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Safely Aboard: Airfix Buccaneer S. Mk 2C


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  • 1 month later...

And now, a postscript.

 

I just returned from the IPMS Nationals held in Las Vegas. The Buccaneer won second place in category, finishing between a Trumpeter SU-24 Fencer, and an AModel C-37 (Gulfstream V).

 

In a case of , "You can't make this up" after the judging was completed and while the room was still locked down the awards were placed next to the winning models. My award toppled over and smashed the Mighty Bucc. Canopy split in two, IFR probe swept away effortlessly and landing gear forcibly retracted in the wrong direction.

 

I was furious and basically inconsolable for several days.

 

Anyway, the basic structure held up well, and i have replacement parts coming.

 

-d-

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I was just reading through your RFI again enjoying the summary of your Buccaneer build and was horrified to read this postscript - you wonder how this could have happened - I look forward to seeing her emerge again from rebuilding so please post us some  photos when done.

CJP

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What a stunning Buccaneer build!:clap2::clap2:

I'm just as mortified to hear about the toppling trophy incident.

What a supreme irony to get an award which subsequently crashes into your carefully constructed model. 😬

 

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15 hours ago, KingTiger435 said:

Awesome! I honestly thought it was 1:48, great work.

That's actually one of the highest compliments you can pay to a 72nd scale model. Airfix deserves most of the credit, since this build is nothing like the slow moving trainwreck that the 48th scale kit is.

 

-d-

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Beautiful finish, my refernce build for the one I am currently plodding though.  Nose gear landing light noted.

 

Sorry for your loss. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/30/2021 at 9:00 AM, amos brierley said:

Firstly.      Oups 😬     Secondly.     Lordy-lordy how big was the trophy?     🏆

The trophy was about 8 inches high, about 4 inches wide and maybe 3/4 inch thick, tinted blue, frosted glass.

 

Its base wasn't very big. Beautiful trophy, but...

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  • 1 year later...

Well, something of a sequel.

I wasn't planning on building another 72 scale Buccaneer, but the Trophy wrecked my first one, and Brian Scott (F-104Nut) sent me a refugee (exile?) from his Shelf of Doom.

 

And so, before you can say "Lord Louis Mountbatten", i had another Buccaneer S. Mk 2C built up....

airframe-3

Anyway...

Construction of this bird largely repeats the build cycle of the first one, though this time i used an Eduard ZOOM photoetch detail set in the cockpit.

A couple things though are being changed up. First, i went to more effort to clean up the intake trunks, since i wanted to show off the nice inlet detail and engineering Airfix gives you here. Secondly, i think this model will have the rotary weapons bay depicted open.

The biggest task with backdating a Buccaneer to its almost-new standard involves re-profiling the horizontal tailplane fairing. It's located underneath the tailplane and it's usually hidden in shadow, so its not a well understood nuance of the Buccaneer structure. In a nutshell the whole fairing is slimmer and narrower in planform. The later Buccaneer fairings got a lot chubbier and the aerodynamic compromise was the juncture of two semi-circular cross sections at the trailing edge. The resulting tailplane bullet on the back end was slightly longer and a bit more pointy.

Empennage 003

With the tailplane fairing carved down to size, i'm attempting to avoid the trainwreck that occurred on the first Buccaneer, specifically the rather bad fit of the forward tailplane bullet with the stabilizer and the vertical fin cap (and the vertical fin cap was something of a disaster, too).

To that end, this time i'm installing the tailplane forward bullet first...

Empennage 002

We shall see how this technique works out.

I've also cut the flaperons from the wing trailing edge on this one. More on this aspect as things develop.

 

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Well done! I built the old Airfix Bucc many years ago (both 1/72 and 1/48) and have them in my case.  I have always wanted to do the early variant round intake Bucc in all white anti flash paint and a 2-tone scheme. Yours is nicely done and I appreciate the info on potential pitfalls in construction. 

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