Another Tupolev Tu144, RA-77114 the NASA one

[Adam Poultney]

As I'm sure some of you have seen, I built a Tu144 for my second entry into this group build. That one was the little academy 1/360 kit, actually quite a nice scale but it isn't as nice of a kit. I finished it a few days ago, and I'm already wanting to build another Tupolev. 

 

So why not build one for my third entry into the Unarmed Group Build? This one will be the Tupolev Tu144LL operated jointly with NASA in the late 90s. I've got aftermarket decals, I've got spares from a previous kit to get the Tu144D parts I need, I've got resin jetpipes. All ready to build this..... until I started looking at images of RA-77114.

 

After a bit of digging I found that RA-77114 flew exclusively with Nk-321 engines after the refit to the LL variant, and these were left in place on the stored aircraft after it was retired in 1999. In 2004/2005, it appears that they were removed (I assume to donate spares to the Tu160 fleet as it's a very similar engine), but oddly instead of simply being removed and leaving a big hole in the airframe like what happened to CCCP-77113 (which was scrapped in 2001), the engines were replaced with RD-36-51s (the original engines of the Tu144D) despite no plans to ever fly the aircraft again. All the good modern photos of RA-77114, which is now painted and restored as CCCP-77114, show these more normal jetpipes so there's actually not all that much easily accessible reference material on the internet to go off. 

This really doesn't help when the resin Nk-321 jetpipes don't have any instructions on how they should be fitted, what cuts to make to the plastic, etc. I want to use the Braz Models resin ones if I can, to make it accurate to its configuration in the late 1990s, since I've bought them already, but I may very well end up just doing the standard Tu144D conversion using the leftover parts from my Revell rebox of this kit and instead do it in its recent configuration. 

 

The jetpipes I have resin parts for

 

 

RA-77114 with the Tu144D jetpipes

 

A more recent photo after repainting and restoration as CCCP-77114 https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/registration/RA-77114

 

If I find further issues with making the LL accurately, I could just shelve the LL parts and decals for a future build and find some decals for a regular Tu144S or Tu144D instead. The kit decals cover CCCP-77110 which I've already done and CCCP-77109 which is one that I would consider doing.

 

Link to the other Tu144 (RFI)

 

 

 

 

[busnproplinerfan]

Noticed the overlapping flag decal on the tail. Hopefully they don't scrap the restored one like they did with the tu-114 that was on display.

[Adam Poultney]

8 minutes ago, busnproplinerfan said:

Noticed the overlapping flag decal on the tail. Hopefully they don't scrap the restored one like they did with the tu-114 that was on display.

 

 

Both of the remaining Zhukovsky Tu144s are safe. In 2006 it was announced both were to be scrapped and within the year CCCP-77115 was saved and RA-77114 was saved shortly after. Quite amazing really. Of the other Zhukovsky Tu144s, CCCP-77112 had just left for Germany not long before and CCCP-77113 (an empty shell) was scrapped in 2001.

CCCP-77115 was restored first, although for some reason they did not add the anti glare patch on the nose so it looks odd, but I like it. RA-77114 was finally restored in 2019 but in the Aeroflot scheme as CCCP-77114. 

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by Adam Poultney

[busnproplinerfan]

1 hour ago, Adam Poultney said:

 

 

Both of the remaining Zhukovsky Tu144s are safe. In 2006 it was announced both were to be scrapped and within the year CCCP-77115 was saved and RA-77114 was saved shortly after. Quite amazing really. Of the other Zhukovsky Tu144s, CCCP-77112 had just left for Germany not long before and CCCP-77113 (an empty shell) was scrapped in 2001.

CCCP-77115 was restored first, although for some reason they did not add the anti glare patch on the nose so it looks odd, but I like it. RA-77114 was finally restored in 2019 but in the Aeroflot scheme as CCCP-77114. 

 

Good to know. I just remember reading about a TU-114 that was outside a Russian airport on display then one day it was scrapped for no reason supposedly.

[Adam Poultney]

17 hours ago, busnproplinerfan said:

Good to know. I just remember reading about a TU-114 that was outside a Russian airport on display then one day it was scrapped for no reason supposedly.

I did a bit of reading up on that. Horrible thing that, such good condition and now only 3 left down from 5 not long before that was scrapped.

[Adam Poultney]

Construction started with the nose, this is simple and well fitting. There is no internal detail, but due to the low visibility through the visor little at all can be seen. The interior of the nose has just been painted black for now. This is much simpler than Concorde's complex retracing visor, the Tu144 just has the drooping nose with a fixed visor.

 

 

Trying to figure out how best to fit the resin Nk-321 jetpipes needs them to be removed from the casting blocks. 

