Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 a.k.a. Suchoj I-2M107 (Done, story & pics @ p. 2)

[Dizzyfugu]

Due to the recent developments, I'll tackle this one next, after the S-91, and a worthy contribution for this GB: I'll try to take Suchoj's 1943 design under the handle "I-2M107" to the hardware stage - an odd thing that never left the drawing board, but could have been ready as a Luft 46 adversary!

Found this rather idealistic/elegant CG rendition, for reference. My basis is a simple BW profile in a book and a NOVO supermarine Attacker in 1:72... THIS will be interesting, I guess  

[TallEng]

Oh I say! That looks rather interesting
I'll look forward to the 'Dizzy' touch

Regards
Keith

[Dizzyfugu]

Yeah, get the popcorn ready. Had this on my agenda for a long time, but was rather scared by the major surgery... But this GB is a good motivation to tackle it, finally, and a worthy tribute. I might post WiP here, as it could become VERY interesting. 

[Captain Canada]

Oooh nice ! That's gonna be awesome !

[PR19_Kit]

Does that have two engines, one offset from the other, and BOTH driving the prop??? 

[Dizzyfugu]

Yes. The thing was conceived in 1943, the idea was to put the power of two engines into a single, more aerodynamic airframe - hopes were high for a very high performance. This beast was to be driven by two Mikulin V-107 V 12 engines (hence the project name: "two machines 107 type"), put in tandem into the fuselage. Both would work through extension shafts and a gearbox on a single, large propeller - AFAIK a three-bladed one. Both radiators for the liquid-cooled engines were mounted side-by-side under the chin.

To have enough room in the fuselage and leave some sight for the pilot (the landing gear must have been VERY long, due to the large propeller...), the staggered engines' cylinder banks were also offset - the front engine to the right, making room for a cockpit on the left, and the rear one to the left. You can tell this by the exhaust stubs, if you know what you are looking for. Odd concept!

I hope I get it half-way right. IMHO, an Attacker makes a good starting point. It will get a new tail, I have a resin Griffon that will be grafted onto the nose and comes close to the I-2M107's shape, and the rest might be excused by "this is the serial production aircraft, which differed slightly from the prototypes."

Paint scheme will probably be similar to the one in the CG simulation above, in two-tone grey with light blue undersides. I do not want a "typical" green/blue livery for this one.

[Dizzyfugu]

Back online and here we go!

I eventually found the sketch that originally inspired me to build this thing:


A future project: the twin-engied, asymmetrical Sukhoj 'I2M 107' fighter from 1943 by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

A beauty, isn't it?

This abdomination of an aircraft is/was real, even though the I-2M107 was never built. I had this on the agenda for a long time, but the horrors of kitbashing kept me from building it - until now. Fortunately, I already had some major ingredients in store, so work could start asap.

From that, anything else was improvised from the scrap box, and with only a three side view of the I-2M107 as guidance. It became a true Frankenstein creation with...

● Fuselage and inner wings from the (horrible) NOVO Attacker
● Wings from an Italeri Fw 190 D-9 attached to them
● Nose is a resin Griffon from an Avro Lincoln conversion set from OzMods

Here some initial work impressions:


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

More to come/see soon, work is in quick progress! 

[Dizzyfugu]

More surgery mayhem...

After many trials I decided you build hybrid wings for the beast: the root parts come from the NOVO Attacker (which lacks ANY landing gear well, BTW! This had to be improvised, too), and the outer wing panels are Fw 190 wings. The characteristic leading edge extensions were added with massive 3mm styrene strips, and then integrated into the overall shape. Messy!


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


On the fuselage, places for the "exhaust slots" have been marked, soon to be cut open and covered from behind with styrene sheet.


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


The result: more putty work, but the fuselage takes shape, literally:


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


The gigantic propeller: it is scratched, too. The spinner is the front half of a drop tank (probably from an Academy F6F Hellcat, IIRC), and the blades belong to an Airfix A-1 Skyraider - cut away and glued onto the spinner. It also receives a metal axis, so that it will spin freely.


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


On the fuselage, front end work made progress: a deep hole for the propeller axis has been drilled, and with that in place I "dug out" an opening for the cockpit, from the massive resin Griffon nose. Inside, the walls were covered with styrene sheet, and on the outside another piece of styrene adds some shape for the putty work that will build the cockpit's outer lines:


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


More to come, stay tuned!

