Strength is Victory: भारतीय ईगल of भारतीय वायु सेना

[Gondor]

You can only JUST see them anyway, and the rear pit is 100% invisible.

It's still frustrating when they do that regardless of the visibility at the end of the build 

Gondor

[Gondor]

This is 1/72nd, yah?

I'm never touching an aircraft again!

It's not that bad.

The straps are not really that small





Not when you compare mine to the real ones




The last picture was found on the web somewhere and I had not intended to post it so didn't remember from which walk around it came from.

The second axle will be replaced later. This time by drilling away part of the existing axle so I get better alignment.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

That pic of the ejection seat was taken at Cosford when they had a dedicated Martin Baker exhibit. It's been replaced by the EFA now, but it maybe elsewhere on the site, but I've not found it yet.

[Gondor]

I had been thinking of how to mount the six weapons I am putting into the weapons bay, or rather how to replicate the intended triple bomb cradles for the weapons bay. Inspiration came to me while looking at the weapons bay as I remembered that Airfix provide a pallet of some kind that is an optional load for the aircraft. The ends fit the shape of the bay 



These are the weapons I am putting inside the bay, six BL577's which will be in two sets of three.



However, don't you just love those however's, when measuring sizes against each other I realised that everything was going to be a very tight fit. Plastic kit manufacturers don't have access to materials that replicate the required strength at the required scale thickness so some parts have to have smaller dimensions in places and this could be one of them as the weapons only just fit inside the bay without anything else around them    In fact, not visible in this picture, the BL577's are slightly proud of the edges of the bay so I may need to "adjust" their dimensions when I fit them after the fuselage is assembled.



So as nothing looks as if it is going to be seen I have decided to cheat when I install the weapons 

The darn things will be glued in place and only those in the know will realise that the spiel given at shows about the detailed carrier, just like those seen in publications about the aircraft, is not actually there 

After all, the weapons hide the cradle so nothing will be seen anyway and it saves me a lot of fiddly work with 10 thou plastic strip 

Gondor

[Gondor]

Got the fuselage glued together with all the three sub assemblies installed at the same time. The cockpit, nose-wheel bay and weapons bay/main undercarriage bay were all added at the same time as I joined the fuselage half's as this allows them to be moved slightly to one side or the other allowing them to be lined up correctly and not off to one side or the other.

I have three clamps holding everything together as a couple of areas wanted to not fit quite as well as the rest. It's nothing drastic or exceptional, I could have used elastic bands or tape but I prefer to use clamps.

Gondor

[Gondor]

More glue has been applied.

The separate underside section has now been glued in place





The supports between the sides of the weapons bay have been removed now and the area glued to the weapons bay which should be the last bit of glueing for the underside for a few days while I PSR the main intakes and edges of various fuselage section joints. The hole forward of the nose undercarriage bay is there just in case I need to add a little nose weight later on as there is no room further forward and there is a separate hatch that covers the hole I hacked out of the fuselage half's.

Gondor

[Gondor]

I really should check and double check things before I move onto the next step but this time I forgot to do so. 

Such as in this instance



I should have made sure that I had both the rudder pedals and the control column installed prior to fixing the fuselage together. All is not lost though...

Because the cockpit combing not fitted yet there is plenty of room to insert the pedals which are being held in the self gripping tweezers





The control column presented its own problem. It's too tall as it is 

This slightly fuzzy picture shows the handle of the control column almost level with the top of the instrument panel 



Swiftly removing the column I reduced it's hight but cutting off the thicker bottom part then removing the paint at the bottom of the remaining column so the glue had something to adhere to. Looks much better now



Not much more being done today and another little tip to hand on to people so a satisfying day

Gondor

[Gondor]

Not done tons of work on this in the last couple of days but I have finalised the weapons load, at least the part that I am going to show for now 



The picture shows the triple sets of 1,000lb bombs that will be inside the weapons bay with two rows of 1,000lb bombs that will be on beams under the inner wing pylons. Sources for the bombs are, Weapons Bay: Airfix 70's RAF Hawk & RAF Jaguar kits. The bombs for the Beams are are from Freightdog.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Just a small update to show that I may be on top of this model which is starting to get completed.



