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Martin Bakers Meteor 7.5 WA638


petetasker

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Hi all 

 

Currently planning a build of Martin Bakers beautiful black Meteor 7.5 WA638. Question is, has anyone got a snap inside the rear cockpit. Appreciate the seat will be whatever’s being tested at the time but I’d be interested to know it’s general configuration - any instrumentation etc? Plan (very loose at this stage) is to use the Airfix F8 and Alley Cats recent T7 conversion kit as starting points.

 

As a side note I know Cosford still have ex MB T7 WA634 which is in store - somewhere?

 

Thanks in advance.

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Interesting project. I built WL419 in 1/72 Few years ago. From memory I kept the rear cockpit very sparse, removing any instrumentation detail and painted it black. I used Blue Rider decals, they had an article in Insignia Magazine (?) which explained the conversion and had some photos.
 

I hopefully still have it.  I will see if I can find it, won’t be able to look until the back end of the week.

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17 minutes ago, Jb65rams said:

Interesting project. I built WL419 in 1/72 Few years ago. From memory I kept the rear cockpit very sparse, removing any instrumentation detail and painted it black. I used Blue Rider decals, they had an article in Insignia Magazine (?) which explained the conversion and had some photos.
 

I hopefully still have it.  I will see if I can find it, won’t be able to look until the back end of the week.

Hi thanks in advance for this. I’d quite like to get some accurate detail in the back if I can as it’s all going to be easily seen in 1/48

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I've built both WA638 and WL419 as well as the F3 they used and photos of the rear cockpit are very hard to find. Luckily there is virtually nothing in there apart from the seat being tested - I assume because the blast from the seat's rocket would destroy any instruments or cabling. This https://pdf4pro.com/cdn/the-chalgrove-meteors-ejectorseats-co-uk-36dcaf.pdf is useful - the interiors have been painted black in more recent years.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Steve

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44 minutes ago, BritJet said:

I've built both WA638 and WL419 as well as the F3 they used and photos of the rear cockpit are very hard to find. Luckily there is virtually nothing in there apart from the seat being tested - I assume because the blast from the seat's rocket would destroy any instruments or cabling. This https://pdf4pro.com/cdn/the-chalgrove-meteors-ejectorseats-co-uk-36dcaf.pdf is useful - the interiors have been painted black in more recent years.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Steve

That’s just what I was after. Thanks very much

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Annoyingly, though I have had a few visits to see the M-B Meteors, I've never taken any shots of the rear cockpits. I can confirm that they are pretty bare however - which explains the lack of photos. This sort of shows the black interior of WL419 (WA638 had a red dummy seat at the time):

 

12nov01

 

And in case it helps, this is the front cockpit of WA638:

 

12Nov01a

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi @petetasker,

 

I modelled one of the Martin Baker Meteors a couple of years ago.  As part of my homework I came across an earlier airframe, WA634.  I cannot remember where the pictures came from but I have uploaded them for you here:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/26690797@N02/albums/72157717749592221

 

Cheers,

 

Neil

Edited by neilfergylee
typo
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I looked into doing this a while ago. From what I can recall about the research I did, it's just an empty tub but has additional plating around the tub to protect the aircraft from the blast of repeated ejections. 

 

Unfortunately, I have no idea where I recall this information from. 

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19 hours ago, wellsprop said:

I looked into doing this a while ago. From what I can recall about the research I did, it's just an empty tub but has additional plating around the tub to protect the aircraft from the blast of repeated ejections. 

 

Unfortunately, I have no idea where I recall this information from. 

For what it is worth I also have a recollection that the 'tub' is essentially an  empty box and was later reinforced to cope with blast effects.

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On 11/01/2021 at 20:11, neilfergylee said:

For the first time ever on this forum, I'm getting a but miffed. Has nobody looked at my b----y Flickr link???


Hi all


Many thanks for all the replies. Sorry for not getting involved for a while after posting the initial enquiry but I hope you’ll understand our area going into Tier 4 and then into full lockdown and the subsequent impact this has had on my business has had to take precedence over plastic modelling and Britmodeller. 

