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Short SB5 Lightning wing testbed


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The Short SB5 was built to test the wing shape design for the EE Lightning and could be configured for three different angles of sweep, it could also be fitted with a T-tailed rear fuselage. The real aircraft is now preserved at the RAF Museum Cosford. This is the Maintrack vacform with home made decals for it's later life as Tester 28 from the Empire Test Pilots School.


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Steve

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Thanks.

 

18 hours ago, Lightningboy2000 said:

That looks very nice. Don't see models of this completed very often. You've made a very clean & tidy job of that vacform. That blue looks the same as the blue they used on the FD-2. What paint did you use?

 

Martin

 

I think it's Xtracolor Roundel Blue which sounds right for the FD2 - I want to do that one in the Magenta scheme

 

8 hours ago, cngaero said:

Excellent. I've got this beastie half done, so you've shamed me into finishing it now. 

 

I'd had this on the shelf of shame for ages without any obvious reason and it was soon finished without much effort. I remember it being a nice simple kit and easy to build which is just as well as I've got another one in the stash so I can do it with the different wing sweep.

 

Cheers.

 

Steve

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Thanks.

 

It's a pitot tube for the airspeed indicator and is angled like that for low speed work at high wing incidence (nose-up).

 

Cracking photo of 'Winkle' - I don't think he ever flew the SB5.

 

Steve

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The RAE insisted on the SB5 because they did not believe that the low tailplane position designed by English Electric would work, and had doubts about the high wing sweep angle.  So the machine first flew with the tailplane on top of the fin.  It was later to fly with the tailplane set low, as on the P.1, which was by then well on the way to assembly.

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1 hour ago, BritJet said:

think it's Xtracolor Roundel Blue

The SB5 wore two slightly different blue schemes, the later ETPS scheme as modelled by @BritJet (nice job on that Steve!) is painted overall in Roundel Blue or a colour very similar, and the roundels and fin flash had a thin white outline to differentiate them. When the aircraft was undergoing its original test program it was modified to 69 degrees wing sweep, fitted with a low tailplane and an ejector seat for the pilot, and emerged from the workshops in an overall bright blue scheme, with no surrounds to the roundels and fin flash, this was lighter than the roundel blue and the demarkation between the two blues can be discerned in the photos taken at the time. I chose the earlier scheme when I built mine, I've still got another to build with the high tail and drooped wing leading edges in the black and silver scheme.

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Pretty sure it was Ford Fjord Blue from Halfords. I was building a model of Bluebird K7 at the time and that was recommended as a match for that - it also looked a good match to colour illustrations of the blue used on the SB. 5 so got used for that as well. It may be a touch light, but I like it.

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On 17/11/2020 at 17:26, Dave Swindell said:

Pretty sure it was Ford Fjord Blue from Halfords. I was building a model of Bluebird K7 at the time and that was recommended as a match for that - it also looked a good match to colour illustrations of the blue used on the SB. 5 so got used for that as well. It may be a touch light, but I like it.

 

Cheers Dave, I'll get some of that next time I'm in Halfords. The 'correct' shade of blue for Bluebird...... :worms::wink:

Steve

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Thanks for the kind comments.

 

On 28/11/2020 at 13:19, bentwaters81tfw said:

Another smart job there. I had this kit but sold it on years ago. Strangely I was looking at my pair of NMF FD 2s yesterday, contemplating a repaint. The Roundel blue looks to be the way to go.

More inspiration, thanks.

 

Blue for one and there's always the magenta scheme for the other one......

 

Steve

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