(DONE..FINALLY, sheesh! LOL) F/U-2 H.A.W.K., Vietnam era warbird (Pics page 14)

[kerick]

Just wish I had thought of that!

[TheChronicOne]

Almost done with the airframe extension/new scratchbuilt radome piece. I need to go gey my copper tubing cutters from the garage to re-scribe the line where the radome joins up to the fuselage but otherwise this is done. Might have to throw another coat of paint on after the scribing but this is pretty much there.

In other news... quite a bit of working on the fuselage. Glued on both horizontal stabs and one of the long, sexy leg...err....wings.  The things are so long and heavy I guess I should let one dry up well before I put the other on because I have to have the wing shooting straight up in the air!


Just to need to re-scribe the line. Radome is painted, fuselage extension will be painted when I paint the entire aircraft (still have to go buy the SEA camo paint!) 

[TheChronicOne]

Got the "main stuff" put together.




Guess I need to fill the seams on the wings and stabs.  I don't think any panel lines naturally fall there (or do they?? ).

[PR19_Kit]

Nice. 

The wings could be longer though.... 

[TheChronicOne]

Nice. 

The wings could be longer though.... 

Figures you'd say that.    lol


Thanks!

[jsport]

This one here, I'm pretty amped about. I want this one to be my best of either 3 or possibly 4 builds for this GB.

The kit I'm using is the 1962 release of the U-2A Spyplane by Hawk.



Ratty box but the kit was complete aside from the windscreen. I'm going to order the Falcon set with 5 or 6 or 7 (whatever) sets of glass that include the canopy and windscreen for this bad boy. 

Snowtrooper dug me up some water slide transfer decals that will look good on this. It's going to be painted up in SEA camo and MY home made make pretend story is that this is a high altitude air to air platform/recon.

I settled on HAWK for the name as it is a Hawk kit and I also made up a fancy acronym for it:  H.A.W.K. or High Altitude Warfare - Kinetic and I'm going to make my own scratch built make-pretend weapons that are basically a small guidance pack, weight, and rocket fuel. Basically, the plane will loiter at 80,000 feet and provide an umbrealla of coverage of a large part of the region utilizing altitude as an advantage to "reach out" and touch the enemy. The kinetic missiles can be fired and use their rocket fuel to get on course then simply arc toward the plane and even after the fuel is spent the trajectory and guidance will guide it into enemy air where the missile will simply smash into the plane. 

Cool idea or garbage?  What kind gizmos on my plane and on the missiles themselve would make this plausible? Or, would there be a way for some other AWACS type thing to guide the missiles somehow?

Oh well, I thought it was a neat idea. Story may be a pile of crock and the markings not precise and the name is all wrong but it will LOOK, cool, I promise.  LOL

Heck, my Mig/Vulture came to be through TIME TRAVEL and alternate universe stuff in order to escape mutliple accuracy issues but this here is supposed to be more in line with history.  Certainly, "what if," though, so I'm not going to break my brain trying to get everything right.   "What if we stacked some missiles on it and let it shoot down airplanes from 80,000 feet?!"   This is my answer. 



EDIT:  With help and research, I've opted for a more historically accurate "WHIF" and will substitute kinetic missiles with Aim-7 Sparrow!  The name shall henceforth be F/U-2 HAWK    (High Altitude War Kite)   

awesome concept

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks! I hope it doesn't take too long to finish. 

[Modelling_Mushi]

Its looking really good, looking forward to seeing the finished build 

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks, MM!!  I appreciate it and good to have you stop on by.   

Anyway... I need some input from the folks around here. I can't make up my mind on this nose piece... whether to paint the entire piece black as a radome or leave the rear part as part of the fuselage to have camo painted on.


Do I make the entire thing black, or do I only do the forward portion in black?


See here, I have it all finished out but I could easily (I think) re-scribe the joing with tubing cutter. I  just don't know if it's necessary. If I do the whole thing in black, would it be too large? 

[PR19_Kit]

I'd go with just the forward painted black, from where it starts curving down.

[Old Wombat]

I'd go with just the forward painted black, from where it starts curving down.

+1

[TheChronicOne]

OK, will do, shouldn't be a problem. I was hoping someone would come along and say, "aahhhh yeah, giant long radome makes perfect sense!!"  But in my own heart I know it doesn't.....   I was looking for someone to give me permission to be lazy.  LOL

Time to go fetch the tubing cutters.. 

Thanks ya'll.. I just needed a little shove to come to the right conclusion.   

[PR19_Kit]

The later U-2s, the U-2S, or TR-1s sometimes, did have the capability to bolt on a VERY long nose radome for the ASARS-2 system, but it wasn't much like the shape that you've moulded.

[TheChronicOne]

Yeah that's around 5 notches above my pay grade.





EDIT:  As typical of a person with anxiety... thinking about it was more stressful than the actual act of doing it... It turned out just fine:

[PR19_Kit]

Hehehehe,that's got to be the first time I've ever seen a pipe cutter being used on a plastic kit!