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

[TheChronicOne]

Wilco!!  It does "change shape" from taper to tube shaped but the ends butt perfectly. Going to blame it on radar installation... but I'm honestly surprised I was able to accomplish that.....   Go figure! If I tried again I probably couldn't do it.  lmao        

[TheChronicOne]

It's been awhile! OK, so the nose taper stuff kinda got to me..I din't want to put a ton of work into it, but I also didn't like the sudden change of slope, either... so... I compromised and did a half and half type deal. It worked!  At one point I busted the radome section off, however, and put it back on and I don't think it's quite as good as it was before I busted it off but it's good enough so it stays as is.

I need to come to a conclusion on the air brakes...I'd like to leave them open but if I do that I think I would need to scratch build some actuators. Shouldn't be much of a problem but then again the ol' lazy bone says "glue that stuff closed and move on."  I'll make a decision on it at some point.. The only other thing left is to glue in the pilot, mask the canopy, and then glue it down with pva. Everything else (the tiny stuff I do at the very end like antennas and  gear) is on hold until the paint can be bought. I toyed with the idea of brushing it on in the very early stages but decided it would look cool but I don't just want it to look cool, I want to look KILLER so I need spray. 

If I were modelling this after Powers' markings-less bird I'd be done with the livery!!     .... take a good look, this is the closest this project will ever be to looking historically accurate....   




After I glued the busted radome back on... see the change in slope there isn't as severe as it was early on.. That took one hell of a bit of sanding after filler and stuff.  SHEESH.  lol


I think the new forward nose and radar scratch build turned out a winner!!  I was worried for a bit, but not any more.  I think I screwed up the alignment a bit after I broke it, however,  and also jacked up my beautifully done pipe cutter etched line but I'm not going to mess with it any more and risk just making it worse.. It passes inspection in my book. I'll have to be more careful on the next one...

Time to get that canopy masked....

Until next time!   

[DogfighterZen]

I say that nose makes the U-2 look much better!

[Weaver]

Nice project!

Actuators are easy if you've got some brass/aluminium rod and tube. Just cut a length of rod that's the extended length of the actuator, then a half-length piece of tube that's a tight fit over it. if you want to get fancy you can blob a bit of glue around the end of the tube to give the impression of a dust seal and paint it black, but most internal actuators (like flaps) don't have that. If you need rose-joints/eyelets on the ends of the actuator, then make the tube a little longer and crush the end of it in a vice. Do the same with the brass rod.

I made some u/c struts for a helo project this way:

[TheChronicOne]

I say that nose makes the U-2 look much better!

Thanks!  She's more suited to cut a hole in the wind this way. D

[TheChronicOne]

Nice project!

Actuators are easy if you've got some brass/aluminium rod and tube. Just cut a length of rod that's the extended length of the actuator, then a half-length piece of tube that's a tight fit over it. if you want to get fancy you can blob a bit of glue around the end of the tube to give the impression of a dust seal and paint it black, but most internal actuators (like flaps) don't have that. If you need rose-joints/eyelets on the ends of the actuator, then make the tube a little longer and crush the end of it in a vice. Do the same with the brass rod.

I made some u/c struts for a helo project this way:

Thanks, bud!!  I appreciate the tips, too... I do believe I have some stuff that could be made to work in the form of old telescoping radio antenna type stuff and possible old wire coat hangars, etc...   That stuff you did looks great and I think it would be a nice touch for this bird to have those brakes open and some nice gear up in there..

The helo looks great, too..   

[RAFF-35]

Loving your work bud  hopefully the nose on mine will look similar when I start the rhinoplasty  in my opinion I'd have the air brakes closed so you can fly it around the room and stuff 

[Weaver]

You're welcome. 

Not sure if you've settled on your missile tech yet, but here are some thoughts.

The idea of exploiting kinetic performance (i.e. trading height for range/speed) is fine: Phoenix did that, as do several SAMs. The major problem with long range is guidance:

1. Command guidance.
The problem here is accuracy. All radar beams spread out with distance, so the further away the target is, the less precisely the controlling radar knows it's location, and thus the less accurate it's guidance commands to the missile will be. Small command-guided missiles (mostly SAMs) tend to have a range of under 10 miles, and big ones (SA-2 etc...) have to have huge warheads to compensate for the large miss distance.

2. Semi-active radar.
This gets round the radar accuracy problem because the missile is homing on the radar reflections from the target which become tighter and more precise the closer it gets to the target. The problem is radar power. Those reflections have about 1% the energy of the outgoing signal, so you need a big radar to illuminate the target at any significant range. Fighter-sized radars can rarely illuminate at more than about 40 miles. If you look at shipboard TI radars that can illuminate at greater ranges, they tend to have dishes over 2 meters across. There's also the tactical problem that the launching aircraft has to illuminate the target for the whole flight, which restricts it's maneuvering and (with a nose-mounted radar) brings it uncomfortable close to the target at the end of the shot.

