There was a demon that lived in the air.... 1/48 X-1 and B-29 Mothership 75th Anniversary FINISHED! And a "small" Post Script

[LorenSharp]

Oh, I see you've noticed the Orange crate on the flight deck. Funny you should mention that. It turns out the U. S. Air Force and their "to quote John Hammond, Spare no expense" to have the best of everything in their flight test equipment, gave Yeager an orange crate to sit on behind the Aircraft Commander while the B-29 flew to release altitude. Nothing like supplying the test pilots with the best of everything. Well after I read about the crate I had to add one to this build. So I printed one out

Of course no seat belts for the crate, he wouldn't be sitting on it that long.

[LorenSharp]

With the top done, need to work on the nose gear well next. 

I removed all the detail in preparation for the P/E

Nothing like working with microscopic brass  to wile away the hours. 

But after a day of doing my best not to feed the carpet monster, I did manage to get everything added. I did have to print new pressure bottles for the nose bay.

Then a coat of paint.

Flight deck/nose well done..... Check.

Now to the other part of the cockpit before going on to the bomb bay. Insulation and wiring.

 

[LorenSharp]

Something I was afraid of when I did it concerning the foil insulation. Paint , even etching primer doesn't adhere to the metal. And as such  will scrape off at the least little provocation. Constantly having to touch up areas after  working on it. But I did get some boxes and other things added along with a little bit of electrical wiring made from sewing thread.

Actually came out pretty nifty all things considered.

[LorenSharp]

Moving on to the Bomb bay, at least one side anyways.

I gave the bay a coat of gloss black lacquer and after that dried overnight I sprayed a coating of Alclad II Stainless Steel

Most of the surfaces with the exception of the tube and some bracing was natural metal. anything else was zinc chromate.

Like when I did the B_36 I used different coloured thread for the wiring and .3mm beading wire for control cables.

The communication tube I cut short as the tail of the X-1 wouldn't have fit right. 

[LorenSharp]

I did print out new oxygen bottles to add to the bay.

These will be added last when everything else is done before buttoning up.

The other side still needs the wiring and extras added, Then the main spar and its plumbing will be after that. Followed by the equipment needed to support carrying the X-1. So   Slow but sure but progress is being made.

[LorenSharp]

Something I overlooked and for fogot in the update.

 I printed out a set of cockpit heater hoses and added the wiring and panels to the bulkhead to the bomb bay. Now I return you to your regularly scheduled programing.

[billn53]

1 hour ago, LorenSharp said:

 

Printed a new Emergency Brake handle 

Is this the one?
 

 

[LorenSharp]

Gotta love "Air" brakes.

[dnl42]

10 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Is this the one?

I recall a showing of Looney Tunes at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA in NYC) in the mid 80s. The audience was filled with adults who had grown up on those cartoons on TV.

We may or may not have been reciting some of the lines while watching. 

[Pappy]

10 hours ago, LorenSharp said:

If I remember right Welch's Airspeed Indicator were, as many of that time period, very inaccurate especially at the upper limits near Mach 1. Even Yeager's airspeed indicator had issues, it wanted to read higher than actual, He even noted that in the flight before.

In Welch's case there was no way to prove one way or the other. From the ground no "Boom" was heard as there was in the X-1's flight.  So even though it's mentioned in the history books it's not considered as an actual first breaking of the Sound barrier. Later it was confirmed that the F-86 could break the sound barrier in a shallow dive but that finally happened later in it's flight test.

 

This was from an article in Air and Space magazine, I don't have it any more, but people on the ground actually reported hearing  a double boom (consistent with a supersonic flight) and thought it was an aircraft crash. The reason this information was not made public at the time was that they wanted to protect the capability of the next frontline fighter. There was also a political dimension in that the Bell X-1 was the programme that was designed the break the sound barrier. The secrecy around Yeager's flight was to protect the integrity of the design, namely the all moving tail plane (stabilator). Previous attempts had failed for a number of reasons, one of which was shockwave formation on the tail plane at the elevator, resulting in severe transonic buffet (as reported by Yeager - 'Just the usual instability') but this also rendered the elevator ineffective due to the phenomenon of aeroelastic divergence in which the horizontal tail plane actually twisted on the opposite sense to the elevator, which with 'up ' elevator would actually result in greater downward pitch moment. In the (fictional) movie The Sound Barrier, the hero has a breakthrough in which he pushed the stick forward, lots of people would ask Yeager if this was how he broke through, which always left him bemused. The hydraulically actuated all moving tail was the solution and it was this feature of the X-1 design that the secrecy was attempting to protect.

