28 Sqn Whirlwind: A highly detailed, shake and bake kit

[Space Ranger]

4 hours ago, Martian said:

I thought we decided some time ago that it was all done by magic? Hopefully @Ex-FAAWAFU is consulting his book of spells as we speak.

 

Martian 👽

And as we all (well, those of us who don’t attempt to get airborne in the things) know, helicopters don’t really fly in any conventional sense; they are simply so ugly and weird that the earth repels them.

[Biggles87]

My mistake on the key, it’s obviously clockwork.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I don’t think those are engine controls at all; if you blow it up & turn upside down, it appears to say (something) SHUTTER OPEN on the quadrant with the black lever, and COLD CABIN HEAT HOT on the red one.

 

It would be a very odd place to put engine controls in a helicopter; almost all of them (certainly from Wessex onwards) had ECU controls on the overhead console 

[Pete in Lincs]

I concur that we seem to be looking at various different marks of Whirlwind with different controls.

As an aside, If I remember correctly, From the book Borneo Boys*, the piston engined version didn't have a rotor speed gauge,

so they had to use the fuel flow meter? to monitor how much power they had in reserve** in those hot & high conditions. 

*A brilliant read, BTW.

 

** Usually not a lot!

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

At the (very sober, honest) lunch after my Wings parade at Culdrose, I was sitting next to the Captain, a delightful man sadly no longer with us.  His wings course on 705 flew (piston-engined) Whirlies, and he said that power margins could be pretty iffy even in a Cornish Summer, so God knows what things must have been like in the tropics with any kind of load.  See also Chickenhawk for a memorable passage about being unable to hover outside ground effect over a minefield.

 

He also reckoned he seldom looked out of the cockpit in the circuit, because “our eyes were permanently glued to the Nr [rotor speed] gauge.”  Twist-grip throttle control, narrow usable Nr band, not yet enough experience to judge by ear…. Nerves of steel!

 

A Stylish Speedy Gentleman’s Conveyance like the Gazelle was a great deal more forgiving (except in spot turns when “fenestron stall” awaited the unwary).

[Pete in Lincs]

3 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

“fenestron stall”

I had to look that one up. Google provided this from Prune...

https://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-20002.html

[Biggles87]

Someone I worked with in Liverpool in the mid 60s had been a crewman on Whirlwinds (  he started on Sunderlands ) and he said they operated on what he called ' red line ’ power virtually the whole time. I presume they were the piston engined variety.

[perdu]

This

 

I really shouldn't but I want...

 

I think we can safely regard all the red key gubbins as being piston Whirly only.

If it's about vents and the like it might be about bleed air from the huge mesh engine cooling covers into the cabin system.

 

Thus not relevant.

 

No collective throttle, switches on the end of the stick, simpler up and down function.

 

When I see some wally flivvering about my local sky in his little Robbo and irritating buzzing motor (engine? Call THAT a engine?) I think about the lessons Bob Mason told me about in Chickenhawk* and marvel.

 

Not the same world for helicopter drivers any more either.

 

 

 

 

*still my favourite best ever fly a copter book

[Martian]

16 hours ago, 621Andy said:

Wow! Hendie has worked miracles with this kit. Off to RFI to see some more pictures.

 

Martian 👽

[Pete in Lincs]

9 hours ago, perdu said:

*still my favourite best ever fly a copter book

I really must chase down a replacement copy*. Mine flew off some time ago. A truly great read.

 

* Worldofbooks.com - 3.19 GBP and free delivery to UK. How can you say no? They have around 40 copies at this price. DO IT!

[perdu]

Still got mine, battered and well loved spine notwthstanding  👍

[perdu]

I thought I would try out my unused Airwaves cockpit set with a smidge of stupogoo

 

 

At least get a view of the HAS22 set's innards

 

no flash

 

 

flash, basic console shape maybe

[Norman]

Blimey !

[Fritag]

4 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

really must chase down a replacement copy*. Mine flew off some time ago. A truly great read.

 

3 hours ago, perdu said:

Still got mine, battered and well loved spine notwthstanding 

 

Still got mine.  Likewise battered.  Much read and re-read.  Simply the best writing.  Dunno if it helps that I wouldn’t have the technical knowledge to spot any helicopter-centric inaccuracies - but I don’t care cos it’s such a good read.

