English Electric P.7D

[Weaver]

English Electric P.7D

Despite English Electric being very proud of the P.1/Lightning concept, it became obvious by the mid 1950s that equivalent or greater performance could be obtained by using the same aerodynamics on a much simpler aircraft with a single, large engine. Initially, schemes such as the P.6/1 were drawn around the Rolls-Royce Rb.106, but this engine was never funded for production. Attention then switched to the De Havilland Gyron, but Hawker's unfortunate experience with that engine's surging problems in the P.1121 dissuaded the EE team from pursuing it further. An afterburning derivative of the Rolls Royce Conway was also considered. Up to this point, the EE Lightning had been seen as the RAF's sole future day fighter, with the single-engined EE aircraft being offered as a pure high-speed research aircraft. The former Ministry of Supply had been lookwarm about EE's proposals to the latter requirements, preferring the twin-engined, straight-winged configuration promoted by the RAE, but at this point, politics intervened.



The cancellation of the joint British/Canadian Avro Arrow interceptor project in 1957 has been covered in detail elsewhere, but one side effect was that it's engine, a supersonic afterburning version of the Bristol Olympus, suddenly became available for other projects. Not only that, but the government, finding itself roundly criticised in the press for the cancellation and it's effect on both British industry and the RAF, was suddenly keen to find other applications for it as well.  The newly-formed MoD therefore offered to fund EE's revised P.7/3 proposal, with an Olympus engine, as a "second-source" fighter for the RAF, to be built at Avro's Woodford plant which would otherwise have suffered severe redundancies due to the loss of the Arrow. The fact that the short-ranged single-seat, AI.23-equipped P.7 was in no way a substitute for the Arrow was quietly glossed over, not least by the RAF who were just glad not to see a reduction in absolute aircraft numbers.



English Electric were pleased by neither the forced selection of the Bristol engine nor the requirement to sub-contract, but with work at a premium, they had little option but to comply. The first prototype, now dubbed the P.7D, thus appeared some 18 months later and commenced a flight test program that lead to the introduction of the productionised EE Thunderbolt F.1 in 1962. The P.7D prototype, XP476, was not entirely representative of the production aircraft, and thus was never converted to production standard like the other prototypes, but retained by English Electric for high speed research under various MoD/RAE contracts. It was later used to test various variable area nozzle designs, but was eventually grounded following a heavy landing in June 1968.



XP 476's subsequent career was less glamorous, since it was used for ground tests of a variety of ejector seat designs and it was in quite a sorry state by the time it was "rescued" by the museum at RAF Cosford in 1980. In particular, it's cockpit had been entirely gutted, and despite their best efforts, the museum has been unable to restore it to it's original flying condition, since it's proved impossible to locate an example of the unique Folland ejector seat which was only fitted to the first six aircraft.




I'm afraid there's no elaborate build article for this model, since it was thrown together in a mad rush the week before the Cosford Show, after my Red Arrows G.91 project ran into paint problems. Basically, it's a Plasticart Su-7 fuselage fitted with the intake, wings, tailplanes, fin, spine and cockpit from a Revellofrog Lightning P.6. The belly tank is half of an Airfix F-4 centreline drop tank, and the jet nozzle is an unidentified refugee from the spares box.




Construction had it's "issues", mostly self-inflicted, since I cut the rear fuselage off too far forward and then had to glue half of it back on again. I then compounded this error by doing nearly the same thing at the front, although in this case the day was saved by cutting the front bulkhead off the Lightning kit and using it as a space to get intake and fuselage to mate. The cockpit canopy also needed LOTS of filing to get it to fit, and most of the lower and rear frame lines are more paint than plastic.



Paint was kept deliberately simple: Humbrol Hu.56 Aluminium from a rattle can, with contrast panels hand-brushed in HU.191 Chrome Silver. Most of the decals came from an Airfix Lightning F.3 (the Revell ones were too late) with the serials cut up and re-arranged. The exception was the tail flashes, which are from the Airfix Yellowjacks Gnat. They proved a real pain, since the red ran in the decal solution, giving them pink edges, and one of them started peeling off at the show (now fixed with a dab of PVA. The slanting flash at the front edge of the fin was really used on some Lightnings, and I decided to go with it in order to allow the serial to sit on the fin, rather than the rear fuselage, since it would be quite difficult to place on the latter due to the position of the Su-7 airbrakes.



It's rough around the edges due to the rushed build, but overall, I like it a lot: it's one of those rare whiffs where the bits seem to want to fall together. To that end, I intend to do another one at some point, this time in an operational scheme, possibly RAF-in-Vietnam....

[PR19_Kit]

You did that in a WEEK?? 

Strewth, it was very impressive on the stand at Cosford but now I'm even MORE impressed! A class act for sure, can't wait for the 'in service' version. 

[deathjester]

It's so beautiful...

[Logan Hartke]

Very cool, definitely has a bit of a Republic look to it.

Cheers,

Logan

[rickshaw]

Very nice.  I initially thought you'd use a MiG21 fuselage but once I saw the four airbrakes at the rear, I recognised it for what it was.  Looks the part and the back story is good too!   

[Captain Canada]

That's a beautiful little model you've 'thrown' together ! Subtle, but not so subtle ! Love the paint too, looks real !

[Vulcan7]

wow very beautiful build, cool 

[pyro-manic]

Love it, love everything about it! What a beauty!

I've thought about single-engined Lightnings, but never quite worked out how to do one (it's too skinny to shoehorn a single big engine in) but that works really well.

[RussC]

Very cool, definitely has a bit of a Republic look to it.

Cheers,

Logan

And maybe a dash of Mikoyan/Sukhoi too!

Nice Build 

[NARSES2]

Did look good in the display, didn't it ?  Loved the finish

[Weaver]

Wow - cheers for the responses folks! Much appreciated as ever.

I must throw things together in a panic more often! 

[Thorvic]

It did look the part and was quite a feat to produce in just a week especially with a metalic finish 

So whats next a two seater (side by side or tandem  ), enlarged belly tank, VG (that could prove interesting ) ?
I recall you were looking for suitable donor kits at the show 

G

[Weaver]

Cheers Geoff!

Found another Plasticart Su-7 at the show. It has to be the Plasticart one because (I think) it's significantly over-scale: I had a look at a KP one and it looked far too narrow. I have a stack of Revellofrog F.6s so that's no problem. Finding an identical nozzle might be tricky, but then that's why I whifjitsued the back story such that I'm not comitted to it.

The idea at the moment is for an operational single-seater, possibly in some variation of the RAF-in-Vietnam cammo that I dreamed up for the Super-Canberra profiles that I did ages ago. I think that one benefit of the shallower fuselage is that I can have underwing drop tanks inboard of the u/c, either on the wing (F-84F style) or on cranked fuselage pylons either side of the belly tank (I have a couple of F-14 glove pylons going spare, but I havn't offered them up yet). The aircraft will then have twin early Sidewinders on each overwing pylon.... Don't know about guns yet: possibly in a modified belly tank....

Nothing will happen soon though: my world's filling up with DIY at the moment   , although on the upside, negotiations have been concluded such that part of the DIY will be improvements to the modelling den...

[The Rat]

That's a winner in every way; concept, execution, and presentation! 

[rickshaw]

I have one of those VEB Plastikart Su-7s.  Mmmm, RAAF one?