Airbus Military/EADS A319 MPA

[tc2324]

This loos like the dogs gonads. 

Excellent work and looking forward to the finished article.

[Green Dragon]

You've done a great job there Hobbes, love the bomb bay. 

Paul Harrison

[Hobbes]

It's almost done, now awaiting decals (I'm having custom decals printed up, but the company that does the work has been having technical problems, as a result my decals are 6 months late).





The bomb bay and sonobuoy launcher:


IRST under the nose:


Convex observation windows:


I haven't added underwing missiles yet, may go with Harpoon after all.

[kitnut617]

That looks terrific as it is Harro -- 

A quick question, how does the A319 compare to the Nimrod size wise ?  To me it doesn't look any bigger 

Robert

[Hobbes]

Thanks Robert. The Nimrod is a bit longer (38 m vs. 33 m) but that may include the MAD probe of the Nimrod.
The A319 has more cabin space: its fuselage is 3.95 m across, the Nimrod is 2.97 m. The Comet had 4 seats across, the Airbus has 6 if I'm not mistaken.

The EADS brochure shows that there's plenty of room left in the Airbus cabin; with 2010 technology as opposed to the stuff installed in the MR2 that's no real surprise.

[kitnut617]

Thanks Robert. The Nimrod is a bit longer (38 m vs. 33 m) but that may include the MAD probe of the Nimrod.
The A319 has more cabin space: its fuselage is 3.95 m across, the Nimrod is 2.97 m. The Comet had 4 seats across, the Airbus has 6 if I'm not mistaken.

That would explain it then, the wider fuselage gives an optical illusion that makes it appear smaller.  If the fuselage is the same length it would be a much bigger aircraft than a Nimrod.  I'm going to get a Welsh Models 1/72 A320 in the near future so I will get an even better perspective of the two aircraft.

[GTX]

Damn fine work!

[Spey_Phantom]

looks good  , i really like how this turned out 

to bad the decals are going to be a tad late.
have you ever concidered making your own decals? its not that hard (or expensive)

[Hobbes]

I was planning to make this a NATO bird, and the NATO logo includes white areas. I don't want to futz around painting tiny white areas prior to applying decals. Inkjet printers and I don't see eye to eye, so I'll do anything to avoid having to print the decals myself.

[McColm]

Great work,
Having flown on several Nimrod missions, the layout at the back is different. There are two rotary launch tubes, sonor tubes carried internally.
The Nimrod layout  was narrow, walking from front to rear meant turning sideways. Not much fun when you are carrying a tray full of hot tea.
The M.A.D. boom should be fixed, as with the Lockheed Viking the extentable boom had to be recalibrate after each mission.

[Gondor]

How big is the weapon bay?

Gondor

[Hobbes]

It's 27 mm long, the width across the doors is 2x 10 mm. I've chosen the size to accommodate Mk-46 torpedoes, with some room left for growth. The Airbus material didn't show the exact size of the bay. 

[Pablo1965]

Goooood idea, and nice work, The plexiglas bubble is really awesome. I will follow this plane closely

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Another brilliantly believable project, Harro.

Ian

[PR19_Kit]

I was planning to make this a NATO bird, and the NATO logo includes white areas. I don't want to futz around painting tiny white areas prior to applying decals. Inkjet printers and I don't see eye to eye, so I'll do anything to avoid having to print the decals myself.

The trick to that is to use two layers, the lower one being white with the other colours as the top layer. It's true there are some shapes that can't be done like this though, anything with a white outline is almost impossible.