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A Meteor from a different Perspective


Tweener

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As mentioned, I'll be hopping in to this one with the Special Hobby 1/72 Gloster Meteor F.8 Prone Pilot, WK935. Notably (perhaps) this is the first jet I'll be giving a go in over 3 years. I do seem to have a bad tendency to pick the standard subjects when I try something new...  :rofl:

 

In any case, it's really a nice looking kit. Switching out the nose and tail will be something of a challenge, but it wouldn't do to make the first jet easy, would it? No matter how it goes, I certainly can't say the result will be boring. One thing I wasn't prepared for is the scale of the Meteor - I've recently been looking over the parts of a Whittle and it got into my head that a Meteor wouldn't be much larger. That's not the case - a Meteor is solidly larger than a Blenheim, or at least the fuselage is longer. The wings almost seem too small to work, but then we know they did given the fine history of the type. 

Anyways, the parts -

 

Prone Pilot

 

Prone Pilot

 

Prone Pilot

 

And lastly, the special sprue for the Prone Pilot boxing -

 

Prone Pilot

 

Pics of the clear parts and decals will come when I approach that stage.

Elsewise from this, I grabbed the Eduard PE for a standard F.8, so some parts of that (mainly the wheel bays) will make an appearance as well. I've not used much PE before but this seemed like a good kit to push the skills with, so at $6.50 it was impossible to say no.

More soon,
Tweener

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5 hours ago, Tweener said:

One thing I wasn't prepared for is the scale of the Meteor

Surprised me too.  Its much larger than the Me-262.

 

AW

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I was wondering when someone would build the prone pilot version. The thought crossed my mind to do one myself more than once :) 


The whittle is an odd airplane. It was pretty much designed as a technology demonstrator and never intended to be an operational fighter.  I have a 1/48 kit in the stash that I was hoping to build for the pillar of fire build if it gets through.
 

The Meteor is fairly large for it’s day but pretty compact when compared to modern fighters.

Edited by Marklo
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Meant to upload these a few days ago - The SH Meteor kits appear to be gems! In just the first evening of work I got to this stage -

 

Prone Pilot

 

 

 

I haven't painted the forward (seat?) yet, nor installed the ejection seat in the original cockpit, but those are both easy to do. Last night I added the Eduard PE to both wheel wells and those will be installed tonight, meaning that with any luck, the wing will be added by Tuesday night. A dry fit shows that the fit is perfectly good so far, so I'm optimistic I'll have this one done in no time provided I don't get bogged down on the landing gear legs like I always seem to.

In the interim, I need to make sure I don't get too ambitious as a result of the relative ease of preparing parts for the Blackburn Blackburn and go start the newest addition -

 

Scapa / Adds

 

The British sure do have a thing for designing planes at opposite ends of the beauty spectrum, don't they?

More soon,
Tweener

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  • 2 weeks later...

Took longer than I wanted it to, but now I have a complete airframe -

 

Prone Pilot

 

 

 

I've just slapped on some filler (mostly needed due to my own errors) and once that dries I'll move on to surface prep. I want to make sure this one's as smooth as possible before paint as I've noticed a few scuff marks on the last models I've painted a metal color.

More soon,
Tweener

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11 hours ago, Tweener said:

I want to make sure this one's as smooth as possible before paint as I've noticed a few scuff marks on the last models I've painted a metal color.

 

Do you apply a coat or two of primer?  I know that not everybody does, but it does help to give a smooth surface for metal coats (when gently rubbed down).

It's a great choice of Meteor and coming together very well :thumbsup2:

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15 hours ago, CliffB said:

 

Do you apply a coat or two of primer?  I know that not everybody does, but it does help to give a smooth surface for metal coats (when gently rubbed down).

It's a great choice of Meteor and coming together very well :thumbsup2:

Recently I've been using it more - my thought is that 2 coats and the use of 3,000 grit sandpaper should give a pretty nice result.

 

19 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Its such a unique looking airframe with the extended needle nose. Looking forward to paint. 

A large airframe too! I keep setting it next to the Fury's and Siskin's I've done and there's no comparison.

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