Hispano Aviacion HA-207

[frank2056]

I'm starting with the RS Models Reggiane Re-2007, which was a real world Whif - never even a paper project:



I'll build mine as a Spanish built Ha-207, based loosely on Glanini's Casa C.206 profile here: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,25472.msg370924.html#msg370924


The old RS resin kits look great in the box, but can be a bear to build; this kit is no exception. The fit (especially for the cockpit tub) is amazingly bad - there's a huge lump of resin right where the back wall is supposed to fit. The wings don't match the wing root profiles and there's exactly ONE brittle vacuformed canopy... which I proceeded to crack while gently trying to remove it from its backing. No matter - the canopy (even when trimmed) doesn't fit the fuselage very well.

Luckily, I found that the canopy from a Hasegawa Zero float plane (after some trimming and cutting) did a passable job and certainly fits better than the original:



I sanded off all the rear canopy framework, since it'll be solid.

I closed and primed the fuselage yesterday, that's why it's gray.



The wings are butt joints, which is not a good idea for a heavy  resin fuselage. I drilled some holes in both the wings and fuselage and pinned them with cut paper clip wire:



The landing gear is all resin - very petite and flimsy resin. That's getting replaced with plastic gear as well. I'll delete the four nose guns. The "real" design was supposed to be powered by a Jumo 004 engine buried deep within the fuselage. With such a twitchy engine, I doubt that the gun gases from those four guns would have helped.

Next, canopy gap wrasslin' and wing and tail attachment.

Frank

Frank

[Martin H]

I've got a pair of these in the stash. Ill be watching this one closely

[ChernayaAkula]

Oooh, that does look rather nice!  Pretty elegant with those slightly swept wings.

[ysi_maniac]

This model is a great idea

[rickshaw]

Looks rather F-85 Sabrish with an Italian flair to it.  Nice looking plane.  Be interesting to see this.

[frank2056]

I've glued on the wings and tail and attached the solid rear canopy:





The vertical fin needs some careful trimming and sanding to avoid major gaps. The forward spine pushes the fin up, so it has to be sanded at an angle. The fin also has a poorly defined curve and notches that follow the curve of the horizontal stab. You can't be too aggressive at removing the resin "flash from this area.
The wing roots have a nasty step. I thought about pushing the wings up to eliminate the upper step, but that introduced other issues, so I split the difference and I'll sand and shape the wing root to match.

I used some UV curing putty to secure the solid canopy and fill in the small gaps around it. This putty is yellow (almost the same color as the resin) with the consistency of toothpaste. It will set under direct sunlight in a couple of minutes or in about 10 minutes under florescent lights. I used a UV flash light and set it in a minute or so. The resulting material is hard like plastic and easy to carve and sand. It doesn't stick too well to resin, though.

The front canopy has been Futured and is drying in a (hopefully) dust and cat-hair free container. I removed some of the framework from the side windows and polished the plastic. It really doesn't look very Zero-like now.

The aircraft was clearly not designed during WWII and I have my doubts that it would have flown well with the engine placement. Endurance would be limited as well - the plane is scarcely larger than a He-162.

Frank

[GTX]

Coming along nicely.

Regards,

Greg

[Mossie]

Looks good so far!

[NARSES2]

I've got a pair of these in the stash. Ill be watching this one closely

Same here

[Taiidantomcat]

Very very nice work.

[frank2056]

I had an idea for the tires and drop tanks while walking in to work - why not use Me-109 tires? The resin tires are very nice, with good (almost microscopic) hub detail, but I have a handful of "worm" tread Me 109 tires, and a couple of drop tanks. I may also add or make some 20mm gunpods for the wings.

I'm still thinking of a backstory; either moving the Ifni War forward by 10 years or so, or make it part of a renewed autonomy movement in post war Spain, with Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque region trying to regain their autonomy.

[Doc Yo]

 Looking good so far, and my compliments on the backstory. I've only built one RS resin,  ( a B&V 155C ) but
yes, the fit is sometimes a little vexing.

[frank2056]

This sucker's almost finished. I tried the three color camo pattern from Glanini's Casa C.206, but it just didn't look right, so I stripped everything to bare resin and painted it in aluminum. I added the Me-109 main gear, nose gear from an anonymous kit and two under the fuselage 20mm gunpods from the same ancient Hasegawa Me-109 kit. The drop tanks are from the KP Yak23.

The roundels are from an ancient Revell F-104 kit. Even with a coating of Future to keep the decals from breaking into a million bits, two cracked. The rest of the decals are home-made. I still have a few things to fix but it's 90% done. Even filling the nose witha lot of plasticine and lead pellets, this sucker is a tail sitter.





The marking on the tail is of a tiger jumping through a hoop. The blue flag is the Coat of Arms of Henry of Burgundy.

[Weaver]

Excellent - I've never even heard of this aircraft!

[ysi_maniac]

^^^^
Me neither.
A wonder, indeed. Love this aircraft