 

@neilfergylee thanks for the photo link. The meteor shots you’ve included are from the Martin Baker PDF article link that @BritJet kindly posted but many thanks anyway it is still very much appreciated. The entire PDF article is well worth reading. Absolutely fascinating. Still at the planning stage for the project and Im now trying to work out how to do the decals.

 

Thanks again to everyone

 

Pete

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@petetasker @zebra I'm really glad the pictures were of use and indeed their source because I was darned if I could remember where they come from!

 

I modelled Martin Baker's black Meteor last year and below are some shots.  I was not entirely satisfied with the result as I botched the combing around the rear cockpit.  So you are aware, the forward cockpit canopy came from an old Matchbox Meteor 14. 

 

spacer.png

 

45907715074_1337443212_b.jpg

 

39667395163_f29327994e_b.jpg

 

Cheers,

 

Neil

Edited by neilfergylee
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9 hours ago, neilfergylee said:

@petetasker @zebra I'm really glad the pictures were of use and indeed their source because I was darned if I could remember whwre they come from!

 

I modelled Martin Baker's black Meteor last year and below are soem shots.  I was not entirely satisfied with the result as I botched the combing around the rear cockpit.  So you are aware, the forward cockpit came from an old Matchbox Meteor 14. 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Neil

Nice - are the decals aftermarket or home printed?

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1 minute ago, neilfergylee said:

They're aftermarket - I'll check which ones for you.

Thanks for the reply. I was hoping you were going to say you printed your own and could easily upscale them to 1/48!

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6 hours ago, zebra said:

Very nicely done @neilfergylee

 

I’m thinking of doing one in 1/48. I think (someone correct me if I’m wrong) the black one requires a few gold decals so printing might be a bit more difficult than usual. So it might be the other one.

White lettering with a gold cheat line.
I dropped a line to Alleycat Models a while ago suggesting the MB Meteors might make an interesting 1/48 conversion kit - you never know! 

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On 15/01/2021 at 08:43, petetasker said:

Nice - are the decals aftermarket or home printed?

These are the ones:

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/combat-decals-cd72-005-british-test-and-development-aircraft--942650

 

Unfortunately, I think they are discontinued.

 

Neil

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  • 2 years later...
On 18/01/2021 at 16:58, neilfergylee said:

These are the ones:

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/combat-decals-cd72-005-british-test-and-development-aircraft--942650

 

Unfortunately, I think they are discontinued.

 

Neil

@neilfergylee I’ve just found this thread whilst preparing to start (at my usual glacial pace) a 1/72 WA638. Yours looks lovely, good work there. Combat Decals have just released a few more sheets of CD72-005, not sure if they’re old stock or re-printed ones, but I wanted to ask: how did you find the decals to work with? Did they behave ok? I’m sure I saw somewhere else a fairly poor review of them (v delicate). Hopefully they’re ok as I’ve bought one and am planning to build three kits (at least) from it!!!
 

Edited by The Shearwater
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On 05/01/2024 at 12:46, The Shearwater said:

@neilfergylee I’ve just found this thread whilst preparing to start (at my usual glacial pace) a 1/72 WA638. Yours looks lovely, good work there. Combat Decals have just released a few more sheets of CD72-005, not sure if they’re old stock or re-printed ones, but I wanted to ask: how did you find the decals to work with? Did they behave ok? I’m sure I saw somewhere else a fairly poor review of them (v delicate). Hopefully they’re ok as I’ve bought one and am planning to build three kits (at least) from it!!!
 

I recall no problems at all!  Go for it and share what you have done!

 

Cheers,

Neil

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5 hours ago, neilfergylee said:

I recall no problems at all!  Go for it and share what you have done!

 

Cheers,

Neil

That’s great to hear, many thanks for the  reply and watch this space!

 

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I've just picked up that decal sheet too and now I need a FOURTH T.7 kit. Fortunately they are still around cheaply in Xtrakit boxes, and I have enough left-over F.8 style tails from other spare sprues that have washed up in my general MPM / Xtrakit / SH 1/72 Meteor kit collection

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