This was a commission build for
a colleague who used to fly the old "washing machine." He wanted
it in-flight representing an aircraft he flew when intercepting a Russian
Bear off Newfoundland in the early 80's. The two tanks, tail number,
and flying suit colours were the main customized areas.
I used Belcher Bits' excellent decal set
for this.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The kit is very good with the
exception of raised panel lines. Frankly I have no interest in
sanding and rescribing - far too much work, and my client likes it fine
the way it is. The main areas I struggled with were getting the gear
doors and flaps to close, and shaving off the formation lights (which were
not installed on all but one Canadian Voodoo). The gear and flaps
were nicely detailed inside to represent down positions.
Unfortunately, this obliged me to spend many hours shaving off layers of
plastic to get things to fit, and adding filler to the gear doors area
(see pics 03 and 04). The in-flight stand was something I agonized
over, and came up with a very simple solution. Design criteria - had
to be something I could do with limited wood-working tools. I bought
a piece of particle board scrap, cut it 12 inches square, and drilled two
3/8 inch holes on
about a 45 degree angle. Two metal rods went into it.
For the aircraft part, I drilled holes in the turbine discs, and inserted
the rods through.
A tip from a fellow ARCer (who posted a
nice Voodoo recently) was to allow for the rods to enter a long way into
the model, thus helping to reduce the strain on the burner can joints.
Now that I have a happy colleague, I
can turn to my next project - an in-flight CF-18 for another colleague (the 1:32
Academy monster).
Dan
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