Dust mask on and the sawing began

 

 

Here's a comparison of the three jetpipe types I have for this kit. Only the originals on the left for the Tu144S can be fitted without modification. I'll need to cut some plastic to fit the Tu144D jetpipes if I use those, I suspect this is the starting point I need for the modifications that will allow me to fit the Tu144LL versions as RA-77114 was built as CCCP-77114, a Tu144D. 

I think the plan now is make the modifications for a Tu144D, then look at where to go from there with the resin. If I can't figure it out, buy another kit to get decals for a Tu144D and just give up on the LL. Then use the original decals from this kit on the other Tu144 built as a Tu144S. Complicated, but I would the up with more Tupolevs which isn't a bad thing... so long as they're firmly on the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Andwil]

Nice T-shirt!

 

AW

[Brad]

Well there you go, I didn't know they operated one with NASA.

[Ray S]

17 hours ago, Andwil said:

Nice T-shirt!

 

AW

 

I was going to say that! Oh, never mind - nice t-shirt!

 

The Concordski looks great, and I am getting a liking for these Russian aircraft. Good luck with getting the revisions sorted out, I got lost quite early on.

 

Ray

[Adam Poultney]

54 minutes ago, Ray S said:

The Concordski looks great, and I am getting a liking for these Russian aircraft.

Perhaps you should build one

[Ray S]

9 minutes ago, Adam Poultney said:

Perhaps you should build one

 

The Ilyushin Il-62 'VC-10-alike' is next after the Twin Otter!

 

Ray (see, I did succumb)

[Adam Poultney]

Just now, Ray S said:

 

The Ilyushin Il-62 'VC-10-alike' is next after the Twin Otter!

 

Ray (see, I did succumb)

V-Ski-Ten?

[Adam Poultney]

Fuselage parts were assembled. Windows are painted black on the inside, plenty of nose weight added. Nose cone is just blue tacked in place

 

Wings were taped together and then taped to the fuselage to see just how big this is (ignoring the fact that I have two more of these on the other side of my room so I already know exactly how big it is)

 

 

 

[Adam Poultney]

And now it's all starting to go a little bit wrong....

So I started the modifications to convert to a Tu144D, and this was going just fine for a while....

Chop

 

 

Chop

 

 

Chop for the Tu144D style wingtips to be fitted

 

 

Well bugger.... This won't fit. The plastic isn't bent around the jetpipes, the jetpipes are just too small. Great. So I'll be going down the route of a Tu144D, however I think I'm going to keep the LL markings and do it as it was in the mid 2000s in storage at Zhukovsky.

 

 

 

 

 

[Adam Poultney]

I decided it was necessary to reinforce the fuselage using some bits of sprue. I've seen some pretty good ways of getting this to hold its shape including putting a plastic tube inside, but this it's simple, quick and easy. 

 

 

The intake for engines 1 and 2 has been assembled. You can't see much inside at all so the paint work is pretty rough in there, just don't look with a torch and magnifying glass and no one will ever know.

 

You also have to start the landing gear assembly at this point, one peice cannot be fitted later (on my previous build of this kit it ended up damaged and is quite weak and flimsy now)

 

This project also motivated me to have a proper look for some of the missing parts from my previous ICM/Revell Tu144. I eventually found them all in various boxes, painted them and attached them. It was built a bit over 2 years ago and looks ok on the shelf but don't look up close, there are some nasty seams and gaps.

 

 

Yeah those are some pretty nasty seams. Having a good look at this model will at least give me an idea of where to expect seams on this build. I won't even bother looking at my even older Tu144 model, when I built that I think I could make a gap between two perfectly fitting parts.

Found the retracted canards, didn't bother painting them up but here's what it would look like when pretending to be a Concorde

 

Big open jetpipes of the Tu144S, nicer than the D variant's ones I think. 

 

Big Tupolev, little Tupolev

 

And a what-if Concorde as an RAF transport

 

 

 

 

 

[Adam Poultney]

 

Tu144 windows tend to go orange when exposed to UV radiation for a while. I think all of the existing examples now have orange windows (fuselage windows, visor and cockpit side windows)the front cockpit windows on them don't seem to go orange, i don't know if this is because they are made from a different material or simply because most Tu144s still around today have spent a lot of time with the nose fully raised, protecting those windows.
To achieve this effect, thinned Tamiya X-26 was brushed on the areas which I want orange. As I've already painted the interior of the fuselage windows in black, these will just be slightly tinted orange. Less accurate but I think it will look better than the real thing.

 

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by Adam Poultney

[Adam Poultney]

A Levels are finally over and I can get back to modelling all day every day. I totally forgot to update this thread in the last few days but there has been a lot of progress in between the a level work. 

