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1/32 Brit Phantom FG.1 XV571 conversion from Tamiya and Wild Hare set


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Well, I sprayed the first coat of Mr Surfacer on tonight and the shapes are 'not too bad' but there is still more to do with them.  At least now I can see what I am doing with the primer on now!

 

8OmEOp.jpg

 

AZw5f2.jpg

 

Off to bed now

Cheers Anthony

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On 5/10/2021 at 2:31 PM, Alan P said:

It's only when you read it all together like this you really ask, 'WHYYYYY????!!! did they do it?'

The story (probably apocryphal) at McDonnell (I was there at the time as a new-hire flight test engineer straight out of college) was that the Queen wanted half of the airplane to be bought from British suppliers. The F-4 cost was roughly 1/3 air frame, 1/3 engines, and 1/3 avionics. So the aft fuselage, engines, and a bit of avionics were subcontracted out. However, the engines (one of the first fan engines with an afterburner; the TF30 in the F-111B was another) were also supposed to provide more thrust and more range (the fan engine was developed for airlines for more efficient cruise). It turned out that adding an afterburner to even a proven fan engine (the Spey) was non-trivial. The air frame changes to accommodate the Spey, on the other hand, were relatively trivial.

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Given that the widening of the fuselage to fit the Spey is said to have destroyed much of the area ruling, I don't think that the change is best described as "trivial", though it may well have been easy to do.  However, I haven't heard that anyone other than McD actually did it.  It is nowadays considered that the supersonic performance of the J.79 was under-rated this side of the Atlantic.  How much the disappointing supersonic performance of the Spey Phantom was due to this or the change in fuselage width will probably never be known, but it did have superior subsonic acceleration and cruise.

 

As a side comment, actual supersonic flight has been proven to play a much smaller part in service than expected way back when.  But in the prime UK bomber intercept role, perhaps that isn't so.

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1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

Given that the widening of the fuselage to fit the Spey is said to have destroyed much of the area ruling, I don't think that the change is best described as "trivial", though it may well have been easy to do.  However, I haven't heard that anyone other than McD actually did it.  It is nowadays considered that the supersonic performance of the J.79 was under-rated this side of the Atlantic.  How much the disappointing supersonic performance of the Spey Phantom was due to this or the change in fuselage width will probably never be known, but it did have superior subsonic acceleration and cruise.

 

As a side comment, actual supersonic flight has been proven to play a much smaller part in service than expected way back when.  But in the prime UK bomber intercept role, perhaps that isn't so.

In fact, I meant trivial in this instance to mean easy to do. There was in this case a not unusual and basically unwinnable argument between airframe and engine manufacturer as to whether the shortfall in top speed (the clapped-out USAF F-4C chase had no problem keeping up with it) was due to the drag of the former or the lack of thrust from the latter. The day we finally got to Mach 2 warranted a celebration. I don't remember McDonnell ever conceding that area ruling was adversely affected significantly by the widening of the fuselage.

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6 hours ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

The story (probably apocryphal) at McDonnell was that the Queen wanted half of the airplane to be bought from British suppliers. 

I love the idea of HM the Queen phoning up Harold Wilson and saying, 'now listen here, my man, we have a few things to say about F-4 Phantom procurement' 😂

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11 hours ago, Alan P said:

I love the idea of HM the Queen phoning up Harold Wilson and saying, 'now listen here, my man, we have a few things to say about F-4 Phantom procurement' 😂

I should have written that it was said jokingly. Another memorable remark just before first flight was a meeting with the Rolls-Royce contingent to discuss the fact that we were running out of Speys for first flight due to foreign object damage (the first stage or so of the compressor section had aluminum blades that dinged easily). The discussion was somewhat heated until the lead Brit cleared his throat and said "I wish you Americans would stop referring to it as foreign object damage since it is clearly domestic in origin."

 

Another was a discussion during flight test at Edwards about the inconsistency of afterburner light offs (the Spec afterburner used a hypergolic fluid, at that time at least, to ignite the afterburner) and the propensity for a compressor stall when the afterburner did light off. I don't remember what the procedure was that Rolls engineering was recommended but it was involved. By comparison, J79 (to be fair, no bypass, years more development) was basically bullet proof: once you had ignition when starting it you could push the throttle all the way past military into afterburner: the engine would accelerate and the afterburner would light without further ado. Our chief pilot noted that in combat, having to monitor the engine instruments and baby the afterburner selection would probably not be acceptable.

