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1:72 S.B.S Model de Havilland DH.88 Comet

Navy Bird

By Navy Bird
in Work in Progress - Aircraft

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Navy Bird Completely Obsessed Member

Navy Bird

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Wow! Talk about excellent customer service. The replacement fuselage halves arrived today from S.B.S. All the way from Hungary to New York in a mere 7 days. And, more importantly, the new parts look great. Now no excuses for getting back to the workbench!    :fight:

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Navy Bird Completely Obsessed Member

Navy Bird

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Yikes! It's been over a month since I posted in this thread. Someone does not know how to allocate time for the proper things in life. Geez.

 

The cockpit is just about finished, and I'll have some photos soon. I"m copying stealing purloining being inspired by the many builds of @Moa so I've painted the cockpit a nice woodsy colour. I have a question, though - would the shoulder harnesses be correct for 1934? The only cockpit photos I have are from the restored aircraft and, of course, they have shoulder straps. I suspect they were present in 1934, since this was a high-performance aircraft for the time, but I figured I should ask.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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fjaweijfopi4j48 Completely Obsessed Member

fjaweijfopi4j48

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5 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

Yikes! It's been over a month since I posted in this thread. Someone does not know how to allocate time for the proper things in life. Geez.

 

The cockpit is just about finished, and I'll have some photos soon. I"m copying stealing purloining being inspired by the many builds of @Moa so I've painted the cockpit a nice woodsy colour. I have a question, though - would the shoulder harnesses be correct for 1934? The only cockpit photos I have are from the restored aircraft and, of course, they have shoulder straps. I suspect they were present in 1934, since this was a high-performance aircraft for the time, but I figured I should ask.

 

Cheers,

Bill

Bill, I can see no shoulder straps in the photos I have of the cockpits at the time (all online); and in the photos they are shown previous to take-off, no pilot shows them either.

But I am no expert on the type (or any type?)

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Navy Bird Completely Obsessed Member

Navy Bird

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8 minutes ago, Moa said:

Bill, I can see no shoulder straps in the photos I have of the cockpits at the time (all online); and in the photos they are shown previous to take-off, no pilot shows them either.

But I am no expert on the type (or any type?)

 

Thanks. Maybe @Dave Swindell can help?

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Could you post links to the online photos? 

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Dave Swindell Very Obsessed Member

Dave Swindell

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14 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

Thanks. Maybe @Dave Swindell can help?

 

As @Moa says, I'm also of the opinion that only lap belts were fitted.

Period photo's showing the cockpit seats are elusive, all the cockpit photos I've seen are from above and behind, and don't show any shoulder straps for the pilot.

There's a few photo's of preparations for take off with the canopy still open where parachute shoulder straps can be seen, but not seat straps.

The only photo's I've seen that show straps over the side of the cockpit are of Scott & Black disembarking after arrival at Mildenhall prior to the race.

https://www.shutterstock.com/editorial/image-editorial/pilots-charles-scott-left-and-tom-campbell-black-in-their-dh-comet-aircraft-flight-lieutenant-charles-william-anderson-scott-afc-13-february-1903-oo-15-april-1946-was-a-famous-english-aviator-best-known-for-winning-the-macrobertson-air-race-in-3170527a

The pilot's strap does look like a sutton harness strap, and if a lap strap is rather on the long side. The navigators strap looks more like a parachute strap

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Navy Bird Completely Obsessed Member

Navy Bird

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The only photo I've found that "hints" at a shoulder strap is the typewriter shot (in the rear seat):

 

3a

 

But if that is a strap, there is only one. The front seat doesn't appear to have any shoulder harness. Anyway, I'm going to go with just the seat straps. I assume the typewriter was held with Velcro.    :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. By the way, what is the large cylinder above the starboard side of the rear instrument panel? This doesn't seem to be present in other photos I have. It appears to have a linkage or cable of some kind passing through it. I'm curious to know if this is something that I should be adding to G-ACSR as it is not supplied in the kit.

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Orso Very Obsessed Member

Orso

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On 11/2/2020 at 8:02 PM, Navy Bird said:

 

PS. By the way, what is the large cylinder above the starboard side of the rear instrument panel? This doesn't seem to be present in other photos I have. It appears to have a linkage or cable of some kind passing through it. I'm curious to know if this is something that I should be adding to G-ACSR as it is not supplied in the kit.

I am looking at a drawing of the cockpit of G-ACSS at the New Zealand flight in March 1938.  The big black cylinder is part of three instruments in the panel. It is a Sperry Artificial Horizon according to the text. The othe two are an air speed indicator and an altimeter.  Below the instrument panel is a silver cylinder. That is a thermos flask.. On the drawing there is a compass that is not present on the photo, but the typewriter are on both :).

