Gondor's Lancaster Mk XL

[Gondor]

Thought I would show one of my projects to the rest of the modellers here.

This build stems from the though...... "what should I do with all these Airfix Lancaster's I have now there are the Hasegawa and Revell tooling's"

Then I remembered seeing a large German WWII aircraft with two sets of undercarriage per wing !!! Instant build idea !!!! Do to the Lancaster what the Germans did with their large aircraft.

So after studying the layout of the Lancaster fuselage I carefully put saw to plastic.



The above photograph shows what I came up with as far as the fuselage goes. Original MkIII fuselage is at the top. The length of the bomb bay in the Mk30 is a real life is just over 18.5 cm or 6 1/4 inches  



This photograph shows the length of the extended wing. the size of the added section was determined by the fact that the two inner engines on each wing will be level with each other so they have to be at least the diameter of a propeller apart at their nearest.

I have taken the basic idea and expanded it for the background history which is as follows.

To meet the requirement for a long range version of the Lancaster for Tiger Force, Avro decided to stretch both the fuselage and wings to accommodate more fuel and to increase the available space for weapons load in the bomb bay.

Defensive armament was increased by adding a second FN.50 turret behind the cockpit and the rear turret was changed to a FN.121 with the .50 calibre machine gun as armament rather than the .303 calibre of the MkIII's FN.20 rear turret.

With the use of the Lancaster's modular design it proved relatively easy to move production from the MkIII to the MkXXX. The version number of the new Lancaster was decided on after a lengthy debate. The marque number was confirmed shortly before first flight in September 1944 with the reason being given that it was the MkIII with extra Oh! though with convention at the time useing Roman numerals the marque number bacame the MkXXX.

Some wag shortly after decided that the marque number should actually be a corruption of the Roman XXX and called the aircraft the Lancaster MkXXL due to its large size


Gondor

[The Rat]

Everbody grab a brew and settle in for this one! 

[philp]

I just want to know why Vin Diesel gets his own Lancaster?

[Swanny]

This does look like it's going to be a fun one to watch.

[Aussie747]

Looks interesting  Standing by for some more progress.

[Gondor]

Don't hold your breath for updates folks, the last work that was done on this build was back in October 09 when I stalled due to trying to build the bomb bay roof from scratch and wondering how without plunge/crash moulding I was going to make the bomb bay doors in one peice due to their length 

Gondor

[Hobbes]

Doesn't the Lanc have two-piece doors to begin with? If you have 2 Lanc kits as donors, I'd just use the doors from both and stick them together.

[Gondor]

One piece per side for the Bomb bay doors and I had thought of that but unfortunately they don.t have a flat part to their profile just a smooth curve from what I remember, I will double check though.

Thanks

Gondor

[Gondor]

Philip, the Merlin Engine is petrol powered, not Diesel 

Gondor

[sequoiaranger]

I like this project--a Six-engined Lanc perhaps?

I'm not quite sure I understand the problem with the "flat part" of bomb bay doors, but I have a "spare" Matchbox HP Halifax bomber that MIGHT have the flat-sided bomb bay doors you seek. Lemme check the kit in the stash.

OK--the Halifax has SPLIT bomb-bay doors that fold, apparently. However, there is a flat, straight section to it all on the bottom, then a curved side. I suppose you could switch side with bottom if necessary. It also has a bomb-bay "roof" part included. You're welcome to it if you think it would work.

Also, you may want to have two sections of bomb-bay doors to accommodate the lengthened doors and their hinging.

[Gondor]

great idea sequoiaranger, I have both Matchbox and Airfix Halifax's in my stash somewhere so will dig them out to compare the doors to see if I could use them. I may get back to you about the doors.

The suggestion about splitting the bomb bay into is one I have thought about but decided against, I may have to look at that again though as its a loooooog bomb bay working out at over 37 1/2 feet or 13.32 Meters !!!!

Gondor

[kitnut617]

When I stretched the fuselage to make my Nottingham, I made the bomb bay longer too.  The original doors had a nice curve to them from front to back so I cut them in half at the middle point, then made up my own center piece to fit in between using various thicknesses of styrene card. Afterwards I sanded them so they had a very slight curve in the middle.  It worked out quite well.

[The Wooksta!]

Why put doors on?  Just have a dirty great bomb on show.  Better still, delete all the turrets, go with Lancastrian nose and tail blanks and have a Grand Slam with an atomic warhead.

Send me a PM with your address and I may be able to find some resin extras...

[Gondor]

Sorry to say that what little I have achieved over the weekend has not been a great deal and at the moment there are no photographs to back that up. Should get a picture or two of the wings posted tomorrow minus the engine nacelle's and hopefully with either a layer of plastic between each upper and lower wing halves where the join is, or maybe even the first of the filler !!

Gondor

[Gondor]

A little more progress, its hard to make headway when there is the World Cup on 



This is the underside of the extension sections of the inner wings. I have added tabs as if I was making a vac-form kit to help add strength and to stop any gaps becoming bottom less pits for filler.



This picture shows both the underside of the wing and the inside of the lower wing with similar tabs to the upper wing extension. The lower wing is strengthened by some brass tube behind the leading edge and some pre-formed L shaped girder placed behind the rear of the undercarriage bays.
The silver area in side the lower wing section is metal foil super-glued over the landing lights to represent their reflectors. Far quicker than using paint.



This third picture shows the port wing with the upper parts placed unglued on top of the lower wing to check how well the parts fit together.

I intend to add some plastic card as planking between the sections of wings to help fill up the gaps and to reduce the amount of filler I use.

Gondor