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"Stiles Skystreak" - Would Waldo Pepper Fly this 38 Year Old Airfix Chipmunk Conversion?


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This model started out as a Chipmunk, built by me around 1983, following a flight in a real Chipmunk from RAF Leeming with the Air Cadets. It sat in a box in the loft for many years and was discovered recently when moving house. Looking back, the build was quite crude, but I couldn't throw it out.

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I then remembered the film "The Great Waldo Pepper", which featured a modified Chipmunk starring as one of the planes in the film - the "Stiles Skystreak" ( screenshot below from the film ). The idea of converting the model to the film aircraft was born! I started work a couple of days ago on August 8th.

stiles_skystreak_000.jpg

Edited by Army_Air_Force
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It had been painted in gloss Airfix or Humbrol enamels, which after almost 40 years, were as hard as diamond! My normal use of a soak in brake fluid and a light scrub to remove the paint didn't touch it. It needed more effort.

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I ended up wet sanding it with 400grit wet & dry paper first to break through the top layer of the gloss paint, then scrubbed it with wire wool and brake fluid. This began to work. I know there are other substances that can strip paint, but I had nothing else in stock and wasn't going to wait.

 

stiles_skystreak_003.jpg

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Eventually, all the paint was removed, along with the canopy, wheels, and prop which weren't needed. Some of the detail was removed during the paint stripping stage.

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One pilot would be retained and refitted. The original kit dated from around the 1970's I think and as a result, it followed the trend of the time and was covered in dockyard sized rivets. All the heavy 1970's detail was sanded off. Some of the parts hadn't been joined with good alignment and so some sanding and filling would be needed. Most of the detail has been sanded here, but due to the silver grey plastic used back then, it still shows its previous location and so doesn't look like it's been removed at all.

 

stiles_skystreak_005.jpg

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Both tailplanes were a little loose, so they were removed and the elevators cut so they could be repositioned in the drooped parked position.

 

stiles_skystreak_006.jpg

 

There was quite a bit of filling to do on poorly fitting joints and where parts were removed. There would also be some scratch building needed to replicate the changes made to the aircraft for the film. It was all left to harden overnight. It's a smallish model, but not as tiny as the picture suggests. It is sitting on one of the large Humbrol tins, not the 14ml tinlets!

 

stiles_skystreak_008.jpg

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The following day, the filler was all sanded smooth before moving on to the new cockpit fairing. I'm sure there will be more filling needed, but I'll wait until I've got a little more built and have some primer on it.

 

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A piece of styrene was heated with a hot air gun and folded around some dowel to form a curved piece for the cockpit fairing. It was much biger than needed but would be slowly trimmed to size.

 

stiles_skystreak_010.jpg

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It was then slowly trimmed to fit the recess where the canopy formerly fitted. A rough cut first with scissors, followed by some marking of lengths and widths and further trimming with a scalpel and sanding blocks. The plastic was a little thick, but this would allow enough material to sand and blend the edges without cutting through.

 

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Once the fairing was a good fit, it was clamped front and rear and then a combination of liquid solvent and tube cement were used to attach it. Pencil marks show the location of the original rear cockpit so I'd know where to break through when the time came.

 

stiles_skystreak_012.jpg

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The fairing glue was left to set for a while before sanding and then further glue and filler were applied over the joints which was again left to fully dry. This fairing needs to blend smoothly before opening up one cockpit for the pilot. On the film aircraft, it looks like a large rectangular sheet of metal was used to fair over the original cockpits. The edges of this panel are quite obvious, so I may have to try and replicate this later in the build.

 

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The fairing was sanded slowly and carefully to blend the new plastic into the old fuselage without sanding the fin strake off or the top of the cowl.

 

stiles_skystreak_015.jpg

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After the fairing was fully blended, a small hole was cut for the cockpit using the tip of a scalpel. The hole was slowly carved out using further pencil lines as guides to the shape and how far down the fuselage the opening should be. The opening is smaller than the original cockpit opening, so the pilot's arms also needed slimming down to allow him to be slotted in later.

 

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The tailplane halves were glued back on next, then left to harden overnight. Some filled was added over the joints the next day and sanded later on. The elevators were also drooped at this point and liquid solvent run into the scored hinge line to set them in that position. That's as far as I've got in the conversion. Probably the next step will be a coat of primer to see what needs attention.