The second engine nacelle was built and the wings were assembled, I put plenty of supports inside the wing as I'm not overly confident in the way it was designed. No photos of the inside of the wing.

 

 

Some dryfitting and tape and now I have something that looks like a concordski. Like with my previous ICM Tupolev I'll be leaving the canards unglued to prevent any risk of them snapping. They slot in really well.

 

A distinct lack of tape in this next image, the wings were glued in place. These spent most of a day strongly clamped to the fuselage and still it left quite a gap which was swiftly dealt with with a good amount of filler.

Unfortunately the engine nacelles were a poor fit. I think I've made the seam fairly minimal, it's in the underside anyway so I'm not too concerned if it isn't perfect. I'll get a photo of that in a bit

 

Now I've started adding the control surfaces. I think the wingtips are wrong in this kit for RA77114 but I won't worry about that too much. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Adam Poultney]

It's been a while since I updated this thread and there has been quite a bit of progress on the kit. Firstly, the control surfaces were finished.

And after a bit of a break from this to build a Vulcan, a few last details were done in preparation for painting it white. No photos of this process as I forgot to take any, but it was a simple grey preshade on the upper surfaces with a coat of Vallejo white over the top.

Following that, the bare metal area was painted. I took an hour or two slowly masking this, I also had an episode of Breaking Bad on, hence why it took so long (I'm watching it for the second time now). The first step was a black undercoat which was then glossed.

Then Vallejo Dark Aluminium

 

Demasked, it's come out quite well.

 

Shifting the focus to the nose cone, it's finished. This was painted along with the main part of the airframe, and then the anti glare patch decal was added. The ICM kit does not provide this as a decal but the aftermarket sheet for RA-77114 does. This airframe had its anti glare patch painted a slightly different shape to the Aeroflot ones. The tinted visor has come out ok, this was not standard on Tu144s and is a result of being left out in the sun for years seen on all preserved airframes today.

 

The red wingtips were then painted, I did get some red paint where it shouldn't be but thankfully managed to salvage it and it looks just fine. Once this was done, the whole thing was glossed. The canards haven't been painted yet, they're just attached for the photo

 

 

Hardly any trace of rogue red paint

 

https://flic.kr/p/2m31kqn

 

 

 

[Brad]

Nice, that's a beast.

[Adam Poultney]

Well great, the tail decals are rubbish.

A few problems here. 

Firstly, they don't quite fit correctly.

They are too transparent so that when the decals for the parts that cover the rudder controls are applied, they just don't blend in well at all, especially on the blue area.

And they are too delicate to handle limited repositioning as would be necessary with this kind of decal. I also tore this one accidentally after I'd already given up with it.

 

so, starting on the other side I masked off the fin and painted the markings. I cut the tape into 8mm strips for the stripes, this is very close to what the measurements are on the decals.

 

 

But something looked wrong with this.

 

So I did the other side and it looked much better. Turns out I had done the first side at the wrong angle. The only logical solution was to start again. I stripped the tail on the incorrectly painted side and repainted it entirely. Thankfully there is less stuff in the way to mask over on that side so it was fairly easy to redo. And now it's almost ready for decals.

 

A better picture

 

 

 

 

I decided to add the landing gear now. I hate painting wheels, and this thing has 18 of them. As many as a Vulcan... or a Victor.... except they aren't nice pairs that are so close that you don't need to paint the metal bits in between, and can be glued into the paid before painting. These need to be painted seperately and assembled after painting, not even mentioning that none of the main wheels fit to the axles. I needed to find a drill bit of the correct size to get them to fit. Oh well, just get it done and then I can get onto things that are more enjoyable.

First step, prime them, and I did the rest of the remaining parts because well, I might as well.

 

 

 

I won't bother with pictures of all 18 mediocrely painted wheels, but here it is on the landing gear with the nose and canards on (the canards are now properly painted).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Adam Poultney]

Decals on and now wash time! This is always the fun part. 

 

 

 

 

And with the wash dealt with, I'm calling it finished... For now. I'm really not impressed with the decals, first the rubbish fin decals, now I discover the decal sheet is missing the top side serials for the wings. I've put up a wanted thread as other decals sheets include this scheme, so spares may be around, but if all else fails I can print them. If I can get these sorted, there will be another update but if not, it's not the end of the world.

 

 

 

 

 

And with the one I built two years ago

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brad]

That's really cool mate, well done.

[bianfuxia]

This is a really great build - well done! My model of the Tu-144 has stalled a bit, but this inspires me to get it going again. I really like the weathered finish you made. Just a great model!

[PattheCat]

Another great Concordski.

Nice finish with the wash.

[CliffB]

Nothwithstanding your frustrations with the decals, this has turned out beautifully Adam.  Congratulations!