Broplan 1/72 ATR 72

[chrispisme]

May be (if ever finished) in the markings of Summit Air. (a regional Canadian airline) This is the left over (spare) kit I bought in case I buggered up on the first ATR kit I built and converted to the short bus 42-300 with resin molds made for the landing gear sponson, flap tracks and engines I figured it'd be kind of crazy to just leave this one in the stash and feeling kind of happy with myself for finally finishing a Matchbox DHC-6...I figured I'd give it a go.

The box top;

using solder to copy the cross section and build formers;

 

 

 

don't talk to me about flash on your Revell kit!

 

work...such as it is, continues

[Vesa Jussila]

Once again kit that I have forgotten. I will follow this.

[chrispisme]

7 minutes ago, Vesa Jussila said:

Once again kit that I have forgotten. I will follow this.

Thanks!

welcome aboard!

[Back in the Saddle]

I’m working on a F-RSIN ATR-72 at the moment, which is proving to be more of a challenge than I expected... I hope yours goes together more easily!

[chrispisme]

Thanks, I have the added benefit of having tackled one of these previously, not that the build will be any better just that I know there will be problems to work through.

I'm filling in the "risers" from the bottom on the wing that the engines would glue to. These will be sanded off for the resin engines to be fitted later;

and one of the engines that will be fitted later;

beginning to assemble the wing, the steel bar is a spring steel support for an automobile windshield wiper CA'd into the wing

 

Thanks for looking.

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Ooooh, nice start Chris. 

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Verrrry interesting!

And another vac!

 

[Pin]

I love vacs in general and Broplan in particular.

Looking great so far!

[chrispisme]

Thanks for looking in and keeping me company...it's a little lonely in vacland. I sent guys in the local club some pictures and the replies suggested I get help...

A few pics of the work done to date, Broplan has very kindly engraved outlines where the cabin windows should be, unfortunately the outlines are nowhere near straight, symmetrical or even the same size. I used another kit in the stash to make a template for new cabin windows, shot flat black through the template and cut out the black painted areas...windows. I will now have to fill and erase the Broplan offerings.

an attempt to get a picture of the Broplan window scribings;

black painted areas representing the windows;

right side (starboard) long halves joined and windows open;

left side under way and some other parts built up;

Thanks for looking

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Lot's of work, and a load of it about correcting stuff.

Don't you love it 😂

And yet, we can't resist.

[stevehnz]

Nice work on this so far. I'm most impressed by the deftness of your cutting out of the flight deck & cabin windows, a lot of care & patience on show I'm guessing.

Steve.

[Jfgred1]

Excellent work you are doing here. Are you planning to drop the flaps on this one?. Not that you have to, but looking at all the work you are doing, it wouldn't surprise me if you go for it. And sure you would do a good job at it too.

 

Please, keep it coming. 

[chrispisme]

18 hours ago, Jfgred1 said:

Excellent work you are doing here. Are you planning to drop the flaps on this one?. Not that you have to, but looking at all the work you are doing, it wouldn't surprise me if you go for it. And sure you would do a good job at it too.

 

Please, keep it coming. 

No, sorry...no dropped flaps. I'll be happy to complete the model and, Moa....no lavatory. 🙂

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

7 minutes ago, chrispisme said:

Moa....no lavatory.

Can't be....can't be...

The horror...

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Well it just goes to show Broplan kits can be built

 

I enjoy seeing how you tackle the issues with the kit, the windows in particular. Your cutting and filing work is very exact, I alway manage to go too far and make at least one opening too big

 

More 

[chrispisme]

Thanks Ray!...don't look to closely though!!

I've taken some time to add a bit of an interior, I built a basic floor and risers for the seats...loooots of seats!!;

 

the kit instrument panel is undersized and oddly shaped, I used some algebraic math formulas some  geometry, trigonometry, a sliding rule and then gave up and used a piece of fine solder to get a copy bend of the fuselage interior to make my own instrument panel (sure hope it fits) I actually did no math, I'm math handicapped...which is why I made 4 seats too many.

there are risers on the flight deck floor but are way too low and much too far aft. I made my own risers for the pilots seats but the kit risers interfered with the fit so I hacked them off

The kit control yokes;

 

Seats being painted and installed;

A mock up test fit;

Thanks for looking

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Wow. 
Good work!

Those are a bunch if seats.

 

[Space Ranger]

Beautiful work on the model. But instead of a toilet, you could include non-functioning air conditioning and a lot of sweaty, frustrated passengers. Here's a story:

 

The absolute worst airline flight of my life was on an ATR 72. American Airlines had completely screwed up our Oklahoma City-Norfolk flight, both going and coming, including cancellation of our entire return trip, and we eventually found ourselves stuck at DFW with no flights available to OKC because of the lateness of the hour. Our only choice was an American Eagle ATR 72 to Tulsa. Once we boarded the airplane, we were informed the air conditioning wasn't working, and if that weren't bad enough, we sat on the DFW ramp in the airplane for an hour before we got taxi clearance. This was a VERY warm Texas summer evening, and by the time the engines finally started, we were all enthusiastically singing "Kum-by-yah," led by yours truly ("It's hot as Hell in here, kum by yah;" "Get this plane airborne, kum by yah;" "We are suffering, Lord, kum by yah," etc.). The American Eagle crew were not amused, and I would have been happy to have been hauled off the airplane by security. We finally got to TUL at 2 a.m. after leaving Norfolk late the previous morning. The air temperature at altitude was not much cooler than it had been on the ground, and I have never been so relieved to deplane as I was that ATR 72. I have never understood the rationale for cancelling our return, and never received an adequate explanation, and I have refused to fly American and American Eagle or on an ATR 72 ever since.