 

I do not doubt that ASIs of the time were not very well calibrated to cope with the effects of compressibility on airspeed measurement. The other reason that Welch was not credited was that the F-86 needed something like a fifteen degree dive to go supersonic, and hence could not claim the record.

 

In any case, Yeager has the record 

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited September 6, 2022 by Pappy

[ArnoldAmbrose]

8 hours ago, LorenSharp said:

But speaking of more "bonkerness" (I know that's not a real word)

Gidday Loren, once used on Britmodeller a word becomes official. 🙂

I'm not knowledgeable on wingy thingys but you've done a very detailed interior of the aircraft. And it's good to see that Chuck's comfort on the flight up was given careful and thoughtful consideration.

       Regards, Jeff.

[JeffreyK]

Taking notes as at one point I'll do the same, B-29 in stash, several X-1 kits as well...

And then there is my "ultimate lifetime project" of NB-52B with X-15-3 under the wing. I have both the Sanger and HPH kits and plan to use Sanger parts to back date the HPH to the early configuration. However, I may end up drawing lots of parts in CAD instread as I'm not too confident about the Sanger shapes and details...

But first the X-15 

Jeffrey

[LorenSharp]

14 minutes ago, JeffreyK said:

Taking notes as at one point I'll do the same, B-29 in stash, several X-1 kits as well...

And then there is my "ultimate lifetime project" of NB-52B with X-15-3 under the wing. I have both the Sanger and HPH kits and plan to use Sanger parts to back date the HPH to the early configuration. However, I may end up drawing lots of parts in CAD instread as I'm not too confident about the Sanger shapes and details...

But first the X-15 

Jeffrey

Cool! Cant wait to see the finished product.

[Pappy]

This is looking great Loren, your additions, especially your printed stuff is really lifting this to next levellness!

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[AdrianMF]

Looking good!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[LorenSharp]

On 9/6/2022 at 12:44 AM, Pappy said:

This is looking great Loren, your additions, especially your printed stuff is really lifting this to next levellness!

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Thanks Pappy. Elevator is only going up on this build. At least I hope so.

 

On 9/6/2022 at 3:01 AM, AdrianMF said:

Looking good!

 

Regards,

Adrian

Thanks Adrian more about to be revealed.

[LorenSharp]

Speaking of revealing, let's see how things are progressing.

With the front interior done its time to put the halves together.

As I was afraid, once you get past the canopy windows, everything disappears. We know its there and the extra weight, what there is, will help kepp this from being a tail sitter. I forgot to take picture of the nose weights, but I placed 80g of stick-on wheel weights in and around the nose bay. I may need more but I can add those to the engine nacelles if necessary. One good thing about removing the turrets, there's more room for weights

 

[LorenSharp]

The extra interior work required a little bit of shifting and encouragement of a few choice words to get the halves to fit together.

I made the preliminary "dimple" for the X-1's nose from some flat card cut into sections and mated together  to work out the multiple compound curves.

I'll smooth out the imperfections with some filler. The drop bay will still need more work in the form of the LOX top off hose, fuel dump tubes and bracing, The anti-sway braces and blocks, some more wiring and the elevator to the X-1 I'll add those once I get the joins smoothed over.

[LorenSharp]

Since there aren't any turrets and the fire control director isn't needed I used some .010 thin card to act as a filler base. I hated this portion of the build the first time I built one of these. Then I used good old Bondo spot putty. The brick red stuff.made for a reddish-pink dusty mess. This time will be different. This Time I'm using White filler. It'll still be a  dusty mess , but it won't be red.  

So the first thing will be to mask everything off to be filled. This will keep my sanding to an absolute minimum and prevent damage from the sanding paper on anything that's going to be aluminum

I still have the cockpit glass to mask off and add before i start that but I'll let this dry for a while before sticking those on.

[LorenSharp]

While The fuselage is setting up and drying some I'll begin work on the wings.

The flaps and ailerons have been removed and the new exhaust pieces have been cut away from their backing.

