"Zeb" Twin-Engined Zero

[sequoiaranger]

>Wow, nice, really nice.<

De nada. It really felt good to use the brush rather than the airbrush. Like I was young again!

>Excellent work! How long did that take?<

Thanks. Only about a half-hour, actually, not including the base red-brown. I was able to practice once on a piece of paper with an airplane outline using felt pens, just to get the hang of it. Not nearly as long as the painstaking "bubblebath" camo of the Balinese Brewster, or the "Newt" camo. I just used my intuition for the spacing, when to "turn" perpendicular, and when to "slash" the green with a sporadic border of light-gray, so it worked out OK. No errors to re-paint, even!

There was always a question in my mind whether the very light color was gray, white, or bare-metal. I decided on "underside" gray. The underside is "gray" and I may have some "antique white" wavy lines there, too, to break up the conformity (GAWD, how I hate conformity!!     )

[Weaver]

Just catching up with this one: great project, highly credible and gorgeous cammo - nice one! 

Couple of thoughts on twins and range:

1. The motivation for the late '30s twins wasn't usually range, it was firepower. It was generally believed that the recoil of cannon was too great for them to go in the wings so they had to go in the nose, which in turn meant "splitting" the single engine in two to make room for them. This is why aircraft like the Whirlwind and Fw-187 have such small engines: they were conceived as "split singles" rather than "doubles" like the Me-110 or P-38.

2. The reason why twin engined fighters can carry more fuel than singles is volume. Fuel tanks have to be centred around the CofG, which in piston-engined aircraft is just behind the engine/engines. In a single-engined aircraft, this puts the fuel tanks in direct competition with the cockpit for the same piece of three-dimensional real estate: whatever compromise is reached, some potential fuel volume gets used by other things. In a twin-engined aircraft, the cockpit can go in the nose in the space vacated by the engines, thus leaving a large volume of fuselage around the CofG free for the exclusive use of fuel tanks. Twins also tend to retract their undercarriage into the engine nacelles rather  than the inner wings, thus leaving much more space in the latter for yet more fuel.

[sequoiaranger]

>Just catching up with this one: great project, highly credible and gorgeous cammo - nice one!<

Thanks (Weaver, Pablo and Taiid). It came out, at arm's length, looking precisely how I wanted it. If you look close, however, it looks SO SLOPPY and slapdash. I guess I just have to chalk it up to "native labor" conscripted to hastily paint the aircraft on local airfields!  

Next come gloss clear coat and decals. I hand-did some Thai numbers for 9 and 4 on clear decal, and I will have a "leader's stripe" around the fuselage by the tail. Don't know about "kill markings", as I have none suitable for French. Maybe I'll make some--the roundels would be difficult, but a tricolor flag could be done.

>Couple of thoughts on twins and range: The motivation for the late '30s twins wasn't usually range, it was firepower.<

Well, the Misago certainly has THAT, particularly in comparison to contemporary (1941) Japanese fighters.

>This is why aircraft like the Whirlwind and Fw-187 have such small engines: they were conceived as "split singles" rather than "doubles" like the Me-110 or P-38.<

An interesting concept ("split singles"), but the Fw-187 had full-sized engines for the time, the same engine found the in contemporary Bf-109 (DB 600-a carburetted version of the later DB 601). The Peregrines for the Whirlwind were downsized, though, but not by much (two 800+ hp engines instead of the Hurricane single Merlin's 1000 hp.)

>The reason why twin engined fighters can carry more fuel than singles is volume.<

I kinda get that, but kinda don't. That is, I can see that a twin has more volume, but TWICE more?? To have twin engines and GREATER range than a single, means MORE THAN TWICE the volume of fuel. I guess the wing-roots afford a lot of room for fuel in a twin.

[Weaver]

This is why aircraft like the Whirlwind and Fw-187 have such small engines: they were conceived as "split singles" rather than "doubles" like the Me-110 or P-38.

An interesting concept ("split singles"), but the Fw-187 had full-sized engines for the time, the same engine found the in contemporary Bf-109 (DB 600-a carburetted version of the later DB 601). The Peregrines for the Whirlwind were downsized, though, but not by much (two 800+ hp engines instead of the Hurricane single Merlin's 1000 hp.)

I appreciate that the Fw-187 was intended to have DB 600s, but only one ever flew with them. The rest, including the "operational" ones in the Focke-Wulf base defence flight, had Jumos of no more than 730 hp, making them very comparable to the Whirlwind.