 

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

1 hour ago, Space Ranger said:

But instead of a toilet

How do you dare!

 

But I forgive you because of the wonderful story. I guess each of us have one of those. I was once flying Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano when...

 

[chrispisme]

1 hour ago, Space Ranger said:

Beautiful work on the model. But instead of a toilet, you could include non-functioning air conditioning and a lot of sweaty, frustrated passengers. Here's a story:

 

The absolute worst airline flight of my life was on an ATR 72. American Airlines had completely screwed up our Oklahoma City-Norfolk flight, both going and coming, including cancellation of our entire return trip, and we eventually found ourselves stuck at DFW with no flights available to OKC because of the lateness of the hour. Our only choice was an American Eagle ATR 72 to Tulsa. Once we boarded the airplane, we were informed the air conditioning wasn't working, 

 

 

I have worked (my whole working career) as an automotive mechanic, one of my best friends (was) Director Of Maintenance (DOM) at a local regional carrier called WestWind Aviation they had 5 ATR 42's on fleet. (he eventually hired me as the ground equipment mechanic) (GSE technician) but....before all that, I heard about the problems ATR's had keeping A/C working so I sent him an email from the garage I worked at to the tune of "Having A/C problems with your ATR? Here at the Auto Doctor we look after all your A/C needs...even ATR's can be cool in the summer with an A/C checkover by our highly qualified air-con technicians."

He wasn't amused...I thought it was funny as heck!

He and I were instrumental in purchasing a 30 ton mobile A/C unit for blowing cool air into the aircraft while they were loaded and parked. I haven't worked there in a while now.  

[chrispisme]

I searched the hobby room looking for the sponson until I realized I'd built it and re-shaped it to make a master to cast parts for my first ATR model (Doh!) Finally locating it in my box of molds I began cleaning it up for use on this model. It's not vital to upgrade (side grade?) the sponson but the kit part sticks out unrealistically. I have pictures of the real plane, specifically the sponson and it is a smooth aerodynamic fairing, mine isn't perfect either but better than the kit part. I still have to scratch together the trailing arm type main gear, remove the shallow cast in wheel bays and build them but, here's where I am now;

here's the top of the kit part, the issue is it is too abrupt and juts out too far.

my attempt (taped in place) as a comparison

I'll open up the landing light openings and A/C air inlets yet. As well as build up a (hopefully) little more realistic main gear

Thanks for looking

[Back in the Saddle]

This build is putting mine to shame - it’s great to see the details going into this one.👍

 

To provide air conditioning on the ATR, we had to start up engine #2 - there was no APU. To prevent injuring personnel working around the aircraft, the propeller was locked beforehand - this configuration was known as ‘hotel’ mode and was effective but noisy! When doing the walk around on a cold winter morning it was quite common for the pilot to loiter behind this engine for a few moments, just to warm up in the exhaust!

[kev67]

Looking excellent, I found with Broplan kits their vacforms seems very thin, yours might be different but compared to other ones such as Airways and Rareplane which seems to use thicker plastic

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Must agree with Kev, if I wasn't up to my eyeballs in 1/72 Boeing builds I would love to crack open one of my Broplan kits to see what sort of mess I could make with it

[chrispisme]

4 hours ago, kev67 said:

Looking excellent, I found with Broplan kits their vacforms seems very thin, yours might be different but compared to other ones such as Airways and Rareplane which seems to use thicker plastic

Id have to agree with that comment...thin doesn’t begin to describe the parts in some places! Two dimensional may come close. The kit is see through thin at the rear of the front fuselage halves as well as at the flat portion on the belly (soon to be covered or hacked away and replaced with something resembling the corrugated metal of the real plane. I  should also mention the 5 pieces making up the wing, once cut out are all different sizes and shapes. I aligned the trailing edges of the tops and bottoms and had to build a ledge to fill a gap at the leading edge as the bottom halves overhung the tops by a fair large margin. Then, with the leading edges built up and filled in, I placed the wing on my bench vertically (like a nose diver) and checked the taper of the wings from engine position to tip. Finding a difference of about 5/6mm in the space between the wing tip and the bench surface, I cut one wing chord wise, inserted a wedge to “correct” (improve) the asymmetry from side to side and (I think) the bulk of the major wing construction is done...that, with a large grain of salt because the wing to fuselage fit has proven to be less than perfect (being kind there) but I knew there were issues and accepted them anyway (my wife could say the same thing I’m sure)