 

Proven engine in a proven airframe: The mechanical throttle control system in the F-4 proved to be incompatible with the Spey's fuel control, requiring a redesign on the airplane side. I happened to discover the problem on ground run one night and wrote it up for the first shift; my comment went unnoticed until that afternoon during an NPE flight when the Navy pilot asked the guy in the back seat to close a throttle just after liftoff—maximum gross weight on a hot afternoon at Edwards—so he could evaluate single-engine handling qualities and climb performance: the result was the engine flaming out but he was able to climb and eventually get the engine started (restarts in flight was another development issue).

 

There was also a surprise with the bleed air system compatibility: Unlike the J79, the bleed air takeoff on the Spey switched from one compressor stage to another depending on the bleed demand, which was primarily for the flaps. Unfortunately, the switching point turned out to be right at the desired approach speed so bleed would switch back and forth, changing the thrust noticeably each time without any change in the throttle position. The term of art was "uncommanded thrust changes in condition PA".

 

It did all work out in the end and I had a wonderful time during my two years on the program (I joined McDonnell just before the F-4Ks first flight; my last assignment before going to graduate school was getting production airplanes through the acceptance process. Seeing XT596 in the Fleet Air Arm museum many years later was somewhat disconcerting: one of the actual airplanes I was closely involved with in my career was not only retired but on display as a memento of the past.

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On 5/13/2021 at 1:15 AM, bigbadbadge said:

Smooooooth , looking good Anthony.   

Chris

Thanks again mate!

 

22 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Given that the widening of the fuselage to fit the Spey is said to have destroyed much of the area ruling, I don't think that the change is best described as "trivial", though it may well have been easy to do.  However, I haven't heard that anyone other than McD actually did it.  It is nowadays considered that the supersonic performance of the J.79 was under-rated this side of the Atlantic.  How much the disappointing supersonic performance of the Spey Phantom was due to this or the change in fuselage width will probably never be known, but it did have superior subsonic acceleration and cruise.

 

As a side comment, actual supersonic flight has been proven to play a much smaller part in service than expected way back when.  But in the prime UK bomber intercept role, perhaps that isn't so.

Yes Graham, there certainly ended up a lot of changes for sure!

 

4 hours ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

I should have written that it was said jokingly. Another memorable remark just before first flight was a meeting with the Rolls-Royce contingent to discuss the fact that we were running out of Speys for first flight due to foreign object damage (the first stage or so of the compressor section had aluminum blades that dinged easily). The discussion was somewhat heated until the lead Brit cleared his throat and said "I wish you Americans would stop referring to it as foreign object damage since it is clearly domestic in origin."

 

Another was a discussion during flight test at Edwards about the inconsistency of afterburner light offs (the Spec afterburner used a hypergolic fluid, at that time at least, to ignite the afterburner) and the propensity for a compressor stall when the afterburner did light off. I don't remember what the procedure was that Rolls engineering was recommended but it was involved. By comparison, J79 (to be fair, no bypass, years more development) was basically bullet proof: once you had ignition when starting it you could push the throttle all the way past military into afterburner: the engine would accelerate and the afterburner would light without further ado. Our chief pilot noted that in combat, having to monitor the engine instruments and baby the afterburner selection would probably not be acceptable.

 

Proven engine in a proven airframe: The mechanical throttle control system in the F-4 proved to be incompatible with the Spey's fuel control, requiring a redesign on the airplane side. I happened to discover the problem on ground run one night and wrote it up for the first shift; my comment went unnoticed until that afternoon during an NPE flight when the Navy pilot asked the guy in the back seat to close a throttle just after liftoff—maximum gross weight on a hot afternoon at Edwards—so he could evaluate single-engine handling qualities and climb performance: the result was the engine flaming out but he was able to climb and eventually get the engine started (restarts in flight was another development issue).

 

There was also a surprise with the bleed air system compatibility: Unlike the J79, the bleed air takeoff on the Spey switched from one compressor stage to another depending on the bleed demand, which was primarily for the flaps. Unfortunately, the switching point turned out to be right at the desired approach speed so bleed would switch back and forth, changing the thrust noticeably each time without any change in the throttle position. The term of art was "uncommanded thrust changes in condition PA".

 

It did all work out in the end and I had a wonderful time during my two years on the program (I joined McDonnell just before the F-4Ks first flight; my last assignment before going to graduate school was getting production airplanes through the acceptance process. Seeing XT596 in the Fleet Air Arm museum many years later was somewhat disconcerting: one of the actual airplanes I was closely involved with in my career was not only retired but on display as a memento of the past.

