Airfix Phantom questions

[Adam Poultney]

So I came back from uni early for Christmas because I want to avoid covid cases spiraling out of control. That means I'm back to my usual desk with an airbrush, plenty of space, etc. Looking through my stash for what to build, I think I'm going to do a little on my 1/32 Lancaster I started earlier in the year and maybe build an Airfix Phantom.

Just looking through the instructions and for photos of the aircraft depicted in the kit schemes, I've got a few questions.

 

Firstly, what is this part? What does it do?

 

Secondly, it looks like the aircraft depicted in scheme A, XT864, didn't have the small horizontal fins on the tail. Am I correct? What other similar, easily correctable mistakes are in this kit?

 

And thirdly, would a Phantom FG.1 ever have been parked with the nose gear extended to full length? I like the look of it with the extended gear, but I've also bought fod covers for it and don't particularly want to put any crew in it, nor do I really want the flaps/slats down. Would it technically be incorrect in this configuration?

 

[Black Knight]

Top photo; those are auxiliary intake doors. The Spey engine of these British Phantoms needed more air so those doors were fitted

[tweeky]

The answer to the first q is there the engine aux air inlet doors basically not enough air is entering the intake so these doors open to allow more air in. or they could be the excess air bleed from the compressor . 

[Wez]

With regard to those horizontal fins, they're ILS Localiser aerials, they wouldn't be fitted to an FAA FG.1 but I would expect an RAF FG.1 to have them, after all the requirement that put it onto the FGR.2 applies to an RAF FG.1, I'd have to go and check some photos though to be categoric on this.

 

EDIT: Just seen this picture in the thread of FGR.2 XV422, it shows a 43 Sqn FG.1 and that has the ILS aerials, is scheme A for XT864 a Pugwash jet or an RAF one?  If it's RAF it should have the aerials, if it's a Navy jet it won't.

 

 

[sniperUK]

The ILS antenna on the tail (the small fins) need removed for 864 two minutes with a scalpel and file will sort them ,the extended nose gear could be extended for display and maintenance purposes but the flaps, slats etc would usually also deploy .

 

IMG_5601 by Tony Osborne, on Flickr

 

IMG_5597 by Tony Osborne, on Flickr

 

IMG_5583 by Tony Osborne, on Flickr

 

IMG_5578 by Tony Osborne, on Flickr

 

IMG_5193 by Tony Osborne, on Flickr

 

IMG_5168 by Tony Osborne, on Flickr

 

IMG_5149 by Tony Osborne, on Flickr

 

 

 

[JohnT]

On the nose gear leg deployment I saw this asked before and the answer was it was only deployed for an actual carrier launch or at air shows etc to show capability/ display purposes and not otherwise

[iainpeden]

A few thoughts.

 

You'll notice the grills above the jet nozzles in the photos above - Airfix managed to miss them as they also did the very noticeable grills above and below the main intakes; fixable with a sharp knife.

 

There are various construction potential pitfalls.

The 4 way join of the fin, 2 fuselage halves and spine needs care!

The cockpit/fuselage fit is very (very) tight so a bit of sanding and dry fitting will help.

The location lugs on the intake trunking should be removed once the halves are dry, the lower ones in particular catch on the boxes (use unknown and removable) on the inner side of the lower wing panel.

The panel lines are deeper than on the 1:1 scale version.

The wing tanks should only have the "line" on the port side - it's actually the flange where the 2 parts of the tank are bolted together.

 

Interior of those aux intake doors are red as is the original interior colour of the airbrakes; however the brake doors on XV474 at Duxford have been over sprayed with LAG - giving a (mucky) pink appearance.

[stever219]

1 hour ago, tweeky said:

The answer to the first q is there the engine aux air inlet doors basically not enough air is entering the intake so these doors open to allow more air in. or they could be the excess air bleed from the compressor . 

I don't think they're blow-off doors for the compressors but rather to allow more cooling air for the airframe around the engines' hot ends when high power is selected at lower speeds.

[71chally]

Those small doors (D11) aren't extra inlet doors for the engines, they are too far aft for a start, along with the lower doors under the belly they allow a flow of cooling air around the engine bays and a relief of pressure in the same areas, they open below certain speeds and gear down.

 

The FAA Phantoms didn't receive the ILS aerials (the horizontal fins) on the tail.

 

The extendable nose wheel usually operated when the aircraft was set up the catapult by a switch operated from by the deck party, ie wouldn't taxy like it, however the FAA often displayed the Phantom at air shows jacked up like that, and usually accompanied by a very impressive ( but operationally unrealistic!) weapons load, so make great modelling subjects.

Worth Googling Phantom Yeovilton 1970 and the few years after for some nice images..

[Duncan B]

The second extension on the NLG was (electrically) disabled on the FG.1 once they were in RAF service so you wouldn't ever see a RAF one jacked up at the front at an air show but the FAA used to display them like that. The switch was inside the NLG Bay.

The aux air doors on the fuselage sides would be fully open on the ground/at low airspeed with the engines running but would quickly bleed off to a nearly closed position once the engines were shut down on the ground, they would fully close in flight above a certain airspeed (that everything else would also retract at but I've forgotten exactly what speed that was in the passing years, around 220kts I think).

The ILS aerials are a RAF fit only, usually added at the same time as the RWR on top of the fin if the aircraft didn't already have it but there was at least one aircraft on 111Sqn that had the ILS but no RWR at one point in the early '80's.

 

Duncan B

[iainpeden]

23 hours ago, Duncan B said:

 

 

 

The ILS aerials are a RAF fit only, usually added at the same time as the RWR on top of the fin if the aircraft didn't already have it but there was at least one aircraft on 111Sqn that had the ILS but no RWR at one point in the early '80's.

