8

 

Then I dry brushed all the figures with Lifecolor Light Grey, to check for imperfections and to provide some reference points for some detailing. In fact, I added a strap and a leg pocket to the pilots, using alu tape cutouts

diorama9

 

And I also had to do some filling with PPP on one of the pilots

diorama10

 

I then went over them again with Tamiya Flat Black - now they are ready for proper painting

20200811_215919

 

For the FOD guard, I wanted to try my new PROCON BOY 270 aircraft (0.2mm nozzle, double action), spraying a vinyl based acrylic paint, to wit Italeri Flat Insignia Red

diorama11

 

Now, the paint shows a wet coat and it's in bad light, but that's not important: what's important is that this airbrush sprays like a dream - I'm in love with it already!

I did play a bit with the built in MAC valve spraying on paper, and it gave me absolute control with the ability to do a very fine tuning; all of this with a vinyl based acrylic paint, remember, which is normally the hardest stuff to spray properly. My personal opinion, but this airbrush is miles better than the Paasche Talon I own, and great value for the money: for only 20€ more than the Paasche, you get a way smoother and much more refined tool.

 

More tests to follow when I spray the boarding ladders and the pilots and crew uniforms - so this is not conclusive at all, but it surely is a  great start!

 

All comments welcome, as usual

 

Ciao 

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1 hour ago, giemme said:

I added a strap and a leg pocket to the pilots, using alu tape cutouts

 

Our flying suits had two leg pockets G, and they were actually sewn into the legs and open at the top so you could shove maps and the like into them - no straps required, I think that's more a U.S. thing. They had clear plastic covers which we wrote stuff like radio freqs on with chinagraph pencil. Our instructors, ex front line guys who had more important stuff to write on them, said they used chinagaphs in case they were shot down as chinagraph was easy to rub off in a hurry....

 

Also, don't know how far you want to take the detailing given the scale, but they'd have oxygen masks dangling from their helmets (right hand side IIRC) and an oxygen & G-suit connection tube on their right side.

 

Good piccie here;

 

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/G4HNKY/armed-forces-royal-air-force-english-electric-lightning-raf-binbrook-G4HNKY.jpg

 

Keith

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Don’t want to start a fight, but I suspect that Keith wore a green ‘ growbag ‘ flying suit whereas the ones worn in the ‘60s, if that’s when you are depicting your Frightning were grey/blue. They did have two leg pockets but only the one on the right had the clear plastic cover (  over a sheet of something suspiciously like Plasticard ), the other was slightly smaller, just the right size for a pair of folded ‘ white ‘ gloves.

 

John

PS I supplied most of the staff on the gliding school with Chinagraph pencils when I worked at the aforementioned radar unit by picking up bits of discarded ones from the bins and reconstructing them, the clips were the most difficult to find.

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2 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

Don’t want to start a fight,

 

:boxing:

 

Nope, you're spot on John, I'd completely forgotten the timescale Giorgio's jet is from! And a quick google can find Frightning drivers wearing them;

 

image.jpg

 

I like the guy in the middle's tiger stripe brain bucket...!!

 

 

2 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

just the right size for a pair of folded ‘ white ‘ gloves.

 

Excellent!! 👍

 

Keith

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Does it still fit John? Lost mine many years back - luckily.....!! :whistle: 🤣

 

 

3 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

Chinagraph pencils

 

I found one in Hobbycraft recently in the sewing section! I'd used my service issue one for many years until I lost that too - I find them great for marking out plastic for cutting etc

 

Keith

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On 11/08/2020 at 22:50, The Spadgent said:

Excellent start on the last few steps Giorgio. Glad the airbrush is working out. Looking forward to the next spray adventure. 🤗

 

Johnny

Thanks Johnny :thumbsup:  Still too hot for more airbrush action, but we'll see :winkgrin:

On 12/08/2020 at 04:19, Cookenbacher said:

Ah, so glad you like the 270 Giorgio!

Thanks Cookie, so far it's up to expectations! :thumbsup: 

21 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

Don’t want to start a fight, but I suspect that Keith wore a green ‘ growbag ‘ flying suit whereas the ones worn in the ‘60s, if that’s when you are depicting your Frightning were grey/blue. They did have two leg pockets but only the one on the right had the clear plastic cover (  over a sheet of something suspiciously like Plasticard ), the other was slightly smaller, just the right size for a pair of folded ‘ white ‘ gloves.

 

John

PS I supplied most of the staff on the gliding school with Chinagraph pencils when I worked at the aforementioned radar unit by picking up bits of discarded ones from the bins and reconstructing them, the clips were the most difficult to find.

18 hours ago, keefr22 said:

 

:boxing:

 

Nope, you're spot on John, I'd completely forgotten the timescale Giorgio's jet is from! And a quick google can find Frightning drivers wearing them;

 

image.jpg

 

I like the guy in the middle's tiger stripe brain bucket...!!

 

 

 

Excellent!! 👍

 

Keith

John, Keith, thank you guys, these are exactly the kind of uniforms I'm trying to reproduce. :thumbsup: At first I hadn't found the pic you posted Keith - this is exactly the shot I need to make put all the details (almost, I wish I had a closer view to what's hanging down the right side of those pilots -  is this the oxygen mask and pipe?)

 

Ciao

 

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25 minutes ago, giemme said:

what's hanging down the right side of those pilots -  is this the oxygen mask and pipe?

 

I think it is their personal equipment connectors -- which I think (again) would connect to their oxygen mask and G suit (although these guys don't seem to be wearing one?) and to 'somewhere' in the jet (I want to say the side of the seat, but could be wrong on that and it might be the side console). My only fast jet experience was a 40 minute post maintenance test flight with an instructor from Valley in a Hunter T7, and I really can't remember where things went, way too excited for that! 🤣

 

Keith

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