Tommy, thank you so very much sir!  Your experience of your time on her is unbelievably interesting and I am so glad you are posting your experiences here!  This is fascinating to read. Thank you again!

 

Well Chris it didnt stay smooth for very long after that photo....more sanding!

E7QeF8.jpg

 

Another coat of Mr Surfacer.  See as I start fine tuning the shapes the ;hump' starts to become visible?

tYC40q.jpg

 

pme7Fi.jpg

 

This has turned out a little more of a challenge than I first thought, but I am getting there.  A bit more fine tuning and I might have it. One more sanding session 'might' have it.  

 

Black Mike is a great study in shapes and I am constantly referring to photos of her

pvP672.jpg

 

Thank you al who contribute to this discussion, certainly makes for an interesting study on what happened and just what needs doing

 

Cheers guys

Anthony

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Hello Anthony,

 

I think you've nailed it! The shape looks very good indeed.

 

Did you see the drawings John (Canberrakid) just posted on the other thread at "Coldwar"? Excellent cross sections (the very best I've ever seen) to get the fuselage shape right. Your photo of Black Mike shows how the fuselage side is also curved (or rounded); it doesn't "drop" straight down to the wing. I'm already printing John's drawings😉

 

Cheers,

Antti

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3 hours ago, Antti_K said:

Hello Anthony,

 

I think you've nailed it! The shape looks very good indeed.

 

Did you see the drawings John (Canberrakid) just posted on the other thread at "Coldwar"? Excellent cross sections (the very best I've ever seen) to get the fuselage shape right. Your photo of Black Mike shows how the fuselage side is also curved (or rounded); it doesn't "drop" straight down to the wing. I'm already printing John's drawings😉

 

Cheers,

Antti

Thanks so much for your valued opinion! I knew you would say something to keep me on track. I still think I need to do just a little more, mostly on the sides now. As you say they are not perfectly flat.

I’m off to see John’s post, I don’t know how I missed that, thanks for the heads up!

 

Cheers Anthony 

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Hello Anthony,

 

you are absolutely right: I said that to keep you on track; not to push you to keep going😉 Sometimes it is very good to have an "extra pair" of eyes that will tell you when to stop sanding... and keep you on track.

 

About the fuselage sides: I think Airfix's is possibly the only kit with correct, rounded sides. I've been thinking how to tackle this with my Hasgawa kit. Should I use Milliput or styrene sheet. We'll see, said the Zen master.

 

Cheers,

Antti

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On 5/15/2021 at 10:06 AM, Antti_K said:

Hello Anthony,

 

you are absolutely right: I said that to keep you on track; not to push you to keep going😉 Sometimes it is very good to have an "extra pair" of eyes that will tell you when to stop sanding... and keep you on track.

 

About the fuselage sides: I think Airfix's is possibly the only kit with correct, rounded sides. I've been thinking how to tackle this with my Hasgawa kit. Should I use Milliput or styrene sheet. We'll see, said the Zen master.

 

Cheers,

Antti

Thanks Antti, it is great having you here!  Hmmm, tough call on what to use on the fuse sides on the Hasegawa kit. I would go with whatever you feel the most confident rescribing through.  I find Milliput shrinks a fair bit over time

 

Well, pretty much finished the top halves of the intakes now.  I went to use my contour gauge to start matching up both sides and cannot find it :confused:  So I ordered a new one off ebay.  I got notification saying delivery eta 22 June! Ugh.   

 

Not a lot to see, but hopefully tonight I might finish putting a slight curve in my sides.  Always stressful pouring boiling water on the resin section of this kit!!!

 

vxIdi7.jpg

 

auTXJz.jpg

 

c9Z15p.jpg

 

Because of the primer you cant really see the new shapes, I will try and take some with the sunlihjt or something on them, I am pretty happy where they are at now.  I just need to make sure I have both sides matching and then re-install all the surface detail

 

As always, thanks for tuning in

Anthony

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1 hour ago, bigbadbadge said:

Hi Anthony 

That is some tremendous work getting the curves on the top of intakes, looking at the photos of the real aircraft, your models looks pretty much spot on .  Great job.

Chris

Thanks mate, its nice to have your approval, I know how keen your eye is....thank you!

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Hello guys,

 

can't help myself: here's little something to keep us talking about British Phantoms: XT861 at NAS Roosevelt Roads in 1970.

