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1:72 Airfix Shorts Tucano T.1


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12 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

OK, I think I have the parlor room ready to go

FWIW, Bill, I'm pretty sure that the parachute straps were blue and not green. I can't remember whether the seat straps were tan or black. That said, the tub and seats look very tidy.

Jon

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10 hours ago, Jonners said:

FWIW, Bill, I'm pretty sure that the parachute straps were blue and not green. I can't remember whether the seat straps were tan or black.

 

Could be. I used a photo of the Mk.8 seat from the Martin Baker website, and there are no blue straps. Just tan and green. But I have no way of knowing for sure. The photos I found online of the Tucano cockpit don't show the seats very well.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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22 hours ago, Jonners said:

student on the BFT course at Linton in the mid 90's whem the Tucs were still red and white

 

I always thought the Tucano looked like fun to fly? - that’s if there’s any room for fun at BFTS....

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2 hours ago, Jonners said:

Oh, okay. I confess it wasn’t high on my list of things to remember at the time! 🤯

 

You never know - you could be remembering it right. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen photos of the same seat with different colour harnesses.    😕

 

1 hour ago, Fritag said:

I always thought the Tucano looked like fun to fly? - that’s if there’s any room for fun at BFTS....

 

I thought every flight you could walk away from was fun. Hmm...I think you can buy one at the Warbird Emporium. Why not get one and find out?    :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

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On 16/01/2021 at 17:34, Navy Bird said:

Speaking of old, I was going to order a decal sheet for a different project this morning but then got distracted by Mrs. Navy Bird who wanted me to buy some new end table or such. When I returned this afternoon to buy the decals, I had completely forgotten what it was that I wanted to buy! I still can't remember! Arghh!

 

I remembered! It's the Caracal sheet for the Upper Heyford F-111E aircraft. Unfortunately, it's not released yet! LOL

 

Cheers,

Bill

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2 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

It's the Caracal sheet for the Upper Heyford F-111E aircraft. Unfortunately, it's not released yet! LOL

It was released this month and I have been shipping it furiously for the last ten days.

Edited by CaracalModels
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On 12/30/2020 at 2:09 PM, Navy Bird said:

Why is this "Shorts" when a Stirling is just "Short"?

 

Apologies for coming to this a bit late, Bill.

 

It's definitely a British "thing" to refer to company, particularly a manufacturing company, by adding an "s" to the name.

 

For example someone might say "I work at Westlands", not "I work at Westland": my theory/guess is that it's actually an informal possessive, a contraction of  "I work at Westland's factory".

 

What complicates it in the case of Short(s) is that they used to call the company Short Brothers, then - when ownership changed and it became Short Brothers and Harland - even their own advertising eventually started referring to the company as "Shorts".

 

Obviously, this was the shortened form - I had to say it, m'lud.

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12 hours ago, Fritag said:

I always thought the Tucano looked like fun to fly? - that’s if there’s any room for fun at BFTS....

Huge fun, in spite of the learning curve (and torque reaction), once I'd realised that I stood a fighting chance of passing the course! Streaming to FJ/multi/RW came at the end of the full course, rather than at BHT or (as now) on conclusion of elementary training so it was effectively fast jet entry standard for all, or the chop.

 

I never had the pleasure of flying a JP, but the Tuc provided tandem cockpits unrestricted (in the front) by framing, plus the joys of inverted spinning. Oh, and the blast screen in front of the rear seat meant that the instructor couldn't back up his (or her) wise words with short, sharp reminders...

 

As for the fun, I reckon York is a better night out than Tadcaster!

Jon

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3 hours ago, Jonners said:

 Oh, and the blast screen in front of the rear seat meant that the instructor couldn't back up his (or her) wise words with short, sharp reminders..

 

Useful :D  It’s just reminded me that I got a proper and instantaneous whack on the head once in the JP3; for reciting in my downwind checks “undercarriage down, three reds….....three greens” before actually even pressing the undercarriage down button :blush: I didn’t do it again mind you.

 

 

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23 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

I thought every flight you could walk away from was fun.

 

Not during military basic flying training Bill.  Most every dual flight you walked away from was a horrible stress inducing, sweat inducing, mind exploding hell ride, But it got better later :winkgrin:

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21 hours ago, CaracalModels said:

It was released this month and I have been shipping it furiously for the last ten days.