3. Active radar.
This solves lots of problems by making the missile 'fire and forget' with it's own, self-contained radar guidance system. The problem here is simply technology: can you fit such a system into a small enuogh missile at an affordable price? With 1960s technology, Phoenix was the smallest possible missile and so hideously expensive that it could only be justified for defending aircraft carriers. With 1980s tech, AMRAAM became possible. A secondary problem with active radar missiles is jamming: the radars are, of neccessity, small and low-powered and that raises the possibility of simply swamping them with noise jamming.

4. Infra-red.
This is great, small, accurate and self-contained, but the problem is range. IR sensors only work at less than 10 miles (21st century tech) and less than that in the '60s. If you decide to get an IR missile into the vicinity of a distant target by some other means of guidance, the problem then in kinetic heating. The nose of the missile will get so hot over a long flight that it's own heat will blind it's IR sensor.

One thing you can do is combine guidance methods and that leads me to a suggestion for a credible, 1960s-tech long-range missile:

Command Guidance with IR Terminal Homing.

The missile has an IR homing head concealed beneath a jettisonable nose cone, and command guidance receiver. Both of these systems are small, light and cheap. The aircraft tracks the target and fires the missile. During most of the flight, the aircraft's radar operates in Track-While-Scan mode, keeping a rough check on the position of the target and the missile, while sending the latter guidance commands. This has the added advantage that there's no 'lock-on' to alert the target to the fact that they're being shot at. When the missile gets within two miles of the target, it jettisons it's nose cone, which has been shielding the IR seeker head from heating up to now, and homes in by infra-red.

Your Sparrow-painted AMRAAMs are perfect for this. If you really wanted to 'telegraph' the fact that they use this guidance method, you could scribe or paint lengthways 'split-lines' on the nose cones to show that they jettison in two halves to reveal the IR sensor underneath.

Would it work? Well it's theoretically sound, although I suspect that it's success rate with 1960s technology would be less than stellar. However that's no reason not to try it: all sorts of far more unlikely ideas have been tested and even put into service. Whiffs don't have to improve on real life, they just have to be credible, and a tale of an ambitious idea that got as far as a large-scale combat trial over Vietnam but didn't work out in the long run would have an all too familiar ring to it.

[TheChronicOne]

Loving your work bud  hopefully the nose on mine will look similar when I start the rhinoplasty  in my opinion I'd have the air brakes closed so you can fly it around the room and stuff 

Yeah I did that the other night with my Beechcraft Bonanza and busted off the little side step thingy so I've grounded myself for the indefinite future.      So no worries about room flights..    ( I was dusting it then I was admiring and ... WOOP...  carpet monster time lol ) 

[RAFF-35]

Fantastic reading there weaver, I was thinking that a hybrid tracking system would be a good way to go, but I thought it couldn't be that simple otherwise it would've already been done  now to come up with a name for this new weapon... T.A.L.O.N.? To go with the H.A.W.K. Theme  Tactical Air Launched OrdiNance?

[RAFF-35]

Tactical Air Launched Object Nulifier?

[TheChronicOne]

You're welcome. 

Not sure if you've settled on your missile tech yet, but here are some thoughts.

The idea of exploiting kinetic performance (i.e. trading height for range/speed) is fine: Phoenix did that, as do several SAMs. The major problem with long range is guidance:

1. Command guidance.
The problem here is accuracy. All radar beams spread out with distance, so the further away the target is, the less precisely the controlling radar knows it's location, and thus the less accurate it's guidance commands to the missile will be. Small command-guided missiles (mostly SAMs) tend to have a range of under 10 miles, and big ones (SA-2 etc...) have to have huge warheads to compensate for the large miss distance.

2. Semi-active radar.
This gets round the radar accuracy problem because the missile is homing on the radar reflections from the target which become tighter and more precise the closer it gets to the target. The problem is radar power. Those reflections have about 1% the energy of the outgoing signal, so you need a big radar to illuminate the target at any significant range. Fighter-sized radars can rarely illuminate at more than about 40 miles. If you look at shipboard TI radars that can illuminate at greater ranges, they tend to have dishes over 2 meters across. There's also the tactical problem that the launching aircraft has to illuminate the target for the whole flight, which restricts it's maneuvering and (with a nose-mounted radar) brings it uncomfortable close to the target at the end of the shot.