[CedB]

Still got my copy of Chickenhawk too. Amazing read.

Battered?

Like me, be gentle with your Kindles gents

 

[perdu]

8 hours ago, CedB said:

be gentle with your Kindles gents

Is this a vague, intentionally I desperately hope, reference to ones bodily... bits Ced?

 

Kindles?

 

Presumably a reference clouded in obscurity to said .. bits...

[moaning dolphin]

As always late to the party, just caught up. Glad to see you are giving this one the treatment. I have the Revell version (same kit) and I keep opening the box looking at the superb moldings and thinking of the exquisite final product ....... then putting it away again until I get build up the courage to do it!

Keep on motoring through this bugger!

Bob

[hendie]

oh my bloomin aunt Hilda with wellies on up a gum tree!  Replies?  There's a gazillion of them. 

Where do I even begin? 

I think I'll start by offering my apologies for not being able to respond to them all (of which I am sure you will be thankful) and instead lets just do an edited highlights, and pretend I did the rest too.

 

On 6/1/2021 at 4:40 AM, perdu said:

And when perusing the dear little HAR-10 at Hendon I made photyography with the insides, herein presented.

 

Bill - thanks for all those photographs. They have provided a wealth of information, absolute cause for confusion, and a bunch of rework due to learning more and more about this elderly mid-century rotational device. Seriously though - those photos are a wealth of information - many, many thanks!

 

On 6/3/2021 at 4:56 AM, Martian said:

Wow! Hendie has worked miracles with this kit. Off to RFI to see some more pictures.

Martian 👽

 

Martian - when I can produce models of that quality I know I can pack in the modeling as I shall have reached my pinnacle and never be able to better it.

 

On 6/2/2021 at 1:32 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I don’t think those are engine controls at all; if you blow it up & turn upside down, it appears to say (something) SHUTTER OPEN on the quadrant with the black lever, and COLD CABIN HEAT HOT on the red one.

 

Great catch Crisp.  Of course that led me to investigate just where did they put the accelerator pedal on this thing?  Oh yeah... more scratchbuilding ahead.

 

On 6/3/2021 at 3:45 AM, perdu said:

I think we can safely regard all the red key gubbins as being piston Whirly only.

 

oh thanks.  Now you tell me...

 

13 hours ago, perdu said:

Is this a vague, intentionally I desperately hope, reference to ones bodily... bits Ced?

 

between his sphericals, his kindles, and his sausages, may be we want to should install a Ced-centric porn blocker on this site

 

 

3 hours ago, moaning dolphin said:

I keep opening the box looking at the superb moldings and thinking of the exquisite final product

 

it would be nice to see one of these built as Revell intended - it would have a certain olde worlde charm about it.

 

 

Phew... made it.  Thanks to everyone who responded - it has made my week a lot brighter as I kept catching up with the replies.

 

To business.  When I left you last I had started work on the center console, and Bills' shots thereafter provided an abundance of information, most of which I've either ignored or misinterpreted, and perhaps tried to replicate on the odd occasion.

After serious consideration, I scrapped my last console template and took a different approach - this time by building up a framework from styrene square rod with the intent to sheet it once I had the shape right'ish.

 

 

That allowed me to construct the center console in stages - once I was happy with the framework, I could then slap on some sheets and trim it back, then on to the next stage...

 

 

Then after a few sessions we have a resemblance of a console.  At this stage in the game it's all a bit of a chance as I really have no reference or datums in the cockpit area. For example - how wide do I make the console? How wide are the seats? Scale creep is an insidious beast to consider as well.  Everything is really just done by eye and there's a good chance I may have to remake one or more parts later... who knows?  Not I

 

 

With that in mind, once I had a basic console, I decided to pack this modeling malarkey and take up origami instead 

 

 

However I was as poor at origami as I am at modeling so I went back to what I knew... console now sound-proofed.  Note the disc thingy on top of the console in preparation for the big red clockwork key...

 

 

I also knocked up what looked like a fuse panel with a couple of small lamps/lumps at the back end - this should sit on top of the console if all goes well.

