Sunderland Air Museum Vulcan

From 2007, here are a few photos of he Avro Vulcan. Back then it was just parked out in a field and deteriorating. The museum guy had o use a hammer and chisel to free up the access hatch. It was cool to be able to climb around the very cramped quarters.

 

Started At Last

 

Primer

A coat of Mr Surfacer 1200

 

Major Clipper Construction

 Got all the windows masked with trimmed down Tamiya tape

then got all the major pieces assembled.

Clipper progress

Progress on the clipper - fuselage together with few problems. I don't care for the Kristal Klear transparency method - everything is still way too sticky, but first time using it (for the single small windows, not the doubles).

Fuselage

Wings, tail planes and sponsons put together with pretty decent fit and just a bit of cleanup.

Pieces

And a quick dry fit to check for any likely gaps - none seem too bad.

All the pieces

A quick swipe of filler down the fuselage join is about all it takes until it gets a coat of Mr Surfacer.

 

Starting the Clipper

 Finally opened the bag, Not too many parts, but many of the smaller parts had broken off from the sprue, so into a ziploc they go.

While the bigger pieces just hang out in the box.

First order of business is to glue in the many, many tiny windows into the fuselage halves...

Every window is a major sinkhole, too, so I'll have to figure out how much I care to futz with those.

TSR-2 Details

 In a high wing group build, one of my fellow modelers is building a 1/72 scale BAC TSR-2. If you don' know what that is, then you can read it all here, as well as in numerous books detailing the many missteps of postwar aviation planning in the UK.

It was a Tactical Strike & Reconnaissance design developed in the late fifties and ultimately canceled by Harold Wilson's Labour government in 1965. It is of particular interest to me because it was developed primarily at the BAC Warton site in the northwest of England (on the Fylde coast, between Preston and Blackpool), and that's where I started my career in 1974, fresh out of high school. The first year I was at Warton I got a few chances to chat with grizzled designers from the TSR-2 days, and it was interesting that they weren't as sad about its cancellation as the rest of England was. Like any new program i had encountered many development problems, all of which needed fixing, and many of which would have required major redesign.

Only one prototype ever flew (XR221), and only two airframes survived the draconian "cut all the tooling up and destroy it forever" edict that ensured the project couldn't be revived. The flying prototype and two other airframes were used as range targets - a fate that ensured they didn't survive. The two airframes are at the RAF museum at Cosford in the Test Flight hangar (the pretty much complete XR220), and at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, just outside of Cambridge (the very much incomplete XR222).

TSR-2 XR220 at RAF Cosford

TSR-2 XR222 at IWM Duxford

In the kit build thread there has been much discussion about some of the details, of both the airframe and how they are modeled in the kit. In particular, there is some ducting from the intake boundary layer splitter o an exhaust in the landing gear bay that required a cutout in the landing gear door.

This photo from Cosford shows it quite well:

The black ducting in he lower right is the item in question, and the hole in he landing gear door can be seen just at the bottom of the shot. This second photo captures the hole a bit better, but also some of the complicated looking articulated flap

As I have a 1/48 scale Airfix kit of his, it will provide some detail to work from, although the kit itself is quite well detailed, as it is relatively new and primarily based off the same airframes.

Restarting Modeling

It's been at least thirty years since I actively picked up a model kit and did anything with it. I've carried a dozen or so around with me for the past forty years or so with never any time to get around to making any of them. In the meantime, the hobby moved on in many ways, with finishing techniques taking the forefront lately, along with photo etch detail parts (fiddly!), canopy masks (also fiddly!) lots of custom decals (they were always fiddly). I never even had an airbrush before, so that was a big step too. I played around with a couple of old kits I'd been carrying around, but they were both pretty awful fits (hello, Novo/ex-Frog Morane Saulnier 406) and ended up more as practice mules.

I started following modelers on twitter and facebook and found half a dozen podcasts that helped me get up to speed. One of my twitter follows in the UK started a charity kit build, and that seemed like a reasonable kick to try something. The only rule was "something under 20 pounds (about $28). I looked around and found a Ju 87-G Stuka at a local hobby shop. I'm not normally a fan of Luftwaffe planes, but I had just read James Holland's Battle of Britain book and Stukas had figured prominently in the run up. Work on it was sporadic due to various degrees of busyness around our place and with the kids. I never did get the Stuka fully finished before the end of the charity build, but I was quite happy with how it has turned out so far. Still a little finishing to do (removing the canopy masks will be fun), but overall, pleased with it.

But what's next? My overall goal is to get better first, then concentrate on early jet fighters - from the first ones that appeared in WW2 to the amazing variety of designs that were designed, produced and (mostly) went into service in the forties, fifties and sixties. Oh, and historic airliners from the same period.

So what does getting better mean? It means making models to really learn all the different techniques that I want to master. One way I have found for generating ideas for what to build is to peruse the group build opportunities on various model forums - my favorite being Britmodeller (yes, it gets confusing with the single or double l's depending on whether you're in the UK or US). The first one that caught my eye was the French Fancy group build, and again, having recently read the Battle of Britain, which featured a long run-up, including the very ill-fated Battle of France, I was motivated to pick out the Dewoitine 520 - essentially a French parallel to the Spitfire. So that's coming right up. An added bonus is that it comes with a Citroen staff car and a few figures, which is something I think would be a fun learning experience.

Another group build that caught my eye is a "High Wing" build. Anything, as long as the wing is at the top of the body or higher. Lots of possibilities, from WW1 biplanes and triplanes to most seaplanes to many modern fighters. The one I ended up choosing was the Boeing 314 Clipper - one of the most iconic Boeing products ever, which is odd because only 12 were ever made. Then again the Concorde was also a limited edition too. I have a few months to get these built, so stay tuned. There might even be a detour or two along the way.

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