Swift FR.5 - Airfix 1/72

[hendie]

oooohhh - just made it onto page 1 (I think)

 

Swift by name... wait, Tony's already taken that one dammit.  

 

Looks like you have some nice challenges with this one Ced.   You don't get those problems when you print your own (just sayin' in case you were looking at your wish list again)

 

 

edit:  Dammit, dammit, dammit!  beaten to the post while I was typing.  Oh well, I guess page 2 will have to be good enough now

[Beard]

32 minutes ago, KevinK said:

Well, it took the World airspeed record - so it was actually pretty good....

For eight days.

[Evil_Toast_RSA]

If I may offer a suggestion, don't glue the cockpit tub to the nose wheel bay sub-assembly as called for in the instructions. I ended up separating them when I tried to fit it to the fuselage and realised it was a very naff fit. 

[TheBaron]

'I am aligning the fuselage halves now.'

 

 

[Navy Bird]

I'd go for the PRU Blue underside too. Good choice.    👍

 

I checked my kit, and I don't seem to have the fuselage warping you show. My kit was from the very first batch - you may recall that sometime during the initial shipments there was tooling damage. Luckily, mine does not have the starboard fuselage moulding problem that resulted so I must have got one before the tool was damaged. It took longer to get the tooling repaired and that held up shipments for some time. Or something like that - at least that's how I remember it! But I'm old, so there is no telling which synapses are crossed.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[KevinK]

3 hours ago, Beard said:

For eight days.

 

Perhaps a bit harsh: between July & October 1953, five different aircraft types took the record. The Swift took the Hunter's record, which stood for only 18 days. It was an exciting and very competitive period as everyone was creeping up on Mach 1.

 

For the record (🙂), the succession was F-86D - Hunter F.3 - Swift F.4 - F-4D Skyray - YF-100A Super Sabre, and the record went up by only 40 mph total in that time.

 

Interestingly, only six British aircraft have ever held the absolute airspeed record, and three of them were from Supermarine.

[KevinK]

11 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

I checked my kit, and I don't seem to have the fuselage warping you show. My kit was from the very first batch - you may recall that sometime during the initial shipments there was tooling damage. Luckily, mine does not have the starboard fuselage moulding problem that resulted so I must have got one before the tool was damaged.

 

Same here! One further thing I seem to recall is that - unusually - the US market got a batch before the UK ... or something like that...

[AdrianMF]

It looks like a pretty tough kit for New Airfix. Hard pounding!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Navy Bird]

1 hour ago, KevinK said:

 

Same here! One further thing I seem to recall is that - unusually - the US market got a batch before the UK ... or something like that...

 

That's my recollection too.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[bbudde]

Nice progress so far. Ced Swift work either.

Btw Swift winds also here. I better should call it a blizzard this time. Snow on the windowsilll, which I haven't seen here so far for the time I live here. Good to be inside tonight.

Cheers

[T-21]

Hi Ced  the flying suits for RAF aircrew in the 50s were silver/grey finish then to a medium blue around the mid sixties. The bonedomes were factory finished in silver with black visor. Often painted in squadron marks, my fathers had Lenny the Lion !! painted at the back of his. Apologies if nit picking but not intended.

 

There is a useful article on RAF 1960s pilots by Brett Gibson Sept 2010 in the Cold War section.

Edited February 7, 2021 by T-21

[Graham Boak]

It's a bit sad that someone offering historical advice feels the need to apologise for nit-picking.  Nil Illegitami carborundum.

[CedB]

18 hours ago, Beard said:

That pilot looks rather fabulous and thanks for the warning about the fit (I have a Swift on it's way to me, by 2nd class post - so not so swift).

A question: do the side panels and instrument panel have raised details? (I can't make out if they have, or not, on my phone after five pints and an Espresso Martini).

 

Thanks Simon  

I'll keep the warnings and help going where I can, as usual.

 

18 hours ago, hendie said:

oooohhh - just made it onto page 1 (I think)

 

Swift by name... wait, Tony's already taken that one dammit.  

 

Looks like you have some nice challenges with this one Ced.   You don't get those problems when you print your own (just sayin' in case you were looking at your wish list again)

 

 

edit:  Dammit, dammit, dammit!  beaten to the post while I was typing.  Oh well, I guess page 2 will have to be good enough now

Just missed it hendie, but good to see you. 

Print your own eh? It'll never catch on…  

 

15 hours ago, Evil_Toast_RSA said:

If I may offer a suggestion, don't glue the cockpit tub to the nose wheel bay sub-assembly as called for in the instructions. I ended up separating them when I tried to fit it to the fuselage and realised it was a very naff fit. 

