Lightning Strikes Twice

[Gondor]

Some time ago there was a book published called "English Electric Lightning; Genesis & Projects" by Tony Wilson which I believe quite a few of the members of this site bought a copy of, and that included me 

I had known about the proposals for the Navy and had seen drawings of them in various other publications, it's nice to get all such information in the one place though. So I decided to build the two versions of the two seaters for the navy, fool that I am.

So how to build them?

A good question I thought to myself. Start point would have to be an F.6 Lightning, easy enough to get hold of you would think.There are after all several version around, Frog, Hasegawa, Trumpeter, Matchbox and Airfix all spring immediately to mind.  Change the F.6 of my choice into a two seater sounds easy and you may well say that there is the Matchbox two seater with a long belly tank already, personal preference is not to touch most Matchbox kits so I would have to find some aftermarket conversion set instead. A search of the internet reminded me when I saw it that Odd's And Ordinance did a two seat conversion for the Trumpeter kit. I didn't fancy using the Trumpeter kit as my F.6 ad the exhaust area needs replaced and the Aeries correction set could be difficult to get hold of, it has nice thin separate rear fuselage parts as well as nice separate exhausts rather than a solid lump of resin that some correction sets have and I was sure that with some PSR it would fit.
Another couple of things to consider was the fact that the aircraft were to have swing wings and a very long curvaceous underside 
Freightdog are really the only game in town for swing wings for Lightning's and I had already used a set with a modern Airfix F.6, Freightdog also do an extended under fuselage area in their F.G.A. conversion set which will add some forward weight and reduce the amount of PSR for the lower front as well, and as it's designed for the modern Airfix kit I was basically sold on buying a pair of F.6's so I ended up buying a pair of F.2A's as I didn't see much need for having the overwing tanks and it is effectively the same kit.

So far these are the pictures taken of the first Lightning







Not exactly the most detailed set of pictures, nor do they cover all the work so far with this aircraft. At the moment the basic fuselage including cockpit and spine are glued together and the areas around the joints slathered in my currently favourite putty.

So lessons learned from getting the main parts together for the first of the two builds means that the second one should be easier 

With the forward part of the underside of the Airfix kit being separate pieces I would have a nice straight edge to use for drawing the cut line, only problem being where the he11 did I put my small set square?? A different set square was found and cutting has taken place, it does look neater than last time as I had to work from where the recesses in the side of the cockpit matched the wing root which resulted in slowly working away removing a small amount of plastic at a time to reach a good fit. This time I had a distance to work with from the forward end of the moulded in cable ducts, much easier 

That's as far as the second Lightening has gotten, the first is sitting on her nose waiting on me to decide to tackle the PSR that will be needed as the where the spine meets the cockpit is off centre and very well stuck down 

Gondor

[kitbasher]

Good luck Gondor, looking forward to seeing the results.

Yep I'm one of those with that book.  Lots of inspiration in it - not short of a few surprises (at least to me) and definitely a bunch of reminders.  Good value publication.

[Martin H]

It will be interesting to see another take on this.
Ive done it twice now, and Geoff B has also done one.


My first one built in the mid 1990's from a pair of Matchbox Lightnings.


The 2nd one from 2016. Airfix/Freightdog/Airmodel mash up.


A WIP shot. The FGA belly tank will need to me mounted futherforward than intended fpr the FGA conversion. Leaving the rear section of the kit belly intact is one way to go


The fin fillet came from a spare F 6 fin. It was replaced when I did a couple of F-1's & 2's.

[comrade harps]

There's something kind of snug and bunchy about your two-seaters. Cute.

[Gondor]

Martin, one of the two will be getting side intakes, which one I have no idea yet' I had forgotten about the fin extension but that's not a problem as I can remove the kit tail to use as the fillet and simply put on the resin tail that comes with the O&A conversion, or the other way round.
As for the underside, I think I will stay with my idea of scratching the forward extension though I might move it forward a bit to the rear of the nose undercarriage bay.

I think these builds fall under the modelling law of "When bored or have no idea what to do, Start Yet Another Build!"

Gondor

[Old Wombat]

I think these builds fall under the modelling law of "When bored or have no idea what to do, Start Yet Another Build!"

And there's something wrong with that?

[Pellson]

I think these builds fall under the modelling law of "When bored or have no idea what to do, Start Yet Another Build!"

My modelling life in a single sentence 

[Martin H]

one of the two will be getting side intakes,

Gondor

Ohh interesting
As my Great Aunt from Neath would say " Theres Brave!"

[Gondor]

one of the two will be getting side intakes,

Gondor

Ohh interesting
As my Great Aunt from Neath would say " Theres Brave!"

As usual Martin I'm a glutton for punishment. Pushing myself beyond my abilities to the point I stop and go onto something else.
I was compairing the FGA set that Colin does, and which I intend to use as bulk for the two aircraft, against information in the previously mentioned book. If you remove the amount of plastic suggested in the instructions then you will be correct for the "short" ventral pack which leaves the bay for the usual Firestreak/Redtop, 2" rocket pack or resonance pack. If you want to produce an proposed export version with a "long" ventral pack then the front of the ventral pack has to line up with the rear of the cockpit windscreen. As I am using mine as bulk then I will probably move it as far forward as it will fit and do like OGL did and cut a slot from the front of the ventral pack for the rear of the undercarriage bay.

Gondor

[Gondor]

A very small amount of work carried out as most of the weekend has been dealing with real life things.



This was my second attempt at getting a decent picture of the extended belly pack but it still looks a little out of focus.

It does allow me to do this now



The reason for grinding the forward section of the belly pack to be thinner was so it would fit the forward countours of the aircraft, it's designed to be no further forward than the rear of the missile pack after all.

Gondor

[Gondor]

I managed to get a little more donerecently, it took me ages to get around to painting the exhaust area and that held up putting some parts together. Pictures later.

EDIT: Later...



That's the fuselage together for the second two seater, and while I was at it....



This one will be an FGA version, yet to decide if it will be Italian or RAF.

An RAAF Lightening may be a posibility some time in the dim and distant future, depends on how well the two seat conversions work with the Airfix kit

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

How did I miss this thread?

[Wardukw]

As i said in Lees lighting thread im not a huge fan of the lighting but i have to admit the swing wing looks damn cool and the lines with the belly tank make it kinda like a later model Mig21 
This is looking preet cool so far Gondor mate.
Now this isnt pointed at anyones build here but i do have a thought about the landing gear ..knowing how thin the Lightings struts and wheels are makes me wonder if they would be up to the task of carrier landings..they would have to with stand a ton of punishment..i wonder if they intended to upgrade those parts at some point .

[McColm]

Looking good so far 

[Gondor]

I should have posted a picture like this ages ago when the project stalled 



The progress so far, no idea when I will take file and sanding stick to this one again especially as more ideas have come to mind since I started this build.

Gondor