Then time to remove the old exhaust and replace them with the updated parts.

Since this is a kit that first came out in the late 70's the plastic is very thick. But not surprising considering the size of the finished model.

That means to assist in cutting the old pieces away, I drilled out a bunce of holes around the perimeter to make removing the plastic easier. Still a pain in the backside to remove, but a lot easier than what it could have been.

Then just a matter of attaching the new parts. Will need a little bit of filler though.

Same as the fuselage, masking to keep damage to a minimum. Granted it won't be as noticeable being painted gloss black once done, but still will be fine in the end result.

[LorenSharp]

These will also dry overnight then I'll start sanding everything down smooth followed by re-doing the main gear bays and starting work on the flaps. Still a loooong way to go but the old girl is starting to look like aB-29 .

[Planebuilder62]

When I built the 1/72 Academy B-29 I needed to put weight on the flight deck behind the pilot sets all the way to the roof to keep the nose wheel on the ground. Filling the nose under the flight deck was not enough.

Its proably a good idea to do a test with the wings and tailplane taped on to see if you have enough nose weight.

regards Toby

[Alan P]

Another fascinating build, delivered as only you can 🤣 the laughs are good, but don't distract from the excellent modelling and remodelling skills on show 👍 great work so far, especially bringing the B-29 up to standard.

[LorenSharp]

8 hours ago, Planebuilder62 said:

When I built the 1/72 Academy B-29 I needed to put weight on the flight deck behind the pilot sets all the way to the roof to keep the nose wheel on the ground. Filling the nose under the flight deck was not enough.

Its proably a good idea to do a test with the wings and tailplane taped on to see if you have enough nose weight.

regards Toby

Thanks Toby. When I built this before I used 4  21g teardrop fishing weights in the same area. This time I should be better weight wise as I've removed everything from the rear bomb bay bulkhead, Then put the flat wheel weights as close to the front as possible to shift the CG.  If necessary I can use a few weights in the inner engine nacelle in front of the main gear. but as of right now it balances out just right.. But prepared none the less.

5 hours ago, Alan P said:

Another fascinating build, delivered as only you can 🤣 the laughs are good, but don't distract from the excellent modelling and remodelling skills on show 👍 great work so far, especially bringing the B-29 up to standard.

Thanks Alan. That's much appreciated. Even though I've built this maybe Three times already , I'm finding new things about this model that I've not noticed. I can't wait to see how it looks compared to B-36. But then the "Fun" is just beginning.

[LorenSharp]

After much cutting, carving, filling, and sanding, lot of sanding. I've nearly got the fuselage squared away and one wing at an acceptable point.

I've several Metallic Details sets in the stash but this is the first time I've actually gotten some "hands on" experience. Up front I can say with out a doubt, they ain't Eduard. But overall not too bad either. Just different. Translation: Be very mindful of what is being dealt with and not get careless.  It will come back to bite. 

After cutting away the exhaust ports, and getting ready to attach the new ones, I had to remove a bit of the casting block. In carving away what I thought was the block was actually the interior of the exhaust, Not a horrendous error but I did have to fill in a few holes on the backside with CA. Luckily, There are covers that will obscure most of this mistake. But moving on to the flaps themselves, I'm going to try and document as much of this as possible in case anyone stupid brave enough to use this set will have a better instruction guide than what's provided, which is not quite non-existent, but close.

First off, step one wants you to fold several inner braces. It says part 11. It's actually part 14 and there are 24 of these for each side.

Step 2 says part 12. It's part 15 and there are 5 of these. they are a little bit wider. These are for part of the flap hinge assembly.

Part 15 and part 8 (They got that number right) are joined together. Now to add everything to the brace.

The single braces(part 14) snap in perfectly just like they're supposed to. The part 15/8 assembly though will not fit. the mounting holes are the same size as all the others, but the thickness prevents these from snapping in. Grind/sand the locating tab at the rear and attach with CA With luck this will still have enough strength to hold the Fowler flap when the time come.

Also, Something I've never seen before, the P/E has a protective plastic coating on BOTH sides. These will need to be removed before trying to cut-away any parts. It took me a few minutes of cutting and trying to remove the part before I realized what was going on. Instructions don't mention anything about it. It's a good idea really, it keeps the large sheets from bending and parts from breaking off before needed.