 

Duncan B

Good excuse to browse Dick Ward's book "Phantom Squadrons of the RAF and RN" (but who needs an excuse?

There's a picture in there of XV589/P in low-viz markings - including half size triple scimitar marking on the fin and no lightning bolts - with RWR but no ILS. (dated 26/04/1980)

[Ray_W]

Hi Adam,

 

Re: auxiliary air doors, good answers from Duncan  @Duncan B and James @71chally.  This was also nicely discussed in a previous post. Has some other info and images you might find useful:

 

Ray

 

[sloegin57]

1 hour ago, iainpeden said:

There's a picture in there of XV489/P in low-viz markings - including half size triple scimitar marking on the fin and no lightning bolts - with RWR but no ILS. (dated 26/04/1980)

I think you will find Ian that that is a result of printing the colour photo I sent to Dick, whilst we were sorting out the shots for the book, being printed in mono.  Here's the original colour shot of mine I sent -

 

HTH

Dennis

 

PS - later lost on approach to Alconbury - both crew out OK.

[71chally]

2 hours ago, iainpeden said:

Good excuse to browse Dick Ward's book "Phantom Squadrons of the RAF and RN" (but who needs an excuse?)

No excuse needed, it's one of my favourite books, love the photo sizes and selection and the info, though brief, was written at the time of the aircraft in service. Can be brought really cheaply aswel!

Noticed Dennis' picture credits in there aswel!

[Adam Poultney]

19 hours ago, Wez said:

With regard to those horizontal fins, they're ILS Localiser aerials, they wouldn't be fitted to an FAA FG.1 but I would expect an RAF FG.1 to have them, after all the requirement that put it onto the FGR.2 applies to an RAF FG.1, I'd have to go and check some photos though to be categoric on this.

 

EDIT: Just seen this picture in the thread of FGR.2 XV422, it shows a 43 Sqn FG.1 and that has the ILS aerials, is scheme A for XT864 a Pugwash jet or an RAF one?  If it's RAF it should have the aerials, if it's a Navy jet it won't.

Ok thanks for this info, it's a Navy jet so I'll take them off. Would be a pretty dull build if there was no plastic butchery required

18 hours ago, iainpeden said:

You'll notice the grills above the jet nozzles in the photos above - Airfix managed to miss them as they also did the very noticeable grills above and below the main intakes; fixable with a sharp knife.

 

Certainly will have a look at this, I'll see if they're worth adding.

18 hours ago, iainpeden said:

There are various construction potential pitfalls.

The 4 way join of the fin, 2 fuselage halves and spine needs care!

The cockpit/fuselage fit is very (very) tight so a bit of sanding and dry fitting will help.

The location lugs on the intake trunking should be removed once the halves are dry, the lower ones in particular catch on the boxes (use unknown and removable) on the inner side of the lower wing panel.

The panel lines are deeper than on the 1:1 scale version.

The wing tanks should only have the "line" on the port side - it's actually the flange where the 2 parts of the tank are bolted together.

Thanks for the heads up on these perennial issues. 

Noticed the panel lines on another build on here, usually I don't mind deep panel lines that much but they did look excessive. Might fill them with ppp since that won't completely eliminate the panel lines but will reduce them nicely.

17 hours ago, 71chally said:

The extendable nose wheel usually operated when the aircraft was set up the catapult by a switch operated from by the deck party, ie wouldn't taxy like it, however the FAA often displayed the Phantom at air shows jacked up like that, and usually accompanied by a very impressive ( but operationally unrealistic!) weapons load, so make great modelling subjects.

Worth Googling Phantom Yeovilton 1970 and the few years after for some nice images..

Yeah makes sense that they wouldn't want to taxi around like that. Maybe I'll do it as if it were on display, but without all the weapons; I prefer building my models without them attached. 

[iainpeden]

4 hours ago, sloegin57 said:

I think you will find Ian that that is a result of printing the colour photo I sent to Dick, whilst we were sorting out the shots for the book, being printed in mono.  Here's the original colour shot of mine I sent -

 

HTH

Dennis

 

PS - later lost on approach to Alconbury - both crew out OK.

That was on the 3rd June, 1980 - so a reasonable supposition that ILS hadn't been fitted or markings changed at time of the accident. (For those who don't know the nose cone came open due to worn locks.)

[71chally]

Think it's a number typo🙂, but the accident was with XV589, there's some dramatic images of it minus crew in various books and on the 'net.

XV489 survives as a cockpit section.

[keefr22]

8 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

I prefer building my models without them attached. 

 

You don't need to attach them, a favourite air show display was to lay out all the weapons an aircraft could carry on the ground in front of it.....

 

Keith

[stevehnz]

17 hours ago, 71chally said:

Can be brought really cheaply as wel!

Wish you wouldn't say things like that James, some of us are easily tempted. A deal now done.

Steve.

[iainpeden]

15 hours ago, 71chally said:

Think it's a number typo🙂, but the accident was with XV589, there's some dramatic images of it minus crew in various books and on the 'net.

XV489 survives as a cockpit section.

TYpo corrected - thanks

 

EDIT:

as it happens a panel from XV489 also survives in my garage. Not sure if it's port or starboard but it has the full serial on and was bought at Bruntingthorpe. years ago.

[Duncan B]

Note the aileron droop with the flaps down in Dennis's photo, that is the best visual clue to differentiating between an FG.1 and FGR.2 as you will get from that angle (if you can't see the serial number and markings). More subtle is the angle of the nose leg but you can see it is ever so slightly angled aft of perpendicular on the FG.1 in that photo (to take account of the double extension when in use).

 

Duncan B