HP Victor K2

[Stefan Buysse]

Hi,

 

This is my GWH Victor K2 in 1/144.

I'll use the Kitsworld decals to build it as XM715 Teasin' Tina.

 

 

Cheers, Stefan. 

[Adam Poultney]

Should be a good build. Will you be correcting the wingtips? The wingtips are for the B2 variant. 

 

[Stefan Buysse]

Hello , Adam.

 

No, I'll leave it as it is.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

 

 

[Stefan Buysse]

Hi,

 

Good news here...both myself and the model are back.

 

In early February, I tested positive Covid-19. There never was anything really bad, no need for a hospital stay for example. I had flu-like symptoms and I couldn't do much else beside sleeping. 

 

The Victor went missing for a while too.🙂 The GWH box came apart and I put the model in a shoe-box. I have a Skyhawk in the same type of box and every time I was looking for the Victor, I overlooked its box thinking it was the Skyhawk.  

 

I had another good look at shortening the wings and finally decided against it.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

[desert falcon]

Good to hear your back in good shape Stefan 👍 

[Stefan Buysse]

Hi,

 

The Victor is in progress. I'll have to fill the seam in the middle.

 

 

 

The 1/48 F-16A and the 1/72 Tornado have had some work done also, but not really something that makes it worthwhile to update those threads.

The Tornado will receive a Flightpath resin nose. Lovely kit, but that FLightpath radome is a big improvement. (and I'm not usually "he who sees shape issues").

 

Cheers, Stefan. 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Stefan Buysse

[Adam Poultney]

pictures aren't showing

[Stefan Buysse]

Just now, Adam Poultney said:

pictures aren't showing

That was quick, Adam. 😄

I was a bit unsure about which link to copy and immediately looked if the picture was there and edited the thread at once.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

 

[Adam Poultney]

oh the joys of figuring out hosting sites lol, took me a minute to figure out Flickr

 

I've got this thread on email notifications, I see everything quickly

 

[Jabba]

Nice progress.

[CliffB]

Welcome back Stefan (and Victor).

[Stefan Buysse]

Hi,

 

Geting closer to something Victor-shaped.

Holding this even this model up in my hand, I'm still amazed at what a beautiful aeroplane the HP Victor was.

 

I'm a bit further along than when the picture was taken. If you build this model, make sure that you watch the direction in which you attach parts E4 and E5 to E3 and E7.

I'm getting ready for paint now. 

 

Cheers, Stefan. 

[Jabba]

Good to see this one all in one piece.

[Stefan Buysse]

Hi,

 

I've airbrushed the underside Light Aircraft Grey using Xtracrylix XA1015 paint.

After a couple of disasters with Xtracrylix paint, I was bit weary, but it worked out fine. Maybe it helps that I used a very recent jar of paint, it has a clear plastic cap, not the usual yellow one.

During this paint session, I also painted the ALARM missiles for the 1/72 Tornado in that colour.

Some serious masking to do now... 1/144 Victor transparancies. And hoping that the Xtracrylix Hemp works just as nicely.  It's also one of those new ones with the clear cap.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

[Stefan Buysse]

Hi,

 

After a lot of masking, the Hemp colour was also airbrushed on. 

 

 

Cheers, Stefan.

[Stefan Buysse]

Hi,

 

I've started to put the decals on. 

 

 

No nose-art yet. I'll definitely put the "Teasin Tina" art on, but I'm a bit unsure about the "Meldrew" art that Kits-World provides for the starboard side. I hadn't seen that before. Does anyone know if that's truely from January-February 1991 or if it was applied later?  

 

Cheers, Stefan.

[Jabba]

I have had a look through all the books that I have on Gulf War nose art and can find nothing about the "Meldrew". All the photos in these books only show the girlie side, but do not mention the "Meldrew" at all, even if it was painted on after the war.

[Stefan Buysse]

Thanks for looking into this, Jabba.

 

Yes, I have the feeling that the "Meldrew" was painted after the conflict and even after XM715's RAF service.

I had a look at when "One foot in the grave" was on TV, apparantly it was from 1990 to 2001. 

 

While I applied some of the orange stripes to the underside, I noticed that the Kits-World decals are indeed intended for a Victor K2 with the corrected width wingtips. Not a big problem for my model, one would have to know quite well what to look for.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

[Adam Poultney]

9 minutes ago, Stefan Buysse said:

 

 

While I applied some of the orange stripes to the underside, I noticed that the Kits-World decals are indeed intended for a Victor K2 with the corrected width wingtips. Not a big problem for my model, one would have to know quite well what to look for.