 

spacer.png

 

It is the Hasegawa 1/48 scale kit with a few resin extras and decals collected around the world... Looking at my pride and joy it is now very clear how inaccurate the intake funnels are. They are far too wide (although you can't see it in the picture) and the curvature is wrong. Luckily I have another one in the stash😉 And Milliput on delivery...

 

I'm just staring at your beautiful work Anthony!

 

Cheers,

Antti

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On 5/12/2021 at 11:39 PM, Graham Boak said:

Given that the widening of the fuselage to fit the Spey is said to have destroyed much of the area ruling, I don't think that the change is best described as "trivial", though it may well have been easy to do.  However, I haven't heard that anyone other than McD actually did it.  It is nowadays considered that the supersonic performance of the J.79 was under-rated this side of the Atlantic.  How much the disappointing supersonic performance of the Spey Phantom was due to this or the change in fuselage width will probably never be known, but it did have superior subsonic acceleration and cruise.

 

As a side comment, actual supersonic flight has been proven to play a much smaller part in service than expected way back when.  But in the prime UK bomber intercept role, perhaps that isn't so.

The then Labour government trying to bring construction to the UK post the TRS2 debarkel. Not surprising there were problems!

 

Colin

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On 5/20/2021 at 5:22 AM, Antti_K said:

Hello guys,

 

can't help myself: here's little something to keep us talking about British Phantoms: XT861 at NAS Roosevelt Roads in 1970.

 

spacer.png

 

It is the Hasegawa 1/48 scale kit with a few resin extras and decals collected around the world... Looking at my pride and joy it is now very clear how inaccurate the intake funnels are. They are far too wide (although you can't see it in the picture) and the curvature is wrong. Luckily I have another one in the stash😉 And Milliput on delivery...

 

I'm just staring at your beautiful work Anthony!

 

Cheers,

Antti

That's gorgeous Antti!

 

Thanks for the great inspiration, what a beautiful model, the scheme and finish are spot on.  You can see the curve in the sides when looking at how the light hits it.  I think I have my left side of the fuselage finally sorted.  I spent 4-5 hours on rounding the 'slab sides' of the Tamiya kit with heat on the resin and judicious sanding, checking the new wing to fuse junction/shapes.  When I look at each side, the difference is noticeable.

 

Maybe tonight will be spent on the right side of the fuse, oh and another set of revised templates to match L & R again LOL

 

Cheers Anthony

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Quick update before going to work.  Wasn't going to bother but it might be of interest.  Hard to se 4 or 5 hours work here just on this side.  See the slight curvature I now have on the side, pretty hard to photograph with only 2 hands sorry...

 

pqrWuB.jpg

 

Aaaaaand it dosent look any different after all that work LOL

6qCZA3.jpg

 

Iain Ogilvie has kindly given me permission to use some of his photos on my build to illustrate what I am trying to achieve 

This is quite a good one

si2dbW.jpg

 

JqLO6A.jpg

 

Anyhow, hope this is of interest to those wanting to build a Brit Toom 

 

 

 

 

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Thank you for your kind words Anthony🙂 I'm glad you like my "North Sea GT Sports Model". I painted my model with Humbrol enamels using a paint brush. The satin varnish (Hu 135) gives a very nice, smooth surface with a super soft, wide brush.

 

You should create a picture showing your modified fuselage and Black Mike side by side and photographed from the same direction to show everyone how much work it actually takes to modify the kit's fuselage. It looks excellent to my eye. Did you use the drawings John (Canberrakid) posted earlier (fuselage cross sections)? And what were your findings?

 

Cheers,

Antti

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4 hours ago, Anthony in NZ said:

Quick update before going to work.  Wasn't going to bother but it might be of interest.  Hard to se 4 or 5 hours work here just on this side.  See the slight curvature I now have on the side, pretty hard to photograph with only 2 hands sorry...

 

pqrWuB.jpg

 

Aaaaaand it dosent look any different after all that work LOL

6qCZA3.jpg

 

Iain Ogilvie has kindly given me permission to use some of his photos on my build to illustrate what I am trying to achieve 

This is quite a good one

si2dbW.jpg

 

JqLO6A.jpg

 

Anyhow, hope this is of interest to those wanting to build a Brit Toom 

 

 

 

 

 

You may not be able to see much difference, but it is the subtleties that make it real. I admire your attention to detail and am looking forward to the next update.

 

I think Iain overdid the panel wash at the wing root on this one. In fact, the entire panel wash looks uneven. Careless.

