English Electric P 42.hypersonic experimental

[General Melchet]

Hi guys, I have received several pm's and requests by folks to put my P 42 on the site, where it rightly belongs to be honest, so to those that have seen it all before I apologise, it's just that a lot of new members  appear not to have seen it and are wondering what the heck it is, so here's all the gen !,
This is mostly lifted from another site as I don't fancy typing it all out again..



Hi everyone I know it's a bit of a 'what if' really, but it was very, very nearly built, in fact I spoke to a chap who worked for EE under Petter and his team  and he told me it was a lot nearer being built than has ever previously been mentioned !! .Sorry 'bout this , it's a bit of a long one   , here's my first attempt at a full blown scratchbuild using only a toilet roll, brown paper , sticky back plastic, some beads and a bottle of  Copydex !!. Actually this is hopefully the first of many experimental aircraft that I hope to build over the coming year representing types that only got as far as the planning stage.This first one is the English Electric study EAG.3280 , known as the P42. The idea was for a hypersonic aircraft capable of flying at around Mach 4.5 using conventional engines , Spey RB 168's in fact and employing compression lift as a means of attaining these speeds for short periods of time. No ramjets for this little baby ! (bear in mind this was the mid 50's a good 10 years before the XB-70 flew !!). The main problem was obviously one of kinetic heating so some pretty exotic materials were to be used in it's construction , including gold , titanium and a special thermally enhanced magnesium, all of which had to be developed at enormous cost to the British taxpayer.  Due to cost and much other work going on at EE ( Lightning mostly), the idea was shelved , though it did appear once again in the early 60's , this time as the basis of a low orbit satellite launcher (with a widened fuselage to take the new payload).
Onto the model then, I based it on drawings found in Tony Buttlers fantastic' British Secret Projects' , Hypersonics book. These were scaled up to 72nd and transferred to litho for use as templates. I also used the fantastic art work of Josef Gatial as inspiration and have based it mainly on his interpretation of this awesome if somewhat ungainly monster.

The model is built mainly of the following ,
Body and engines and tail, 5 sizes of Evergreen Plasticard, plastic rod, brass rod and white metal,
Cockpit , ICM MIG 31  foxhound , cockpit area Revell X15,
Undercarriage , white metal TSR 2,
Wheels True Detail 1/48th P80 ( nose) and 1/48th Skyraider ( main),
and the afterburners also come from the ICM MIG 31  Foxhound.
Cockpit glazing courtesy of Humbrol Clear fix.


Construction started with the wings which were built up from 2 ply of Plasticard with a strengthening triangle  section inside , then sanded to shape and scribed ( as was the whole airframe ,this was a royal pain in the ar #$ !!!!). Next came the fuselage /engine sides ,same again only this time one layer of card leading edges were all shaped. Room had to be made for the engine bays and U/C and variable air inlet ramps constructed. Engine turbine faces were used from a spare Academy SU27 ( though you can hardly see these !!).the pictures show it better than I can explain so I'll cut the waffle . The cockpit was tricky but in the end I opted for the ICM MIG 31 as the profile fitted perfectly and as luck would have it I had one knocking around , so I butchered it .!!.After filling the top side I needed a whole new cockpit , looking at the pics myself and Thorvic decided that the old Revell X-15 kit would be a suitable donor, and guess what , I happened to have an old one in the loft !!. After quite  bit of fettling I got it to fit, all I had to do now was add new side windows with my Dremel. The undercarriage was also a bit of a poser , in the end the obvious choice was TSR-2 but I couldn't bring myself to use the Airfix ones, fortune smiled on me and Chris (Falcon) kindly gave me a set of white metal ones he had at the Coventry show .I didn't use much filler as I knew it would have a NMF so I kept that down to a minimum (thus doubling the build time !!!) The wheels were courtesy of Hannants, (True Detail sets for P80 shooting star and Skyraider, low pressure filled with nitrogen was envisaged).

The whole thing was primed in Alclad gloss black and airbrushed with EVERY shade of Alcad 2 I had ( which was pretty much the whole range !!!).

The decals were from a number of sources , mainly Modeldecal , Xtradecal, and silver, dark grey stripes and solid block. The serial XJ220 was chosen from a cancelled Swift order , the date being correct for the estimated time frame  :analintruder:

Well that's it, another interesting project to nowhere to add to the display cabinet, hope you like it, thanks again folks,



Thanks again to Thorvic and Falcon for their invaluable help.  ..................









The pictures ( finally ),


This was the inspiration,

















the plans









The build.
























cockpit took some work  










































The final product , took a bit of work but I got there , what's next ??!!

[Ed S]

EXCELLENT!   That is beautiful.  Scratchbuilt and NMF, that is impressive.

Ed

[GTX]

Damn fine work!!!

Regards,

Greg

[General Melchet]

Thanks guys, appreciate your comments...some more of the same in the pipeline..

Andy

[Martin H]

If you think the photo's make it look good folks, it looks even better in the flesh.

Good to see this finally posted up here Andy.



Duncan

I couldnt agree more

[General Melchet]

Thanks you two, must admit I thought I'd already posted it previously but obviously not .....................................senility is a cruel thing,............ I think! ................  can't really remember!!...!!!



Andy

[Sisko]

First the B-70 now this!

Thanks for sharing this fantastic work!

[nev]

You're a fine modeller Melchett

[General Melchet]

Thanks fellas, kind words...

[The Rat]

I tumble out of bed on a nice sunny morning, start brewing up a good cup of tea, and get greeted by this. Life is wonderful! 

[Spey_Phantom]

looks great, you truly mastered Putty FU there 
i just love that metal finish 

[Vulcan7]

WOW  Fantastic scratch build General! 

[B777LR]

English MiG-25!

[General Melchet]

Thanks chaps,

Nils, putty, wet and dry and lots of water....yummy....staple diet of the scratch builder!!

Glad you all like it......there should be something much bigger coming along in the New Year!!!


Herr General........

[Daryl J.]

Wow!   The entire Ministry of Silly Walks has frozen in place to draw up and take note!   Well done!!!!!


And what have we jetting around in the background?



Daryl J.