Thanks Evil - I'll do that, as well as dry fitting EVERYTHING!  

 

14 hours ago, TheBaron said:

'I am aligning the fuselage halves now.'

 

 

Thanks Tony - where do you find these pictures?  

 

18 hours ago, KevinK said:

Well, it took the World airspeed record - so it was actually pretty good....🙂

18 hours ago, Beard said:

For eight days.

14 hours ago, KevinK said:

 

Perhaps a bit harsh: between July & October 1953, five different aircraft types took the record. The Swift took the Hunter's record, which stood for only 18 days. It was an exciting and very competitive period as everyone was creeping up on Mach 1.

 

For the record (🙂), the succession was F-86D - Hunter F.3 - Swift F.4 - F-4D Skyray - YF-100A Super Sabre, and the record went up by only 40 mph total in that time.

 

Interestingly, only six British aircraft have ever held the absolute airspeed record, and three of them were from Supermarine.

Thanks Kevin and Simon - times of challenge those days, unlike our challenging days!  

 

14 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

I'd go for the PRU Blue underside too. Good choice.    👍

 

I checked my kit, and I don't seem to have the fuselage warping you show. My kit was from the very first batch - you may recall that sometime during the initial shipments there was tooling damage. Luckily, mine does not have the starboard fuselage moulding problem that resulted so I must have got one before the tool was damaged. It took longer to get the tooling repaired and that held up shipments for some time. Or something like that - at least that's how I remember it! But I'm old, so there is no telling which synapses are crossed.

 

Cheers,

Bill

14 hours ago, KevinK said:

Same here! One further thing I seem to recall is that - unusually - the US market got a batch before the UK ... or something like that...

12 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

That's my recollection too.

 

Cheers,

Bill

Thanks Bill and Kevin - I've just checked my starboard fuselage and it looks fine.

The fuselage halves look 'un-warped' on the cutting mat; I wonder if it's the locating pins?

 

13 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

It looks like a pretty tough kit for New Airfix. Hard pounding!

 

Regards,

Adrian

It will be pounded, as always!  

 

11 hours ago, bbudde said:

Nice progress so far. Ced Swift work either.

Btw Swift winds also here. I better should call it a blizzard this time. Snow on the windowsilll, which I haven't seen here so far for the time I live here. Good to be inside tonight.

Cheers

Crikey Ben - looks like you're getting 'The Beast from the East' before us - fingers crossed the delivery guys still get through

 

3 hours ago, T-21 said:

Hi Ced  the flying suits for RAF aircrew in the 50s were silver/grey finish then to a medium blue around the mid sixties. The bonedomes were factory finished in silver with black visor. Often painted in squadron marks, my fathers had Lenny the Lion !! painted at the back of his. Apologies if nit picking but not intended.

 

There is a useful article on RAF 1960s pilots by Brett Gibson Sept 2010 in the Cold War section.

Thanks T-21, no need to apologise, we all learn from such posts

My fault for Googling '1960 RAF flying suit' and trusting the results!

Too late for the flying suit but bone dome corrected:

 

 

2 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

It's a bit sad that someone offering historical advice feels the need to apologise for nit-picking.  Nil Illegitami carborundum.

Quite right Graham, Nolo (that's Latin that is, according to Google translate)  

[giemme]

Despite of the flying suit color issue, the pilot looks really good in his office, Ced  

 

Ciao 

[Evil_Toast_RSA]

@CedB, the Swift scrubs up quite nicely. The only other issue I had when I built mine last year was a really poor panel line over the one intake that needed TLC. Don't think mine was that warped though 🤔.

 

If your building it wheels up, the front gear door fits like a square peg into a dodecahedron sized hole in n dimensions though. 

[CedB]

Next steps, the intakes.

Instructions for these take a whole page so I was concerned at first, but I think the designers were just pleased with the kit.

 

First problem.

The kit uses those 'on the surface' gates that I'm told allow for thin parts to be moulded and protected..

They need to be cut off with sharp sprue cutters held flat on the part surface, if you see what I mean.

Like the trailing edges of the wings - nice.

That's why, when I saw this:

 

 

 

…I used that method and this happened:

 

 

Oops. 

Doesn't seem to effect the fit though:

 

 

I can see why the designers were pleased with this:

 

 

Shame the moulders didn't keep up the standard:

 

 

It's little bits of extra plastic like this that mess up new Airfix IMHO. Easy to trim off IF you've seen them, frustrating if you haven't and they're on a join..