 

stiles_skystreak_017.jpg

 

While I've made a good start and it's not a big project, I'm not sure how fast it will progress. I've been slowly moving house over the last six months ( I own both houses at present ) and my workshop was one of the first rooms to sort ( see below ). There's still lots of work to do in other rooms, which are really more urgent, but I'll try and "Chippy" away at the model! 😉

 

workshop1.jpg

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- Very good idea to give this poor old almost forgotten Chip a new life. that reminds me my first built kits,in those days they were either Frog, Triang, or Airfix in their plastic bag with the green cement bulb.

- Be careful my friend, your wife may grow jaleous  of your working place......She probably has a lot of idea of what she could do with this large space

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2 hours ago, Army_Air_Force said:

I think my Chippy was a blister pack. Don't worry, that was always planned as my workshop. She's got a nice office in one spare room and there's still plenty more wifey spaces in the house!!

- Lucky man !   😄........."Blister pack" that's the exact term I was searching in my vocabulary....

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've been away in London for a week, so not much to report, other than I shot a coat of primer over the model before going away. That's had ample time to harden off now, so I can look the model over and see where it needs attention before going any further with details such as the bracing wires pylon and landing gear. Hopefully I can get a little more done this week. Wheels are going to be an interesting challenge as the original Chipmunk wheels were replaced with much larger wire spoked wheels in the film. I'm not a fan of after-market spending and would rather try to make something than buy it, so I'm interested to see where I go with this. I may well be as surprised ( or horrified ) as you are!

Edited by Army_Air_Force
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  • 2 weeks later...

Still not had any free time to do anything on the Skystreak, but I gave the primer a look over a few minutes ago and in general, it doesn't look too bad.

 

stiles_skystreak_019.jpg

 

There are a few sink marks along the filler line around the new cockpit fairing, as seen below. As soon as I've finished my coffee, I'm off to slap some filler on there. It will have several days to harden off as I've got a four day WW2 event with my Jeeps later this week.

 

stiles_skystreak_020.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

No progress on the Skystreak of late. I've been busy working on a larger project, my 1/1 scale Dodge WC51. After 13 years as a Flying Control truck, I'm converting it back to a more standard configuration. I'm racing to get the olive drab painted before the weather gets too cold and damp.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

It's been a while, but I found a few minutes today to do some more sanding of the filler around the cockpit and elsewhere, then another coat of primer. Not a giant leap forwards, but life has been a bit crazy.

Sanding anything has been difficult. I started stripping the lining paper off my daughter's bedroom in late June. Chiseling that off, then the multiple layers of 1970s and 80s paint, revealed crumbling plaster and a ceiling that was loose. The room had been part of an extension, leaving an ugly join/crack around the room. In the end, we needed a new ceiling and everything replastering, with a pause in the middle of the work for suspected asbestos. We just got the room finished last week. Add to that project, a month and a bit of chiseling the checkers off the Dodge then both painting the Dodge and the bedroom and I've ended up with severe tennis elbow.

 

It's very painful and fatiguing doing anything, particularly repetitive movements like sanding or using a screwdriver. As a result, I've been trying not to do anything that wasn't really moving the house project forwards and that pushed modelling to the back of my mind. We've been in the new place nine months now and have done a crazy amount of work, but my arm/elbow has suffered. So it's going to be little bits of work here and there, rather than large pushes to move the model forwards.
 

stiles_skystreak_021.jpg

 

stiles_skystreak_022.jpg

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As it happens, I'm waiting for a load of housey stuff to be delivered tomorrow, so I've been at a loose end today. Why not do a little Skystreak tinkering?

So after a fine surface sand, I drilled holes for the centre pylon struts. They are probably a little over size for this scale, but wanted something sturdy for sticking bracing to and didn't want to spend money and wait for something finer. The holes then had a rebate cut into the fuselage to allow the strut to sit further into the skin. 0.4mm brass wire was used for the struts.
 

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The rear strut came next, slightly shorter so that the wires can sit on top of the rear part and behind the front strut.

 

stiles_skystreak_024.jpg

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I'd printed out a drawing of the Skystreak, a Chipmunk side view that I'd tweaked based on photos from the film. This was larger than the model scale, but a good visual reference as to the general shape and positions. The upper part of the landing gear was made from brass tube, with a small brass pin in the top to locate into holes drilled in the wings.

 

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More 0.4mm brass wire was used for the oleo and axle, cyanoed in place. Once they were glued, the legs were cyanoed into the wing with a temporary jig to hold everything in place.

 

stiles_skystreak_026.jpg

 

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For the first time since August, the aircraft is back on its legs again. Another brass wire was fitted in the tail for the skid. In the screen captures from the film, it looks like the original leg just had the tailwheel and possibly the axle removed, just leaving the leg as a skid.

 

stiles_skystreak_027.jpg

 

stiles_skystreak_028.jpg

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