It's just a test fit of the wings and upper fuselage parts along with the exhaust pipes and vertical tail in place just to see how it looks. So far so good I think, or at least close enough that I can't work my way around any problems.

Gondor

[DogfighterZen]

Looking good indeed!

[Gondor]

Slow progress recently though realising that we are into the final month has caused me to pick up the pace a bit.

Recent work has been on the weapons that the aircraft will be carrying, namely British 1,000lb bombs. I did find a picture on the internet of bombs used by the Vickers Valiant and decided to use that colour scheme so here are the bombs for the Indian Eagle alone with some other bombs I have been preparing for another build.



As you can see, they still require some work although the basic colours are finished. On the right side of the picture are the 1,000lb bombs with the top four from Freightdog. These four will be on two bomb beams from the old Airfix Jaguar while the other six bombs are a mix of parts from the same kit or the same time period Airfix H.S. Hawk and Red Arrows Hawk from the same time period. I live the look of the bombs from these kits, they just look right to me so any donations of similar parts will be most welcome. 

The bombs on the left side of the picture, all twelve of them, are from Hasegawa weapons set One and are the last I have of the Mk 81, the previous twelve have done a disappearing act along with my last MER's 

All the bombs need a yellow ring around their noses, the 1,000lb bombs require the ring to be a distance from the end of their noses such as below.



To help achieve this I intend to paint the yellow rings by hand with a 10/0 paint brush 



I expect this to be frustrating and may end in my using a few naughty words during this evening.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Well the painting of the yellow rings was both good and bad.



The small Mk 81 bombs were no problem at all, but try painting a ring around the nose of a British 1,000lb bomb free hand 

I did come up with an alternative painting method for the 1,000lb'ers, paint a solid yellow band with the edge nearest the body as straight as I can manage while making sure that there is enough yellow forward of that rear edge to form the band and it could even extend further forward than required because I can always paint over the yellow with more green in a day or so to tidy up the band! 

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Looks like your local hardware store has been doing land office business in clothes pegs Alastair! 

I've used that method of painting the whole nose of the bomb yellow and then overpainting the very tip with green, and it seems to work quite well. You only need to ensure one side of the paint line is straight at any one time.

[TallEng]

Just idle thinking/remembering didn't someone here suggest dipping the noses of bombs in
The required colour for the band and then when the yellow or whatever colour had dried dipping
The nose of said weapon into the main colour again and thus creating a band of the required colour with straight edges? Obviously some (repeatable) accuracy would be required on the second dip, but it could/might provide a
Band with nice straight edges?
Alternatively I might be talking absolute wossnames
Another alternative might be to print bands of the required width/colour etc on clear decal sheet?
Apologies if I'm less than lucid, it's the end of night shift and I probably should be in bed

Regards
Keith

[Gondor]

Just idle thinking/remembering didn't someone here suggest dipping the noses of bombs in
The required colour for the band and then when the yellow or whatever colour had dried dipping
The nose of said weapon into the main colour again and thus creating a band of the required colour with straight edges? Obviously some (repeatable) accuracy would be required on the second dip, but it could/might provide a
Band with nice straight edges?
Alternatively I might be talking absolute wossnames
Another alternative might be to print bands of the required width/colour etc on clear decal sheet?
Apologies if I'm less than lucid, it's the end of night shift and I probably should be in bed

Regards
Keith

Both good ideas for which I have good reasons for not using.

1) Build up of paint on each nose as the bombs with the square fins have fuses moulded on them.

2) Curves. The nose of a tapering cylinder is a difficult thing to print an accurate stripe for and applying the resultant decal could take an age and tons of decal setting solution.

Besides I know the way I am doing the rings/bands. It might be low tech and require me to up my painting skill to get the straight edges but that's fine for me.

Gondor