 

Great news! I shall be on the lookout for a stockist. Thank you!    :clap:

 

14 hours ago, Jonners said:

Oh, and the blast screen in front of the rear seat meant that the instructor couldn't back up his (or her) wise words with short, sharp reminders...

 

Hmm...methinks there is no blast screen in this kit. I guess I'll have to make one. Anyone have a photo?    📸

 

1 hour ago, Fritag said:

Not during military basic flying training Bill.  Most every dual flight you walked away from was a horrible stress inducing, sweat inducing, mind exploding hell ride, But it got better later :winkgrin:

 

I see. Well, what do I know? The closest I ever got to flying was jumping my snowmobile over a creek. (Um, I ended up IN the creek.)    :doh:

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Oh, I almost forgot. I cut out the kit's rudder by following the panel lines. Well, guess what? The panel lines were not in the same position on each half of the fuselage, so I've got some fixing to do!

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22 hours ago, Fritag said:

 

Useful :D  It’s just reminded me that I got a proper and instantaneous whack on the head once in the JP3; for reciting in my downwind checks “undercarriage down, three reds….....three greens” before actually even pressing the undercarriage down button :blush: I didn’t do it again mind you.

 

 


Take the Lynx route for ultimate security: “down and welded” (as I have responded to more than one ATC repeating their “Check gear” call...)

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12 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

I guess I'll have to make one. Anyone have a photo?  

I couldn't remember a blast screen (but it was a long time ago) so I had a look and it came trickling back.

It's built into the canopy assembly and wraps around the rear coaming. There are picture in walkaround where it's just about visible.

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/73752-shorts-tucano/

 

I do remember that we had to borrow a Degaussing tool from the Tower on about every second new Tucano we got.

This was to degauss the canopy so that the standby compass for the back seat (Mounted on RH of canopy) would work properly.

It was a little black electric gizmo, something like an etching tool.

The probe was placed onto parts of the canopy and it buzzed/vibrated away for about five minutes. 

 

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1 hour ago, Pete in Lincs said:

It's built into the canopy assembly and wraps around the rear coaming.

Phew! I thought I had given you another ‘bum steer’ for a moment there! It was a long time ago...and, fortunately, less stressful that @Fritag‘s experience!

 

It's item 63 on this Embraer variant cutaway:

https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/415718-embraer-t-27-tucano-and-a-29-super-tucano/ 

(Scroll down the page and you'll come to it.)

Jon

Edited by Jonners
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On 1/18/2021 at 1:17 PM, Fritag said:

 

Useful :D  It’s just reminded me that I got a proper and instantaneous whack on the head once in the JP3; for reciting in my downwind checks “undercarriage down, three reds….....three greens” before actually even pressing the undercarriage down button :blush: I didn’t do it again mind you.


On a similar note, it’s terribly easy to get into blasé lip service to checks.  Every time you line up for a practice auto-rotation (& you generally do several autos during every GFP / circuits sortie, so that’s a lot) you chant the war cries: “Practice double engine failure - GO; two levers, two switches” [translated as “for real I’d be shutting down both engines and closing both fuel cocks to minimise the fire risk”].... then say inside the cockpit “Mayday mayday mayday, Navy 346 engine failure forced landing near wherever”.  Or similar.

 

So when I ditched a Sea King for real and transmitted a real Mayday call... guess who initially started it without pressing the transmit button?  The mantra of never transmitting a Mayday except for real had become too deeply fixed in my subconscious.

 

That joyous episode wasn’t helped by the fact that it was during a NATO exercise so we had a tactical callsign.  I can still tell you what it was: INDIA ZERO OSCAR.  

 

Now try saying that c/s really fast when there’s a ton of adrenalin fizzing around your bloodstream at the sight of the Atlantic Ocean lapping against the base of the windscreen.

 

New teeth, please!

 

(Apologies for thread hijack)

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8 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

It's built into the canopy assembly and wraps around the rear coaming. There are picture in walkaround where it's just about visible.

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/73752-shorts-tucano/

 

Thanks - I think I can see it. And I can remember de-gaussing the old cathode ray tube displays to clean up the "colour smudging." I think I'm old...

 

6 hours ago, Jonners said:

 

Got it - thanks. Nice cutaway drawings. They are a big help to me since I basically don't know squat about airplanes.    :drunk:

 

2 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

(Apologies for thread hijack)

 

No worries on the hijack, that was quite a story. My brother flew Jolly Greens during Vietnam, and he has some similar stories. Yikes!

