Red Arrows Falcon GR.1A (FIAT G.91R)

Weaver · February 04, 2012, 06:31:28 PM

I've started my Red Arrows G.91R for Cosford. Nothing worth photographing yet, just clean up of the dodgy bits of the Airfix moulding and filling of the sink marks in the gun panels, and the gun troughs themselves. I've got a Pavla seat for it, since the top of the seat is quite conspicuous when it's finished (and it can't have a pilot to hide it, of course), but I'm not doing the rest of the cockpit: it'd take too long and be demoralisingly invisible anyway.

Colour-wise, it will have a white stripe down each side and a red/white/blue fin, but the white stripe will NOT "swerve" up the fin as it does on the RA Hawks. They can do that on the Hawk because the tailplanes are well behind the fin, giving the stripe room for it's swerve, but it's the other way around on the Gina, so the tailplanes would block the stripe. Also, I've never liked the white-outline arrow on the bottom of the Hawks (it's too.... fussy), so I'm looking at something like this:

Opinions?

The Frecce Tricolori carried their smoke chemicals in underwing tanks but I'd like to eliminate that, so what I think I might do is put a bulge on the lower half of each gun bay door and a fairing over the muzzle (I'm presuming that RAF Ginas would have a 2 x 30mm fit like the German ones but with ADENs), the implication being that the smoke tanks are in the gun bays, but the guns can be re-fitted in wartime.

Backstory is that the Hunter production switched early to the P.1083, meaning the FGA.9 never happened. The "Super Hunter" wasn't particularly suitable for the ground-attack role, so that made the RAF interested in the NATO Light Fighter competition as a means of replacing the Venoms and provinding an advanced trainer. Buying a "foreign" aircraft wasn't particularly painful in this case, since the UK airframes were built under licence by Shorts and ALL the engines for ALL the airframes were built by Bristol. The UK acquired the single seater as a ground-attack aircraft and the G.91T as it's advanced trainer.

Any ideas about a name for the RAF version? It's very rare the RAF doesn't give something a "proper" name, even if it doesn't have one originally....

Oh, and it WILL have the camera nose, despite being a display version. The only reason the Frecci Tricolori PAN aircraft had pointy tin noses was because they were converted from the pre-production aircraft that were built before it was decided to make the camera fit standard on all aircraft. That would hardly apply to RAF aircraft, so mine will have the camera ports there, but blanked off and painted over.

rickshaw · February 04, 2012, 07:58:07 PM

Why not the Falcon? In Italian, "Falco" means "Hawk".

kitbasher · February 05, 2012, 12:22:04 AM

Quote from: Weaver on February 04, 2012, 06:31:28 PM
Colour-wise, it will have a white stripe down each side and a red/white/blue fin, but the white stripe will NOT "swerve" up the fin as it does on the RA Hawks. They can do that on the Hawk because the tailplanes are well behind the fin, giving the stripe room for it's swerve, but it's the other way around on the Gina, so the tailplanes would block the stripe. Also, I've never liked the white-outline arrow on the bottom of the Hawks (it's too.... fussy), so I'm looking at something like this:

Good idea - looking forward to seeing it in the flesh. As far as the fuselage strip sweep is concerned, have you considered starting the sweep to the fin from the point the dorsal fillet starts? By which I mean the line of the stripe would parallel the fillet edge and then transition into the fin ahead of the tailplane?

Weaver · February 19, 2012, 04:45:01 PM

Rickshaw - good idea: Falcon it is - cheers!

Kitbasher - looked at the "follow the fillet" idea, but I don't think it works: too much of the stripe ends up not parrallel to the aircraft axis, making it look "bent". Thanks anyway.

Some progress has been made.

1. Fuselage. Tailpipe opened out and an alloy tube and blanking plate fitted, cockpit front bulkheads fitted (so the intake isn't see-through) intake upper wall fitted behind nosecone, intake lips thins, balast added to nose sides and nosecone, cockpit floor pieces fitted. The idea of the stepped floor is that the seat base slots into it, locating it positively.

2. Ejection Seat. Painting's all done, just needs overhead handles making from wire now. I don't see why Pavla couldn't supply these, given that they've moulded the one on the front of the seat pan just fine...

I only cut half the moulding plug off, the intention being to mount it direct on the nosewheel bay, but I then realised it could go a bit higher, hence the built up cockpit floor.

Pablo1965 · February 19, 2012, 04:54:45 PM

Good start.

Weaver · February 27, 2012, 07:53:08 PM

Can't make my mind up about stripes and tail flashes and stuff, so here's some ideas to chew on. Opinons please folks!

AeroplaneDriver · February 27, 2012, 08:09:03 PM

I like #4, though maybe with the white part of the tail flash curving into the white fuselage stripe. Looking good!

MilitaryAircraft101 · February 27, 2012, 09:34:55 PM

Personally #2, but I do like the tail on #5. Maybe a bash of the two?

PR19_Kit · February 27, 2012, 10:18:32 PM

#4 works for me too.

Vulcan7 · February 28, 2012, 12:07:23 AM

looking good, come in no.4 your time is up

srkirad · February 28, 2012, 12:21:01 AM

No.2 is better because white stripe starts from "nose" and looks a bit like moustache.

I would only connect white stripe on fuselage with one on tail, like on real Red Arrows Hawk - it's not even so complicated to make masks although it looks it is!

Also, it would be good if white stripe would be much more thinner from the beginning at the nose area - like on No.3 and No.4.

rickshaw · February 28, 2012, 12:58:34 AM

Quote from: AeroplaneDriver on February 27, 2012, 08:09:03 PM
I like #4, though maybe with the white part of the tail flash curving into the white fuselage stripe. Looking good!

Ditto. I like the idea of the stripe joining the tail flash.

James · February 28, 2012, 01:44:51 AM

I like no.4 mate.

TallEng · February 28, 2012, 01:48:29 AM

#4 looks the best.

Regards
Keith

Weaver · February 28, 2012, 04:11:23 AM

Cheers for the input folks!

Couple of points that I should have made in the post really:

1. The problem with having the fuselage stripe "swerve" up the fin is that the tailplane is in the way. They get away with it on the Hawks because the tailplane is far enough back, relative to the fin, that the swerve is in front of it, but that doesn't apply on the Gina, whose taiplane is much further forwards. Kitbasher suggested having it follow the line of the dorsal fillet, but I think that makes too much of it non-parrallel to the fuselage.

2. A related problem is that there's no clearly defined base to the fin on the G.91. On the Gnat and the Hawk, the fins are just "stuck on" to the fuselage so there's a definate line where they end and the fuselage begins. On the Gina, the base of the fin is blended into the fuselage a bit like an F-16's wing roots, so there's no defined line.