 

 

Oh you just had to say that didn't you 😂 Now I'm going to have to go and buy a GWH Victor K2 and chop up the wingtips

[Stefan Buysse]

Hi,

 

The Victor is finished. More photos tomorow, but now there's this one of the wingtip (just to tease Adam a bit😉).

 

  

 

The inner stripe is shorter than the others so that it doesn't go over the flap. You can see that it is a couple of mm away from the flap.

I'm not 100% sure that these stripes near the wingtips were on the Granby Victors, they may have been from the earlier scheme.

 

Cheers, Stefan;

Edited May 13, 2021 by Stefan Buysse

[Stefan Buysse]

Hi,

 

Now with refueling pods added.

 

 

I'll post more in the gallery.

I like the kit, although I could have done better, especially with the windscreen.

I think I'll build XM715 again, in the anti-flash white colour scheme with 100 Sqn. 

 

Cheers, Stefan.

[Adam Poultney]

8 minutes ago, Stefan Buysse said:

Hi,

 

Now with refueling pods added.

 

 

I'll post more in the gallery.

I like the kit, although I could have done better, especially with the windscreen.

I think I'll build XM715 again, in the anti-flash white colour scheme with 100 Sqn. 

 

Cheers, Stefan.

For XM715 in white, you'll need to make some modifications. Obviously no tanker pods, but you'll also need to remove the IFR probe, replace the probe on the tip of the nose with a Victor B1 style one, remove two of the intake vanes from each side, remove the oil cooler air scoops from under the wings, reshape the APU intake (big bit at the base of the fin), remove the Küchemann Carrots/anti shock bodies, remove the underwing fuel tanks and change some of the aerials. Thankfully that one never carried Blue Steel (it was converted to an SR.2 rather than a B2R) so you wouldn't need to modify it to fit that (I did that on my GWH Victor which I painted as XH669, it was a right pain). It's also a Victor from the final batch (XM714-XM718), so was built with the B.Mk.2R style drooped leading edge rather than the earlier leading edge flaps which all other B.Mk.2s were built with. 

I converted an Airfix 1/72 Victor to a B.Mk.2 from the final batch last year, which I painted up as XM718 although it could have been pretty much any of the ones from that batch. 

 

[Stefan Buysse]

9 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

For XM715 in white, you'll need to make some modifications. Obviously no tanker pods, but you'll also need to remove the IFR probe, replace the probe on the tip of the nose with a Victor B1 style one, remove two of the intake vanes from each side, remove the oil cooler air scoops from under the wings, reshape the APU intake (big bit at the base of the fin), remove the Küchemann Carrots/anti shock bodies, remove the underwing fuel tanks and change some of the aerials. Thankfully that one never carried Blue Steel (it was converted to an SR.2 rather than a B2R) so you wouldn't need to modify it to fit that (I did that on my GWH Victor which I painted as XH669, it was a right pain). It's also a Victor from the final batch (XM714-XM718), so was built with the B.Mk.2R style drooped leading edge rather than the earlier leading edge flaps which all other B.Mk.2s were built with. 

I converted an Airfix 1/72 Victor to a B.Mk.2 from the final batch last year, which I painted up as XM718 although it could have been pretty much any of the ones from that batch. 

 

Thanks, Adam.

 

I obviously knew about some of the changes that I have to make, but there are some in your list that I had not thought of.

I'm not sure when I'll build that one.

 

The next Victor that I'm contemplating for a Britmodeller GB is a Matchbox K2 for the Falklands GB of 2022. It won't be XM715 again and it will be wheels-up.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

[Adam Poultney]

Just now, Stefan Buysse said:

Thanks, Adam.

 

I obviously knew about some of the changes that I have to make, but there are some in your list that I had not thought of.

I'm not sure when I'll build that one.

 

 

Well whenever you do, I can't wait to see the build. I have vague plans for something along the lines of that for one of these 1/144 Victors as well but I have so many plans and only so much time to work on models 😂

2 minutes ago, Stefan Buysse said:

 

The next Victor that I'm contemplating for a Britmodeller GB is a Matchbox K2 for the Falklands GB of 2022. It won't be XM715 again and it will be wheels-up.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

That should be interesting, it's not a great kit as I'm sure you're aware. I'm really looking forward to that Group Build because of the amount of Vulcans and Victors that there will be. I'd be tempted to build the four Black Buck Vulcans (five if you include XL391 which was the spare one modified for Black Buck). 

[Stefan Buysse]

11 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

 I'd be tempted to build the four Black Buck Vulcans (five if you include XL391 which was the spare one modified for Black Buck). 

That's an epic plan...I like it.👍

I figure most modellers who hope to build  4 Vulcans in their life would go for a collection with the different colour schemes. Having these 4 in the Operation Corporate scheme and configuration would be rather unique.

 

Cheers, Stefan.