Airfix 1/144 SRN/Mountbatton class cross Channel hovercraft

[airfixpeter]

This is one of my all time wants and as I have missed out a few times in getting one the last time I had seen one was a little nipper and my brother had one. 

I will be building the BR Sea speed Princess Margaret with half and half roof only a couple of sprure shots as the rest is in bags. 

[Brad]

Sweet choice mate, welcome along.

[PattheCat]

Good choice. I book a seat.

[airfixpeter]

Time to start construction the car deck has received a coat of paint and as the floor of the passenger cabin and i have started sorting out the skirt sections as most of them have dropped off the spures

[Mjwomack]

Oh it's a dream. I've never even seen inside the box before. Curious as to why the BR logos are printed back to front

[airfixpeter]

43 minutes ago, Mjwomack said:

Oh it's a dream. I've never even seen inside the box before. Curious as to why the BR logos are printed back to front

I didn't notice that never mind i am off to a railway model shop next week so I will try and pick up some the right way round 

[stevehnz]

I can't recall seeing one of these built before so I'm along for the ride. As a kid reading Look & Learn magazine, I thought they seemed pretty cool, sadly, by the time I could've gone on one, they were no longer. I took the train instead.

Steve.

[dnl42]

Looking forward to this! 

[JeroenS]

We sailed (?) to the UK a couple of times on holidays on one of these. It was good fun when they "got the air going" and you were lifted up in the air as the skirts filled up. 

[airfixpeter]

More work done i have the skirts fitted and whilst working on the inner walls found some bad miss moulding as there is a big chunk missing on the starboard side rear and a smaller piece on the port side rear. 

Should be easy to fix. 

[dnl42]

I'm very much enjoying this, as I've always wanted this kit. 

 

I see there's fine detail of the skirt's construction as a collection of cells. Will there be any representation of the lift fans that inflated the skirt?

[Heather Kay]

23 hours ago, airfixpeter said:

I didn't notice that never mind i am off to a railway model shop next week so I will try and pick up some the right way round 

 

Don't bother. The logos were reversed for shipping. Check out photos of the Sealink ferries, where you'll spot the logos reversed on the funnels.

 

I was a bit wrong. Logo reversed on one side of the ship.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealink#Livery

[airfixpeter]

8 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

The logos were reversed for shipping

Thanks for pointing that out but i have just taken a look at some pictures and on some they are  one way round and on some they are the other way but on the hovercraft they are definitely the wrong way round 

[Heather Kay]

4 minutes ago, airfixpeter said:

Thanks for pointing that out but i have just taken a look at some pictures and on some they are  one way round and on some they are the other way but on the hovercraft they are definitely the wrong way round 

 

I've been trying to find out if they should be reversed. The internet is not helping today! 😄

 

The Wikipedia entry states the upper arrow always points to the front of the vessel, which is why one side looks wrong on a ship's funnel. I think some Google-fu for pictures of period Seaspeed SR.N4s is needed here.

 

EDIT: And, sure enough, I manage to find images that show I am completely barking up the wrong tree. As you were, with apologies for the sidetrack. 

[PeterB]

As far as I can see from You-Tube all upper arrows on the Port side of the nose and fins point to the rear and those on the starboard side point to the front so looked at from above they go round in an anti-clockwise circle, or at least they did at that point in time - don't know if it was changed later, That makes the the decs wrong I guess unless they differed from one machine to another? I believe the one in the film clip was "The Princess Anne".

 

Pete

Edited May 3, 2021 by PeterB

[Mjwomack]

On 5/3/2021 at 5:53 PM, PeterB said:

As far as I can see from You-Tube all upper arrows on the Port side of the nose and fins point to the rear and those on the starboard side point to the front so looked at from above they go round in an anti-clockwise circle, or at least they did at that point in time - don't know if it was changed later, That makes the the decs wrong I guess unless they differed from one machine to another? I believe the one in the film clip was "The Princess Anne".

 

Pete

And suddenly it's all got very complicated... I can't find anyone who does appropriate decals- how's your hand painting?

[airfixpeter]

16 hours ago, Mjwomack said:

And suddenly it's all got very complicated... I can't find anyone who does appropriate decals- how's your hand painting?

Hand painting don't even go there!! 

[dnl42]

You could print decals or cut masks. I see that SVG files are available on Wikipedia that you could use as a start if your first try.

 

HTH

-- 

dnl

[roginoz]

Can you not cut the decals in half and turn them over ?

[a serious question....]

[PeterB]

At least they are black not red so printing on clear decal paper should be relatively easy!

 

Pete

[Adrian Hills]

What is wonderful about this kit is that practically all the parts are numbered, on the piece. This made it very easy to do an inventory and find out what parts were missing. I am sure Airfixpeter and myself will have a lot to discuss 🙂

[PeterB]

Before you do anything cn I suggest you check and see if you can find any pictures of the actual machine. The one in the BTF film on You-Tube is The Princess Anne, and it seems possible to me that they might just have reversed the arrows on the Princess Margaret to make it easier to work out which was which from a distance - its the sort of daft thing that sometimes happens, and in that case your decs would actually be correct rather than somebody making a rather glaring mistak

 

Later-

OK forget that, I have finally managed to find a British Pathe newsreel shot of The Princess Margaret going up the Thames in the early livery (most other pics are the later one) and the arrows are the same as The Princess  Anne so the decs are wrong. Don't know if you have ever printed your own decs but this one is easy - scan the decal sheet in as a JPeg, flip it horizontally, use a paint program to change the background colour to white, print on a sheet of clear decal paper, brush or spray on a couple of thin coats of clear varnish and that's it providing you have not changed the image size - if you have you will have to re-scale them! Airfix can hardly complain about breach of copyright as you are correcting their error. If you can't do it send me a PM and I might be able to do them for you.

 

Pete

Edited May 5, 2021 by PeterB

[airfixpeter]

i seemed to have solved my problem i have very carefully cut around and made a mask witch I will transfer to some spare vinyl to make a proper mask but here's the first go and the result. 

i know its still the wrong way round but that will be sorted out 

[Adrian Hills]

Was hoping you would have got a bit more done. I’m sparking up again so let’s get these both done for the deadline 😊

[Adrian Hills]

Hi AirfixPeter,

Not sure if you have come across this : Builds - Airfix 1/144 scale SR.N4 Hovercraft | Army Rumour Service (arrse.co.uk). Most useful.