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I was just sitting on the couch after starting on replacing some panel lines before I head off to get my second Pfizer jab,  and I thought for the first time looking at it from this angle , HEY that looks like a British Phantom!  Well it was a big thing in my world because I had been struggling to see the woods for the trees or step back to see the bigger picture. Sorry for the poor pic I just snapped it on my iPhone on the couch at a distance

 

0pun6z.jpg

 

Right-O , off for my Jab

 

Cheers Anthony

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/22/2021 at 7:06 PM, bigbadbadge said:

Excellent look at the curves, you have pretty much cracked it Anthony.  Looks lovely.  Great work and good luck with your second jab.

Chris

Thanks Chris, second jab knocked me a bit actually, but Belynda and most of the people at work were fine too.  proving I might be a wuss! 

 

Well it's confession time here, I was still not quite satisfied with my results.....I must be losing my marbles!

 

See, the thing is that at certain angles the intake/shoulder section looked 'spot on' and then before I committed to the long tedious task of replacing surface details I had to make sure I was 100% happy this was the best I could do.  Otherwise I might look at it (such a prominent feature) and see I didnt get it correct at a certain angle.

 

This was the photo that alerted me to the fact something was wrong with my model

StWQd6.jpg

 

Notice how straight the sides of the intake line is from this angle, seen largely from the starboard intake...  Mine was too 'coke bottle' shaped still.

I'll try and explain with the image below, sorry its not very technical but it's the only way I can explain it.

The red line on the right intake is obviously the actual plane line.  The blue line next to it is where I went wrong (even with templates) See how my enlarged intakes came in too much, You can probably see it in other pics earlier on.  I couldnt understand why as I had the side of the fuselage at the correct width???  From viewing side on and also looking back from the nose all seemed to be good as well...so why???

 

Turns out what you are seeing here is the side curvature coming into play.  My forward half down the sides was still too flat!  I have kinda tried to illustrate with the green line.  The 2 The risk now was if I filled in this section I would loose that distinctive 'hump' when viewed at certain angles. Well I had no choice and then deal with that later on...

 

The 3 red lines shows how the shape transitions up and around.  What was important here was that I dropped the height of the intake earlier on as this definitely helps now. I suspect that shortening them also helped.

LROpY3.jpg

 

So with a tear in my eye and the very real prospect of completely stuffing it up I started building up the sides/shape of the fuselage. Hosestly it looked a mess as I did both sides at the same time...might as well go all out I thought!  At this point I was in such a mess I thought it was time for the SOD!  However I knew there was too many of you here determined for me to finish this, and my good friend Kerry had gone to so much effort to do the engine reheat cans and Vari-ramps, I felt I was going to let too many of you down.

 

Anyway, if you look below here are the results of countless (literally) hours filling and sanding and making new templates to keep both sides matching.  But in actual fact the templates were still pretty right I just made new ones to use at different angles etc.

 

Somewhere under there is a kit and conversion....I dont know how well this image shows how thick the epoxy and CA is, actually I had finished by now and started re-instating the main basic panel lines....again!

1638QR.jpg

 

What surprised me was just how much difference rounding out these sides even further made such a difference to the look of the airframe

 

I wished I had taken a pic at a better angle, but here is the new intake 'look'  You can see I am happy enough to re do all the surface detail..

DRs764.jpg

 

hk3EV4.jpg

 

What about that 'hump'?

Quite distinctive in this pic (Photo credit Dennis W Robinson...thank you)

QKqfXb.jpg

 

Strangely it didn't disappear, although hard to see in this photo. I think it was mostly because the issue was behind it and involved 'beefing out' the sides

XfH4zU.jpg

I wasnt going to bother doing this update as I thought it was pointess but on reflection very important to get an accurate 'Toom'  That Tamiya kit really is quite slab sided for a Brit one.

 

Thanks as always, hopefully my next update shows all the replaced surface detail on the complete fwd fuse.  Oh I also earlier sanded heavily on the spine to round it off some more and re-primered it, not perfect but much better than the flat cross section it was. The very back section still needs doing some more

 

Thanks for tuning in on what must seem never ending sorry.  

 

Cheers Anthony

 

Edited by Anthony in NZ
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59 minutes ago, DonH said:

Wow! That is a lot of hard work You will certainly have the most accurate FG.1 or FGR.2 in the world when this is finished.

Actually, it probably already is!

Thanks Don.....I wish I could be happy with 'close enough! :banghead:

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