[Dizzyfugu]

Lots of progress in the last days. Imagine the dust clouds around my work station!


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


The canopy comes from a maybe 30 years old revell P-39 Airacobra - it was stained witgh enamel paint, but intact! Some sanding and serious polishing almost got it back to translucent state, enough as a donation part here.


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

Behold the "mixer of death" - or the Megamouth Shark of the skies?!


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


Slowly it starts looking like an aircraft!


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


In order to check the surface quailty I decided to add an interim primer coat - I normally only do this on large scale resin figures, but in this case, with all the sculpting work, I deemed it a necessity!


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


Looks O.K. at first glance, but you ALWAYS find flaws... lots of them! But at least, the rough body work is done, it's just surface prep - we're closing in on painting!


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107) - WiP by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


Finishing touches! The exhaust stubs are single tiles from a HO scale roof set.


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107), aircraft '23 White' of 176th GvIAP, 302nd IAD, 16th VA, USSR Air Force; Byelorussian front, early 1945 by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


And here she is, in rough glory, before detail painting (interior) started! Landing gear (from a Fw 190) has been fitted now, too, she's standing on her own feet and looks hungry... 


1:72 Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 (Suchoj I-2M107), aircraft '23 White' of 176th GvIAP, 302nd IAD, 16th VA, USSR Air Force; Byelorussian front, early 1945 by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

[Captain Canada]

Great to see the build as it comes along ! Excellent work so far....when you want to build something you really go for it eh ?

[NARSES2]

It's the speed that gets me. You obviously live outside of the time space continuum that I live in 

Great work 

[The Wooksta!]

I'd take issue with the accusation that the Novo Attacker is "awful" - it's a 1950s tooling and perfectly acceptable for the time.  Indeed, if built wheels up with a solid canopy and a few extras, it's more than decent.



The above should be proof enough.

And your engine is a Merlin 85 cowling but I can see where you've got confused as it does look similar to a Shackleton Griffon engine.  Later variations of the Merlin 85 style cowling had side gills like the Shackleton Griffons.

[pyro-manic]

It's the speed that gets me. You obviously live outside of the time space continuum that I live in 

This. Again. I don't know how you do it.

[Dizzyfugu]

Great to see the build as it comes along ! Excellent work so far....when you want to build something you really go for it eh ?

Well, that's the secret behind the success... I build one model after another, totally focussing on it. I have a hard time with parallel builds, in rare cases I just put the model/project away when I don't feel the spirit "burning" for it. That might look frightening to outsiders, but it's juts the way I "work", and I do not spend lots of time with uber-detailing anymore. I am very efficient, literally, and had everything I needed at hand. 

Concerning the speed of pics and progress: the pic slag behind, and I upload them in batches, so this is not in sync with reality. Work on the I-2M107 started late last week, though, and in the meantime the thing has been finished(!). But I must admit that I had three free days last week (took some time off for a concert on Tuesday evening), so progress was rather steady - even though things worked much more smoothly than I expected!

So, more pics to come, this here is just half way status. 

[Dizzyfugu]

I'd take issue with the accusation that the Novo Attacker is "awful" - it's a 1950s tooling and perfectly acceptable for the time.  Indeed, if built wheels up with a solid canopy and a few extras, it's more than decent.

Well, we are 60 years further in time, and it's a wonder that the form is still around! Actually, fit of the parts is VERY good, I was surprised, but the only thing to do with it is IMHO rip it apart (like I did...) or leave the landing gear away, and either make the canopy blind (as seen in the pic) or tae the burden to add cockpit of some sort. The material of the NOVO kit is also funny, it's a translucent, grey stuff that is very brittle, almost like clear styrene.

And your engine is a Merlin 85 cowling but I can see where you've got confused as it does look similar to a Shackleton Griffon engine.  Later variations of the Merlin 85 style cowling had side gills like the Shackleton Griffons.

[/quote]

Wasn't aware of that - the original packaging of the four engines is gone, so I expected the parts to be Griffons? Good to knwo, as there are still two left. These are already part of another conversion idea, inspired by a post some time ago from whatifmodelers.com...