 

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Navy Bird Completely Obsessed Member

Navy Bird

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OK, I promised some photos. The cockpit is 100% out of the box except for a couple of decals for the compass faces. The instrument panels are the typical photoetch/film sandwich, and other parts are resin except the photoetch throttle levers (devilishly tiny!). One of the throttle levers went "zing" after being painstakingly positioned. It will be rediscovered at some point in the future (perhaps at the same time that Chernobyl No. 4, TMI-2, and Fukushima reactors re-start). In other words, it's unlikely it will ever be found.

 

For some reason the photos are a bit darker than real life, so imagine that the colours are a bit lighter.    :doh:

 

IMG_5525

 

IMG_5523

 

IMG_5522

 

IMG_5521

 

And to prove that the instrument faces are visible...

 

IMG_5526

 

This will all need a coat of matte varnish. Then the trick will be to make all these pieces fit together. The tolerances are tight enough that a layer or two of paint will interfere, so Mr. Hobby Color will need to vacate all locating surfaces. And take Mrs. Hobby Color with him! Luckily, a Q-tip and isopropyl alcohol will make short work of the paint.

 

You may notice a piece of card stock in place as a shim in the lower front starboard fuselage. Yes, old fumble thumbs sanded too much when he was cleaning up the parts and introduced a gap. Not a real big one, but a shim is required to have the front of the wing roots line up nicely with the fuselage.

 

No more work today, as my 65 year old carcass has been laid low by the falling of leaves. Well, actually, it's the picking up of said leaves. Why they don't just stay on the darn tree is beyond me. And, of course, my home is in the path of the prevailing winds and the leaves from two ginormous maple trees in the neighbors' yards end up in mine. This is punishment for my living in a condo when I was young - where someone from the grounds crew picked up the leaves. Apparently you are born with a set number of leaves you must pick up, and if you miss this chore when you're young, you get a double or triple dose when you're old.    😕

 

Cheers,

Bill

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fjaweijfopi4j48 Completely Obsessed Member

fjaweijfopi4j48

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Excellent work!

You are right about the tolerances, things are tight. I suggested the maker some time ago to allow for just a smidgen more of space. Design by computer is great, and welcome when properly done, but it also has to account for the actual reality and quirks of actually assembling a kit.

I very much like your musings on life.

A traditional haiku from the Net:

ef0432ff7b884a27f50f0e4c07d0db07.jpg

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CedB Blabber Mouth

CedB

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Nice internals Bill :) 

 

I'm with you on the leaf clearing.

Raking them is back breaking work.

So I bought a blower/vac/shredder - you know how I love my tools.

Easy.

Plug it in.

Wave it over the leaves.

And it shreds them into the bag, which gets heavy, and carrying it hurts your back.

Progress - sometimes harder than you think.

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Navy Bird Completely Obsessed Member

Navy Bird

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On 05/11/2020 at 16:09, Moa said:

A traditional haiku from the Net:

 

I like it! It sums up my geographic position and orientation perfectly. And in only 13 syllables!    :)

 

23 hours ago, CedB said:

Nice internals Bill :) 

 

I'm with you on the leaf clearing.

Raking them is back breaking work.

So I bought a blower/vac/shredder - you know how I love my tools.

Easy.

Plug it in.

Wave it over the leaves.

And it shreds them into the bag, which gets heavy, and carrying it hurts your back.

Progress - sometimes harder than you think.

 

So instead of manual back breaking, you have motorised back breaking? But the result is still a bad back. Hmm...    :doh:

 

Speaking of internals, I volunteered for a research study concerning cognitive decline in old folks. Hey, I fit the profile. They did MRI scans of my brain while I was listening to some dude read from "The Old Man and the Sea" followed by me answering questions about the story. They even sent me a JPG of the MRI scan of my brain, suitable for framing. I should post it!    :)

 

15 hours ago, giemme said:

Agreed, internals look good :clap: 

 

Agreed, leaves are a chore and a huge PITA :frantic:

 

Thanks, mate. Leaves are evil.

 

15 hours ago, Marklo said:

Looks good. I’ve been trying to get IPA but owing to COVID it’s mostly going to make hand sanitizer so it’s hard to find and extremely expensive when you can.

 

Really? A shortage of IPA would be a bad thing here in Navy Birdland. I go through that stuff like water. Luckily, I can get reagent grade IPA (99 or 91%) locally or through Amazon. Four litres of 99% goes for about $30. There hasn't been any supply problems that I've seen. Fingers crossed as we enter the third wave of COVID with the winter approaching.

 

Stay safe everyone!

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Navy Bird Completely Obsessed Member

Navy Bird

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It's not easy being green, but then I'm not Kermit.   :)

 

I cut out the elevators, as the reference photos seem to show that these are usually drooped a bit when the aircraft is parked. I'll let this cure for a day or so more, and then we'll get to work with some stickers.

 

IMG_5568

 

IMG_5570

 

Gawd, I really want to put a "Team Lotus" decal on this baby...

 

Cheers,

Bill

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