Yak-75 "Flapper"

[Captain Canada]

That's alot of work but it's starting to look the part !

[Gondor]

There's a lot more work to do yet. So far I have only shown parts of the aircraft so I don't think that anyone knows what the resultant aircraft will look like.

Colour scheme will be all over Grey with a few metal panels and of course Red Stars in various places and Bort numbers, not decided which colour yet though that may depend on what will fit reasonably well onto the side's of the nose.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Well one idea I had I have thrown out as there would not have been much difference and a lot of work. I glued the wings into place yesterday and found there was a huge gap at the front on one side 


As you look at the above picture I assure you that there is in effect a yawning chasm at the forward wing root on the left hand side. It shows up better in this picture.... Look at the shadow under the wing.....


The other side is far better, just a slight gap as one would expect from some kits.


I knew what the problem was but I had no idea how to fix it. The fuselage side where the wheel well is was bowed outwards and I was unsure how on earth to remedy the problem.

One Flash of inspiration later when I noticed that the fuselage wall was actually recessed into the ends of the undercarriage bay and I was trying to pull the wing off without causing any damage!

Once the wing was off it was a "simple case" of separating the lower fuselage from the fuselage side so that I could move it into the proper place once the appropriate slots were made in the undercarriage bays.

Here is a picture or the resultant glueing of the fuselage into its proper place.


One good thing with the kit I am basing this build on is that the join between the fuselage half's and the underside of the fuselage, is that the join is at the wing to fuselage joint which makes cleaning things up so much easier as long as all the parts are assembled correctly as I have just shown must be done!


The result is a great improvement


The wing is only held in position in the above picture but I would not have got it that close previous to the remedial action shown above.

Is it me or does this make it look a bit like a Mirage IV?


I hope to finish this for the Scottish Nationals, thought that might be a touch ambitious.

Gondor

[Gondor]

I am toying with the idea of not posting any more progress shots of this build as it get nearer to the painting stage so as to keep you lot guessing about what it was and what it will look like 

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

Ok...you stop posting pics and we'll stop guessing !

I mean, we'll keep guessing !



Looks great can't wait to see what happens.

[kerick]

I am curious to know what kit you started with. It looks like an older design with the silver grey plastic.

[albeback]

I am curious to know what kit you started with. It looks like an older design with the silver grey plastic.

Looks like the old Italeri Typhoon kit. Or, as I think it then was, the EF2000?

Allan

[Thorvic]

Silver grey then its the Esci EFA kit, a nice Whiff kit as  based on mockul so a little different tl real typhoons

[Gondor]

Silver grey then its the Esci EFA kit, a nice Whiff kit as  based on mock-up so a little different to real typhoons

It is indeed Thorvic, one I believe you helped me get by finding it. It is of course a little modified and from the thread people can tell it will be twin finned, however the twist is that this aircraft failed to get the nod over what was to become the MiG-29 and never got further than the drawing board so it is in fact just an interpretation and may not look quite the same when I reach the end of this build.

Painting starts tomorrow, Ejector seat, a nice little number from True Details as well as the wheels and some touching up of the cockpit area.

Gondor

[Gondor]

No painting done yet as I have spent the last few days buying a new PC, using my laptop at the moment, but this evening I did some work on fixing the fins in place.

Remember that nice tip I gave in how to make matching holes on both sides of the fuselage? Well that part worked great, only problem was that the mounting tab on the tail fin I am using has the tab offset to one side so although one fin fits wonderfully neatly into place, the second fin wants to be further from the centreline than its twin 

So drilling two holes into the fin and cutting off the locating tab works well. Drilling two corresponding holes in the fuselage for the locating pins to fit into goes reasonably well. I say reasonably well because everything matched up really well, just the holes in the fuselage are a couple of millimetres too far forward 

Of course when I try to drill holes in line with the existing holes the drill bit decides not to go anywhere remotely near where I want the hole to be. Might try plan 'B' tomorrow and move the holes in the fin, or move one on the fuselage and one on the fin. Either way I have to make everything match the other fin as that is now stuck in place. Anyway, the locating hole has been filled with scrap plastic and will require sanding smooth but I am not worried about that. I have checked the fit of the ejector seat and that fits in with a bit of room to spare. Looking forward to the next few days.

Gondor

[buzzbomb]

Like this. Some really nice work there

[Gondor]

So despite my suggesting that I might not post further pictures of this build, I decided due to the way I portray my builds that I had better show where I go wrong.

So as I was saying a few days ago about the fin's being exactly the same so that the slots were causing problems, well I did find a solution and below are pictures showing it.

First the pins fitted to the fin and the locating lug removed from the fin.


You can see the plastic scraps that were used to fill the hole and the enlarged locating holes for the pins fitted to the fin.


Now you can see both fins in place, it really does change the look of the aircraft, kind of Mirage 4000 and ACA crossed.



Here you can see that someone got a little hungry and took a bite out of the fin!


Never mind I think that can be sorted.....


There has been filler applied to the sides of the fin extensions so they can be blended together. This is not exactly what I had in mind for these pieces of plastic but I think it improves the look even though there will still be something wrong about the build, that's because it didn't get produced.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Managed a little painting yesterday. The top part of the cockpit, the decking and cowling are now painted black as is the majority of the ejector set. The tyres are ready for paint as well so progress is being made. This evening the Finns will fight back.... oppps sorry, wrong fin's but I do expect them to give me trouble as it is so easy for them to go wrong.

Gondor

[Gondor]

I have been adding a few parts to my Yak-75. Weapons pylons and the like.  Masking the cockpit later in preparation for spraying a primer coat tomorrow then starting painting on the weapons and more painting of the ejector seat. I could do with another week off to catch up from last week when I was less than half as productive as I had hoped to be. Does anyone know what colour the Russians paint air intake covers?

Gondor

[McGreig]

Does anyone know what colour the Russians paint air intake covers?

They are normally red.

If you want to look at some examples, Yefim Gordon's "OKB Sukhoi" contains a good selection of colour photos of aircraft from the Fifties-era Su-7 to the Current-era Su-27/35 and all the intake covers are red. Similarly red covers are shown on Tu-22 Blinder and Tu-22M Backfires in Gordon & Komissarov's "Tupolev Tu-22/22M" (although the later Backfires with the angular, "Foxbat"-style intakes appear to use unpainted canvas covers).