 

By the way I've found another build on Cybermodeller that explains some of the options; you can have the camera ports 'open or closed'. 

Or perhaps 'cameras fitted or not'.

Still no guidance in the kit though - maybe you need to find a reference and model to that?

Who knows…

[CedB]

Sorry guys, saw these after posting the above…

 

4 minutes ago, giemme said:

Despite of the flying suit color issue, the pilot looks really good in his office, Ced  

 

Ciao 

Thanks Giorgio  

 

2 minutes ago, Evil_Toast_RSA said:

@CedB, the Swift scrubs up quite nicely. The only other issue I had when I built mine last year was a really poor panel line over the one intake that needed TLC. Don't think mine was that warped though 🤔.

 

If your building it wheels up, the front gear door fits like a square peg into a dodecahedron sized hole in n dimensions though. 

Thanks Evil  

I'll watch out for those too!

[bbudde]

36 minutes ago, CedB said:

looks like you're getting 'The Beast from the East' before us - fingers crossed the delivery guys still get through

Looks so Ced. 35cm snow now since Saturday evening Heavy winds. and it is snowing....................

The delivery people are getting to their limits soon, although I saw any kind of tractors, excavators and trucks here every 15min. (It's a main street.) Staying home is the best way now and when the sun comes out, I will do a longer winter walk in the fields. No busses anyway now, so beer will be had in the next hours. Today is  a real Flock down (Flocke=flake).

Cheers from a very snowy Münster.

Benedikt

[TheBaron]

55 minutes ago, CedB said:

Thanks Tony - where do you find these pictures?  

Can't remember the exact frame number Ced....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sound-Barrier-Restored-Blu-ray/dp/B01BVRUOHO

😁

[CedB]

Thanks Ben  Brrr, sounds like you're snowed in; always better than being snowed OUT!

Enjoy the beer…

 

Thanks Tony - that looks like a great film. Found it to rent on Amazon. Oooh, it is Sunday afternoon…

 

Looking for walkarounds (better late than never).

BM walkaround here of WK281 (one of the kit options) at Tangmere Military Aviation Museum. That's the one we want.

      Also FR5 WK277 at Newark Air Museum and F4 WK275 when it was at upper Hill.

Enough for me - time to study…

[bbudde]

36 minutes ago, CedB said:

Thanks Ben  Brrr, sounds like you're snowed in; always better than being snowed OUT!

Obviously!, but don't worry about the rest.

Cheers

[CedB]

Crikey Ben, that's DEEP! Stay safe, and warm  

 

Walkaround reviewed. Nice.

It showed me that 281 had the side cameras closed. I'm not sure whether this is right, but I've blanked off the holes:

 

 

Pity I hadn't decided on that before I painted the inside of the nose

 

I've drilled out the cannon ports, very carefully, with a 0.8mm drill:

 

 

Now then, the internal fit.

Anyone who's kit fits perfectly can stop reading here.

 

Still here? OK.

Remembering the tips not to glue the tub to the wheel bay - OK.

I can see the lug on the fuselage that fits into the 'U' on the side panels:

 

 

But of course you can't see those when you 'offer up the parts' (fnaar!)

When you realise that the backplate goes outside it helps:

 

 

… but how about the gunsight?

 

 

Rats.

The problem is that, although the tub fits inside the canopy opening with the i/p and rear bulkhead fitting very snugly to the opening:

 

 

 

The BIG problem is that the wheel bay supports the tub and, as you can see here:

 

 

… not only lifts it but also centres it in the fuselage - the bay positioning frame is wider that the tub.

Note here I've cut off the rudder pedals and saved the pilot's feet (for a change).

 

To try to resolve this I've dry fitted the bay, positioned with Tak:

 

 

 

Looks good?

Trouble is the tub won't fit:

 

 

I think I need to sand the front of the sidewalls level with the floor.

Courage, mon brave.

Later.

[2996 Victor]

Crikey, Ced, this is looking fiddly! Given the amount of time it takes me to get anything done, I'm rapidly going off the idea of a Swift! However, I've no doubt you will conquer this particular mountain with your customary aplomb!

 

Kind regards,

 

Mark

[Properjob56]

this is bringing back bad memories....and you've still got to find room for noseweight...and find the right place for the nose light. I also found not cementing the tub to the nose bay helpful.

[Properjob56]

1 minute ago, Properjob56 said:

this is bringing back bad memories....and you've still got to find room for noseweight...and find the right place for the nose light. I also found not cementing the tub to the nose bay helpful.

Just seen you have found a place for the nose light...as I did and then found it wouldn't work and had to take it out again!