Queen's Flight D.H. Heron II

[Black Knight]

I'll start off the builds list with this;

The Airfix D.H. Heron II

 

and I hope to get it looking like this;

[Black Knight]

That Heron went through a few owners in its life. 

It is not in the Queen's Flight in that photo. During its time in the QF it was those colours but did not have any writing above the windows or the squadron badge on the fin

 

Kit photos

 

 

 

The control surfaces are all separate pieces which is good as they all need painting a very dark blue and edged with white

More on the painting when I get to it

 

One decal I'll need is the Queen's Royal Cypher.

I've not come to this without due thought

I have decals for Royal Mail vans. These are too small for my vans but the small Royal Cypher will do. The smallest one is just 4mm in height

I've had to put them under my UV lamp to de-yellow them

 

Do I build a proper interior?

I think I just have to, don't I?

 

all for now

[Black Knight]

The control surfaces were cleaned up and painted a very dark blue. I've gone for WW2 RAF Roundel Blue

 

 

I've put 1.2g of lead and blue tac in each engine nacelle. I've also installed a small bulkhead in front of it and painted the interior matt black

 

Engine nacelles assembled and some fillers on the joints. The stairs assembled, and the tail planes. It was a change of mind and I've decided to do an interior and have the door open. The door is slightly too small and needs a thin strip of plastic card all round it to make a good fit when closed. Won't need that if its open but marks on its rear needed filling

 

And there are lots of divots in the main fuselage that needed filling

 

I'll leave the fillers to harden and the blue paint to cure for a couple of days

all for now

[Bertie McBoatface]

22 hours ago, Black Knight said:

Do I build a proper interior?

I think I just have to, don't I?

 

Those windows are both large and plentiful...

[CliffB]

Oh this brings back memories (but I'd forgotten about the passenger and crew figures).

[Black Knight]

I'm going to look through some scrap Airfix Ford Tri-motors for better aircrew figures

[Black Knight]

No progress to report yet

I've not had the opportunity to visit my storage unit to search through the scrap Ford Trimotor kits for pilots and I'm trying to get some other builds finished and off my modelling desk

[Black Knight]

I got to my storage unit and found the scrap Ford Tri-motors

Oh Joy! 

Look wot I got -

 

Two sets of interiors and 5 pilots.

I think with a little bit of improvement work 8 of those seats will do nicely. Saves me having to scratch make them.

Two pilots, still not the very best but better than the kit ones.

I'll be wanting more of these pilots so I'll have to look to taking a mould of them so I can cast copies.  (This is where 3D printing wins)

[Black Knight]

How are am I getting on with this?

Any progress to report or share with you?

 

1. stalled, but just for a wee short time  

2. Nope, nothing to show, maybe soon, maybe not,  

 

 

1 month has gone already!  

[Black Knight]

Blimey! so long since I did anything on this

I got side-tracked full-filling a small leatherwork order

 

Its odd where you will discover research material

I have another D.H. Heron which I think I'll do as Prince Philip's personal one

It had an 'Edinburgh Green' stripe along its flanks

As there appears to be no true colour photo of this Heron no-one can agree on what shade of green 'Edinburgh Green' is.

Even the city of Edinburgh cannot agree on the shade

 

Recently there was a memorial service for the Duke.

Like many I just looked at the pictures, read the news, and forgot about it

But the women's' fashion magazines picked up that the Royal women all wore green at the service

The better magazines reported more on this; the Royal women wore 'Edinburgh Green'

 

Now this is were it comes into our modelling; even though each Royal wore an 'Edinburgh Green' outfit, no two were the same shade of green!

So even they don't know!

 

I think when it comes to building the Heron I'll use Humbrol 76

 

Back to this build.

