Airspeed AS-31C weird twin-boom canard

[noxioux]

On a tangent, I'm getting visions of a P-38 bashed into a similar configuration.  Either somebody here has done it or proposed it, or I'm going quietly mad. . .

[Tophe]

Yes, several P-38 like the AS-31 and the AS-31C are drawn on my fantasy-Lightning site
http://www.kristofmeunier.fr/#Sit
If you may enrich the collection, this would be delicious...

[Brian da Basher]

I really like the look of those winglets, Tophe!

Added to the window tinting I enjoy so much, it's going to give this project a very futuristic look!

Brian da Basher

[noxioux]

Awesome!  Thanks for that link.  I'm going to have to think on this one a bit. . .

[Tophe]

Soon completed (next week-end probably):

[Brian da Basher]

Awwww how cute! The prop and the pod in back really make this baby stand out!

Brian da Basher

[ElectrikBlue]

It looks very nice already! 

[Tophe]

finished   (according to my personal standards...)

[Tophe]

Technical/Historical explanations (from my collection site http://www.kristofmeunier.fr/thankingIgor.htm ):
The AS.31 source, weird twin-boomer with a pilot-less nose/fuselage and a rear/remote cockpit/pod, was perhaps not odd enough... To improve visibility, it has been turned opposite, into a canard pusher (AS-31C). The propeller has now 2 blades only, to land safely with this device locked horizontally (there is no ground clearance, and the departure comes in flight from a mother-plane). The wing has a reduced span to have the right dimension for elevators (the most secret bases are underground). There is a little asymmetry as there is only one main wheel, on starboard (one wheel is enough to reduce weight - and there is a skid under the nose pod)...

[ElectrikBlue]

Really cute!  
After reading the detailed characteristics, there is still something I have not understood...
how the  pilot enters the cockpit? 

[Tophe]

On the (half-) real AS.31, there was a car door, to enter and seat down easily, as in a P-39 (and without ladder, here, perfect, no need to climb on the wing). But on the AS-31C, there is maybe no room enough between the foreplane and the windscreen... Anyway, the principle is that the big curved wind-screen rotates upward, for the pilot to enter the cockpit (on the ground, before being attached to the mother plane).
Thanks for having asked. Without this important detail, the airplane did look unreal...

[ElectrikBlue]

Explanation accepted!  

You wrote "there was a car door"... and this immediately makes me think of those two cars:

• 
  The Messerschmitt KR175 (door hinged on the right side).
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_KR175
  
  
  
  
• 
  BMW Isetta (door hinged on the front).
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta
  
  
  
  

[Tophe]

funny, I did not know there were such weird car doors... (only the butterfly ones are both unusual and famous: http://imagesme.net/tuvie/renault-ondelios-car-concept1.jpg )

[ElectrikBlue]

funny, I did not know there were such weird car doors... (only the butterfly ones are both unusual and famous: http://imagesme.net/tuvie/renault-ondelios-car-concept1.jpg )

More unusual doors...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cars_with_unusual_door_designs

What the French call 'Butterfly doors' is called 'Gullwing doors' in English...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gull-wing_door


For the record, a Messerschmitt KR175 did an appearance in the movie Brazil.

[noxioux]

Nice finish Tophe.  Although I'm a small-detalis oriented guy, I think there's definitely something to be said about your methods of executing an idea quickly--but surely--without getting hung on minutiae.

And just an FYI: I now have a very nice Academy P-38 donor sitting here, awaiting the knife, and it's 99.4% all your fault.