 

 

I was actually looking forward to this bit... as Crisp observantly noted, what was initially thought to be throttle controls were actually air-con controls, but it was such a prominent part of the console that I wanted to replicate it.  Always one to ignore the signs, I had this brilliant idea of punching a wad of discs of varying thicknesses

 

 

... then laying small strips in between each disc to create this "laminate" of disc/space/disc/space and so on

 

 

then cutting and filing off what wasn't required, but twas not to be I'm afraid.  By the time I cut and filed - and this was as small as I could reasonably handle in my cumbersome digits, it was obviously waaaaaaaaayyy oversized. 

 

 

So, as is often the case, I reverted to what I should have done from the outset - used a piece of scrap runner and razor-sawed some slots into it.  A much less complicated approach, though even then it took me a couple of goes to get one small enough to be of any use.

Evolution of a heater control:  I'm going with the one at the front

 

 

Now I had the control unit I could greeblify the console, including the big red clockwork key. Other greeblies were added from plastic card, and lengths of 0.2mm stainless wire pretending to be switches

... then caught up on BM and discovered I was barking mad  up the wrong tree

 

 

So, (in a hissy fit) off came the key, to be replaced by more switches, and paint was spilled.

On the bottom left is another panel that will sit directly under the instrument panel - switches and knobs made from ss wire, and the smallest plastic rod I had in my stash. In close up it's terrible but there should be enough going on inside the cockpit to distract the casual viewer

 

 

In one of those "what on earth should I do now" moments (which basically means I was just wasting time), I threw in a red wire to provide some color variation in the cabin. Surprisingly effective for such a small amount of effort.

 

 

Time wasting over, it was time to start work in earnest again.  The general gist of all this work is to get the aircraft into a state where I can put side one with side two with some glue in between and start work on all the other stuff I've been trying not to think about. 

The instrument panel had been a bit of a puzzler for a while.  How do I make one while trying to maintain my (loose) objective of scratch not print? 

I searched around and came across these two instrument panels left over from that kit who's name must not be spoken.  Could this be of any use?  It's the wrong scale but... ?

Even though the WW IP is not that complicated I knew there was no way I could drill that many holes in a uniform array, and keep it all neat and tidy. Just not possible ('cept for Fritag of course). 

Okay, it would have been easy to print one, but I thought I would give this a bash to see what happens - all the while knowing that it will not be accurate - but this is all about enjoying the build isn't it?

 

 

Stage 1 was to create a template (above in white), then throw it around the two potential IP's to see what was possible (in pencil above). After I had some idea of what was going on, I trimmed both IP's and made a sandwich

 

 

Which was then shaped as per the template.  Okay, I realize I have half gauges falling off the top end but bear with me - I think I might be able to get away with this if you don't look too closely.

I thought the panel by itself was a bit flat so I started adding switches and knobs from the usual ss wire

 

 

It was all very random to be honest. My goal here was to make something that looked as if it could be an instrument panel and didn't look too ridiculous. The goal is not 100% accuracy which would be almost impossible given the limitations of the kit.  It's all about the enjoyment right?

 

 

After I had all the knobs and switches in place I had a dig around the decal stash and found a few old and battered instrument stickers.  I also had a bunch of airscale IP decals but unfortunately none of them were the right size.

As I said, these were old and battered, some were out of register, and some were a tad oversized, but once stuck on, I think if you stand far enough away it could look acceptable. (yeah, just noticed the lower row, third from right has slipped). Damn, one notch down the enjoyment scale now!   

With magnifiers on I was quite pleased with the outcome, but seeing it on screen I'm mortified.  My eyes ain't what they used to be. My hands ain't what they used to be. My hair... oh you get the gist

 

 

While that was drying, the fuse panel was fitted to the console.  There's fifteen "fuses" present on the panel, but believe me, I cut a LOT more than fifteen in order to get this far!

 

 

then a quick dry fit to get the mojo juices flowing

 

 

 

Now it was time to address the elephant in the room.  Seats.  I hate 'em.  I hate doing seats and I'm not really sure why.  They are not particularly difficult and at worst they are a bit time consuming, but certainly not difficult. I just hate them. Really.

I started with my usual method of knocking up a frame in brass rod, based loosely on dimensions from the left over italeri bits that I could no longer use since I now realized the seats were not that cargo net style abomination that seems to be used nowadays.

 

 

Then when I saw it in situ, I thought No!  Too short, let's start again.