I thought that maybe the white striping on the control surfaces wrapped around into the hidden part but it appears not to

So its out with the thin white pin stripes decals

 

I'll be back with more on this build 

 

[Black Knight]

I've just been doing a lot of small work on this

I may have photos of the progress soon

[Black Knight]

A small bit of detail added to the roof of the wheel wells

 

The flight crew are ready and seated. I need to make their control columns

 

I painted the dark blue stripe around the windows so I wont have to mask them later

 

The interior is coming on. This is just a test fit. The pencil lines are where partitions are fitted. The seat placement is about right. Each passenger has a full window beside them. I'll copy this arrangement onto another piece of plastic card, then redo this one, copying the second. Two interiors as I plan to do Prince Philip's Heron as well and the seating arrangement was exactly the same. The Ford 5-AT seats are just about perfect. They are very close in shape to the Heron seats, just the backs need cutting down a bit, and they should be made a bit thicker, but I may miss that out. The floor of the Ford and the Heron are exactly the same width

And a bit of square U shaped tube plastic to box in the front wheel well

 

 

 

 

 

[Black Knight]

Another week gone by already !

The interior is just about finished. Just a couple of details to do then this can be installed

 

 

Masking of the outside of the windows and curtains on the inside

 

The engine pods are getting painted white ready for the special flash on them. I'm not sure what way I'll do them. I'm thinking of making one good shape, scanning it and copying it and printing it out as decals, or making one good one, copying it and making painting masks on Tamiya tape. The decal option may be easier

 

 

I still need to make the pilots' control columns, and a 1/2 bulkhead for the rear of the cabin

Then I can get all the bits into the fuselage and get it closed up

[Black Knight]

The pilots finally got their control yokes

 

And it was time to fit the interior

 

 

I decided to add a couple of VVIP passengers

 

The lady may look like she's fed up, but if I've done this correctly she'll be looking out of one of the windows

 

I can see a few bits which need paint touch-ups

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Nicely done!  Perhaps a light wash with a reddish flesh tone would enhance the faces a bit.  That, and some dry-brushing to details in the folds of the clothing would give just the right touch.

[Black Knight]

The wings are on. I used 'plastic soup' to stick them on - glue and fillers in one

As you see it here its a 'tail-sitter', but when the engines are on it sits on its nose wheel 

 

 

To save some time I pre-painted the tail wings (both sides) and the tops of the main wings with gloss orange, my favourite base coat for red. I have tried pink as a base coat but its no better than trying to cover white

[Black Knight]

Spot the difference!

Not much further on by the looks, but all wing to fuselage joints have been filled and smoothed. Those top joints of the tail planes is awkward due to the way the tail planes are angled up so much. Another coat of orange on the wings, just where it was needed. And the dark blue for the stripe painted towards the tail and all round the nose area. I have my own reasons for doing that

 

 

I'll try to crack on with this over the weekend.

1. Mask and fit the cockpit canopy

2. mask the whole run of the dark blue on the fuselage

3. orange on areas yet to get it

4. . . . .  lots of other things!

 

 

 

[Black Knight]

Last night I got the blue line taped over. Then I paint a dull aluminium over the blue which was showing past the masking

The cockpit canopy is on and the windows masked. Oddly Airfix hasn't marked the side windows on the part so I had estimate them

 

This morning the whole Heron was painted over with gloss orange, except for the cockpit canopy which got a coat of grey

 

The Royal Heron was finished in a high visibility red. I'll be using Humbrol 174 Signal Red. But that takes several coats to get an even finish so I'm using Humbrol 19 Bright Red first as a base coat, it covers well in one coat. I have to do it area by area, I need somewhere to hold!

 

And I've fit the aerial on the top of the fuselage and the mounts for the 'towel-rail' aerials underneath

I must crack on with the engines now

 

[Black Knight]

Several coats of red paint later;

 

Then the big reveal; how bad was the blue stripe? and then masked up and the black de-icing boots on the wings' leading edges painted

 

Not too bad. Now for all that white pin striping. On the tail planes I've tried some 'nail art' very thin white tape. Its less than 1mm wide and as thin as decal. And about the tail planes; when I tried the elevators there was a huge gap. I had to trim the elevators for a neat fit

Engine pods are coming on slowly

 

 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Nice, neat brushwork on this one!  It's most handsome.  You should use white decal for pinstriping if possible.  If you think the tape will hold, then fine.  

[Black Knight]

I have absolutely loads of white decal for this but I came across the 'nail art' coloured tapes and thought I'd try it out on this. As it is meant for finger nails it might be robust enough for a model, but its not opaque enough for my liking