[Taiidantomcat]

I kinda get that, but kinda don't. That is, I can see that a twin has more volume, but TWICE more?? To have twin engines and GREATER range than a single, means MORE THAN TWICE the volume of fuel. I guess the wing-roots afford a lot of room for fuel in a twin.

Remember that since its a Japanese plane and they sacrificed everything for range: armor, structure, thin skin, self sealing tanks, etc. It can have long range without being big. Look at the Zero. Not big, lots of range.
 

Also, A half hour!! Wow!!   

[ChernayaAkula]

Fantastic camo!   When finished, this will also be a hot contender for the Best Camo-Whiffie^TM!  

for the anti-glare panels!

[sequoiaranger]

>I appreciate that the Fw-187 was intended to have DB 600s, but only one ever flew with them. The rest, including the "operational" ones in the Focke-Wulf base defence flight, had Jumos of no more than 730 hp, making them very comparable to the Whirlwind.<

The use of Jumos was FORCED on Focke-Wulf, as those DB 600 full-sized engines were needed for Bf-109's and Bf-110's. Though horsepower-wise, the Fw-187 and Whirlwind were similar, the Fw was designed for two state-of-the-art engines of 1,000hp each, whereas the Whirlwind used the smaller (than Merlin) Peregrine. Peregrine displacement was 21 liters, Merlin was 27 liters, and Griffon was 37 liters.  The ratio of Merlin/Peregrine displacement is roughly equal to Griffon/Merlin (1.3--1.4).

Taiid--*THIS* Japanese plane was designed at the outset to break "tradition" and have "pilot-saving" devices like seat armor, radio, dinghy, and self-sealing tanks (mimicking Western designs)---only because it was large and powerful enough. I can't help it if manuverability-conscious Japanese pilots TOOK OUT the armor, dinghy, and radio to make the Misagos lighter and more nimble!!  

CherAk--Thanks. I put black in place of the "gray" for anti-glare and it seems right.

For "kills", I do have two French flags and an upside-down orange triangle for the two Vichy aircraft that my pilot got during the Franco-Thai war of early 1941, plus the Dutch Hudson shot down over the Gulf in a "get Yamamoto"-type operation (more in the backstory).

[sequoiaranger]

I hand-painted the "94" in Thai script (looking like "OnCa"), and otherwise put on the Stoppel Thai decals plus the two French and one Dutch kill markings:

[Brian da Basher]

Those rarely-seen (Burmese?) markings are a plot-twist that totally took me by surprise! Nice touch! Odd the markings were a surprise as you've perfectly rendered the camo scheme one sees them on.

I was trying to wait until final roll-out, but I was so blown away I couldn't hold back!

Brian da Basher

[Army of One]

Awesome colour scheme.......!! Great concept/idea....I love it..!!

[johnsjunk]

Awsome Build!!!!

[GTX]

Whoa!!!

[dumaniac]

nice camo - i'll store that one for later

[NARSES2]

Those rarely-seen (Burmese?)

Thailand Brian, one of a couple of national markings in use during WWII

Really nice model 

[sequoiaranger]

Ao1, j-junk, GTX, dumaniac, NARSES2 and Brian-- Thanks. Yes, the Thais had a multi-ringed red-white-and-blue roundel pre-war and post-war, with the red-and-white elephant motif DURING the war.

I had two sets of Thai decals. One came from a boxed 3-model set of Revell 1/72 "Pacific Sky Fighters" (a Thai Ki.43, an F4F, and a.....?), and the other was a Stoppel set (slightly larger--don't know for what model that might have applied--it's too big for a Hayabusa, and just BARELY fit here on the bigger Misago wing). The Revell set was more orange-ish (no quips about luck on Thursdays!), and both the tail pachyderms were facing the same way (to the left) instead of being "handed". The Stoppel set had the richer red and "handed" tail emblems. Both sets had the top insignia as a red elephant "flag" set in a white circle (as seen on my most recent build pic). My study of the Thai Hayabusa revealed that the top insignia was merely a standard Japanese Hinomaru. To me, there seemed to be "too much white" in the decal emblem, so I thought of a hybrid marking. *IF* I had been thinking earlier, I would have cut out a nice white-bordered elephant flag and superimposed it on a Hinomaru. But, I can retroactively do that by cutting up slices of Hinomaru (shown mocked-up in the photo) and pasting them around the flag. I won't bother with a pic until my Misago is done, which will only be a few days, as I "need" to display it at my local IPMS meeting on Friday.



For better or worse, this close-up reveals the "sloppy" camo application that looks "right" from afar.