This time I employed a different approach - I deliberately left the legs too long.  I positioned the frame in the cabin and marked where the rearmost leg was landing - then drilled w hole through the floor.  This allowed me to gradually trim the fwd leg (at the right in this shot) and keep dry fitting it until I was happy with the overall height.  It was a pig to drill that hole as it was towards the rear cabin wall and the roof was in the way, but it was doable.  I was pleased with how this method worked and will hopefully remember it for future seats 

You can just see the left side leg poking through underneath the floor here.

 

 

Now came the really tedious part - the seats themselves.  Aaarghhhh.

In (all?) my previous builds I think my go to material has been my old fallback -  aluminum tape.  It's always worked, but it has its upsides - one side is sticky, so it sticks to the brass frame easily. However, the downside is that one side is sticky - I can never get the stick cleaned off and it is a real pig to paint.  This time I reached into the darkest recesses of my grey matter and remembered that I used cigarette paper for the gangway bellows on Pegasus. Cigarette paper, or rather the paper that lines cigarette boxes can be an incredibly useful modeling material. Foil on one side and paper on the other, and with a very fine grained texture embossed on it.  It worked great for the bellows and when painted up did a great job of pretending to be canvas - so I though it would be worth a shot for these seats.

Paper side up as it's easy to paint - then found that cyano would not hold on the tinfoil side. Easy fix though - I simply switched to E6000 on the tinfoil side.

 

 

Twenty minutes later and we were in business!  The other great thing about this material is that the paper gives the very thin tinfoil a degree of strength - so you can wrinkle, twist, bend and so on and it doesn't disintegrate the way a thin unbacked tinfoil does, and if you have the paper side "on show", you can do all the twisty wrinkly stuff and the paint doesn't flake off the way it can from tinfoil.

 

 

Slap on some blue paint and I'd say the experiment was a success.

 

 

Once the seats are dry, I can paint the frame and start on the slightly smaller but no less annoying elephant of seat straps, seat belts, and mounting rail.   Then... go through exactly the same palaver all over again for the seats on the stbd side that will never ever be seen. By anyone. Anywhere. Ever.

 

until next time 

 

 

 

 

[perdu]

Thanks

 

Just thanks for a brilliant update.

 

[Fritag]

6 minutes ago, perdu said:

Just thanks for a brilliant update

 

Agreed; one of them ‘giant strides’ type updates - and yet full of delightfully crafted details.  Classic  hendification. 

[Terry1954]

Likewise, a superb update Alan.

 

And like @CedB and others, I still have my copy of Chickenhawk. What an inspiring read. I bought it many years back on a recommendation of a mate who is ex Paras, then ex Special Forces. He took me flying once, he had left the Army and recently qualified for his PPL. I recall we had a fairly scary moment during landing (not his fault). Afterwards in the bar, he suggested if I found that scary, I definitely needed to read Chickhawk!

 

Terry

[RichieW]

Can't imagine why you were mortified seeing the instrument panel on screen, to my eyes it looks fantastic. Loving watching this come together, it's great to see you having so much fun after THAT KIT! That single red wire is a lovely touch. 

 

Richie

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

On 6/3/2021 at 11:18 PM, Fritag said:

 

 

Still got mine.  Likewise battered.  Much read and re-read.  Simply the best writing.  Dunno if it helps that I wouldn’t have the technical knowledge to spot any helicopter-centric inaccuracies - but I don’t care cos it’s such a good read.

As far as I am aware, there are no inaccuracies.  Though I doubt it, maybe about details of the war - I am not qualified to judge; but he is 100% convincing on flying wobblecopters.  Indeed, the early chapters about learning to fly are by a mile the best description of rotary-wing training I’ve ever read.  I first read Chickenhawk while I was on Gazelles as a stude, and he totally nails it.  Superb book.

 

And a superb update, Alan.  This is 1/32, right?

[giemme]

1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

This is 1/32, right?

I initially thought it was 1/24, but I reckon  in that scale he would have scratch built working switches and knobs!!

 

I'm well and truly flabbergasted at the amount of art and craftsmanship you put into this, Alan  

 

Ciao 

[hendie]

On 6/2/2021 at 12:13 PM, Space Ranger said:

And as we all (well, those of us who don’t attempt to get airborne in the things) know, helicopters don’t really fly in any conventional sense; they are simply so ugly and weird that the earth repels them.

 

And there's me thinking you were joking...