 

*****

 

Does anyone know why the front side of the Tucano prop blades have that crazy late-night TV sign-off test pattern painted on them? Thank goodness Airfix provide stickers for that.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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The prop blades? Even more visible than a yellow tip for a start. It was standard on prop trainers of the time. Bulldogs, etc. 

I even saw it on Chipmunks. It's visible for quite a distance, when bimbling around a taxiway for instance. Odd, but it works.

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Yup - the ‘unmatched’ black and white pattern gave a highly visible flicker effect when the prop was spinning - much more effective than a blurry yellow circle. The Airfix decals do a good job of representing this.

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4 hours ago, Jonners said:

Yup - the ‘unmatched’ black and white pattern gave a highly visible flicker effect when the prop was spinning - much more effective than a blurry yellow circle.

 

As my modern art teacher used to say "for those of you on LSD this must look really interesting!"   :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

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One of the most overlooked aspects of scale modelling, and indeed one of its most pleasurable, is...cheating. Faced with the nigh impossible task of adding 7g of Liquid Gravity into significantly less than 7g of space meant there could be only one answer. Add more space!    :)

 

With my eagle eye always on the lookout for ways to cheat, I saw that the nose gear doors are not only split into two longitudinally, but also into two laterally. Hence, there are four nose gear doors. The aft set of two doors are closed when on the ground. That means that the rear half of the nose gear bay cannot really be seen - especially in 1:72 scale sitting in my display case. And if it can't be seen - it doesn't need to be there. And if it's not there, then there is extra space for Liquid Gravity.

 

See? Simple - all you have to do is cheat.    :clap:

 

A few swipes of the razor saw, and a few stitches later, I now have a shortened nose gear bay. The attachment points for the retraction mechanism are maintained.

 

IMG_5650

 

While wifey attended to the stitches (reality: I'm kidding), I felt compelled to pull out the trusty scriber and hack out the flaps and ailerons. Back to the razor saw and the resin parts were quickly severed. (What's with this vocabulary? Stitches? Severed?)

 

IMG_5653

 

These will be duly posed appropriately. The rudder, on the other hand, will likely remain neutral as my main reason for wanting this resin replacement was the thinness of its trailing edge (same goes for the flaps, elevators, and ailerons). I added the cockpit to the starboard fuselage and test fitting showed no fit problems. No hours of mindless sanding and grinding to make resin pit fit! (That comment was aimed at you Aires.) The fuselage halves were joined, and the shortened nose gear bay added.

 

IMG_5654

 

At this point, I'm adding some styrene "bulkheads" in the appropriate places to seal off the front compartment and make sure that I don't end up with Liquid Gravity leaking out all over my workbench. Then we'll see how much weight will fit into my reclaimed space. I think there will be enough. There is a resin piece that covers up the unsightly seam behind the rear seat and there are some stickers that need to be added to the ejection seat head boxes. Come to think of it, I may remove the seats prior to painting as it seems it will be easier to mask without them present. The coamings and instrument panels, by the way, drop in easily now that the fuselage is joined, so they can be added later too.

 

CMK provide complete resin tailplanes and elevators, replacing all of the kit parts. One thing that is missing from the rudder are two round projections (lights?) at the bottom of the trailing edge. These are on the kit rudder, but not on the resin. They are also apparent in photos, so I'll need to add them somehow. Anyway, that's it for today.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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7 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

the unsightly seam behind the rear seat

The canopy dampers live there. They looked like ex Ford Capri. And, were a pig to change due to the awful/cheapo compression tool supplied,

Yes, two lights at the bottom of the rudder. Up at the back of the nosewheel bay is where the battery lives. That was a pig to fit too!

We had one that had a stability problem, and found out that the distance between fin tip & tailplane tip had a tolerance of plus or minus 1 1/2 inches!

So you can get away with a bit of wonky alignment there!

BTW, unless on maintenance, the Aircraft should be parked with Flaps and Airbrake up. It's an airframe safety and Hydraulic levels thing.

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On 12/31/2020 at 9:16 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

Saying Short (rather than Shorts) Brothers brings to mind Snow White. And, was Snow her first name?

Ooooh, you're a wicked man, dropping something like that unnoticed among us, but I like you. ;) :D

A bit late/slow to notice this Bill but I'm onto it now, mind, seeing as you've been struck by the resin fairy, some might be lost on me but I'm sure I'll enjoy myself all the same. I'll be to one in the corner miming old songs & wriggling in time to them. :)

Steve.

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