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Dragon Lady 1/72eme


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Hello Everybody!

 

Here is number three and the last "Blackbird" of my USAF collection: The famous U-2. For this special bird, I chose the Special Hobby kit SH77070, sold as an U-2S or ER-2, enabling to build a Senior Span, Senior Ruby and Senior Spur/ASARS II configuration at the same time.

The kit is quite good, shape and dimensions are overall OK. The problem is to attach the long wings to the fuselage, the best option is to add solid spars before gluing them. Also, the radome needs to be carefully positioned to the top of the fuselage, as it is  vague in the instructions sheet.

What I did to improve the kit:

- Cockpit re-done;

- Flaps down and airbrakes inner details added;

- Extra works for the typical undercarriage, as quite basic in the kit. I finally scratch built the wheel wells, the rear u/c and the outriggers;

- Air intakes, they need to be deeper. one as an additional air scoop inside, not given in the kit;

- To have an accurate "R", I added some extra bumps after reviewing some photos. the antenna farm may differ from one aircraft o another;

 

The kit is done as a "S" but the vacform canopy is for a "R", the "S" has a frameless front one. Painting the model was a challenge to me as I am not familiar with large aircraft. I used several shades of grey-black, but I kept the overall aspect quite clean, as the aircraft was in the 90'S during the Allied Force period. the lettering of the decals provided seemed too thin to me but I was lazy doing new ones...may be one day! 

 

Here are the photos:

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and the diorama: the pickup come from F4 Models, difficult to assemble, the crew ladder is homemade:

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As a conclusion, Special hobby provides a very good basis for a decent U-2R, but not an "S". Thank you for watching!

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23 minutes ago, Bobby No Mac said:

That's a really impressive build of an interesting aircraft. Definitely need to get one for myself someday soon :like:

Thanks a lot! I spent some times improving the SH kit, unfortunately they didn't provide any option for the canopy to go for an "S" which offers more options for weathering:

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I used a lot of photos to capture the numerous bumps and humps spreader all along the airframe, a good walk around is necessary. To my opinion, if you want to go for a 90's era or post 2000 U-2, SH is OK, however decals choice from aftermarket is zero.

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11 hours ago, Taylor Durbon said:

Well done Patrick. I have this kit in my stash too, but not the guts to tackle it. Have you some picturesof the build, especially how you take the wings to the fuselage?
Greebtings from Germany

Hi Taylor! Thank you for words. Unfortunately I lost all photos of this build after the motherboard of my Mac crashed w/out notice... 

However, this kit is not too complicated to build the main challenge, as I said, is gluing these long wings to the fuselage and this is what I have done:
1/ drill two holes in the wing root of each half fuselage, aft and forward. Obviously these holes should be perfectly symmetric (I forgot the diameter);

2/ when the fuselage is completed, I have inserted a 12 cm copper tube in each hole, acting as a spar. I can't remember their diameter but they should match the wing thickness. These spars should protrude by 5 cm, basically from the wing root to the wing pod;

3/ the trickiest part is to carefully glue the wings at the same time you put on them on the spars. From memory, I didn't put a lot of putty, the wings fit nicely to the fuselage;

Here is a photo taken from a modeler's topic illustrating how it should be. I made longer spars than these ones to ensure that the result will be solid:

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This technique is used for large kits when the model doesn't offer "false spar" to glue the wings to the fuselage, like Airfix kits in the good old days...

For the rest of the modifications or additions (they are many), as usual a good set of photos is mandatory as the SH kit is more given as an ER-2 (NASA U-2) rather than an operational U-2R. Thanks God, the iconography is plenty, I recommend you to select a specific s/n because of the variation of sensor from one aircraft to another one. That's it! Don't hesitate to ask if you have more questions. 

 

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