3. Active radar.
This solves lots of problems by making the missile 'fire and forget' with it's own, self-contained radar guidance system. The problem here is simply technology: can you fit such a system into a small enuogh missile at an affordable price? With 1960s technology, Phoenix was the smallest possible missile and so hideously expensive that it could only be justified for defending aircraft carriers. With 1980s tech, AMRAAM became possible. A secondary problem with active radar missiles is jamming: the radars are, of neccessity, small and low-powered and that raises the possibility of simply swamping them with noise jamming.

4. Infra-red.
This is great, small, accurate and self-contained, but the problem is range. IR sensors only work at less than 10 miles (21st century tech) and less than that in the '60s. If you decide to get an IR missile into the vicinity of a distant target by some other means of guidance, the problem then in kinetic heating. The nose of the missile will get so hot over a long flight that it's own heat will blind it's IR sensor.

One thing you can do is combine guidance methods and that leads me to a suggestion for a credible, 1960s-tech long-range missile:

Command Guidance with IR Terminal Homing.

The missile has an IR homing head concealed beneath a jettisonable nose cone, and command guidance receiver. Both of these systems are small, light and cheap. The aircraft tracks the target and fires the missile. During most of the flight, the aircraft's radar operates in Track-While-Scan mode, keeping a rough check on the position of the target and the missile, while sending the latter guidance commands. This has the added advantage that there's no 'lock-on' to alert the target to the fact that they're being shot at. When the missile gets within two miles of the target, it jettisons it's nose cone, which has been shielding the IR seeker head from heating up to now, and homes in by infra-red.

Your Sparrow-painted AMRAAMs are perfect for this. If you really wanted to 'telegraph' the fact that they use this guidance method, you could scribe or paint lengthways 'split-lines' on the nose cones to show that they jettison in two halves to reveal the IR sensor underneath.

Would it work? Well it's theoretically sound, although I suspect that it's success rate with 1960s technology would be less than stellar. However that's no reason not to try it: all sorts of far more unlikely ideas have been tested and even put into service. Whiffs don't have to improve on real life, they just have to be credible, and a tale of an ambitious idea that got as far as a large-scale combat trial over Vietnam but didn't work out in the long run would have an all too familiar ring to it.

Fascinating! I don't see why I couldn't scribe, paint  those lines on there and go w/ that.  That's some really neat sounding stuff and I think it's a great idea.  That system has advantages to help keep my long winged beauty from being counter-attacked and that makes ALL the sense.  By time they know I'm around the they are only mere seconds from being obliterated.  Should increase the over all accuracy of the missiles, as well, seeing as how the opponent won't have much time for evasion techniques or countermeasures. Sure, with the 60s tech )or early 70's even, which might help a bit, because I think my stuff wound up being built in the late 60's but served a tour in '72 when birds from Holloman actually went over there) is probably not all that great but If I recall some of me research, the Sparrows were lousy in their own right.  So... why not?!

Thanks for the break down of the radar systems and all the rest as well.  An enjoyable read and a good deal of that stuff I'd never taken into consideration or knew...  I mean.. tiny bits and pieces here and there from playing flight sims and oddball research but a bunch of this stuff is new learning. I dig it..

I like your idea so much that it's a definite GO from me.  Much appreciated... I think it adds another level of coolness to the entire build. 

[TheChronicOne]

Fantastic reading there weaver, I was thinking that a hybrid tracking system would be a good way to go, but I thought it couldn't be that simple otherwise it would've already been done  now to come up with a name for this new weapon... T.A.L.O.N.? To go with the H.A.W.K. Theme  Tactical Air Launched OrdiNance?

Wasn't it though?! That was good read'n! 

I like the way you think, bro.... you're on the right track with the acronyms and stuff!! 


I love this collabo effort going on. As I said before.. I'm glad to have people help me along with this. There's quite a bit of the community here in this bird.

[TheChronicOne]

Oh hell, I got so caught up with the radars and missiles and TALONs I forgot my own damn posting..  I closed out the thread then walked off.   



Anyway... it took around an hour and was tedious as far as I'm concerned (I don't do well with such things sometimes) But I managed to use some of my new tape finally to mask the wind screen and canopy.  Just need to glue in the pilot, control panel, & seat.  Other than the pilot himself I'm not bothering with much interior detail. So, then on goes the windscreen/canopy then I can hit it with black paint (that camo scheme stops just short of that area).



So far I'm enjoying this tape!

[RAFF-35]

Fantastic reading there weaver, I was thinking that a hybrid tracking system would be a good way to go, but I thought it couldn't be that simple otherwise it would've already been done  now to come up with a name for this new weapon... T.A.L.O.N.? To go with the H.A.W.K. Theme  Tactical Air Launched OrdiNance?

Wasn't it though?! That was good read'n! 

I like the way you think, bro.... you're on the right track with the acronyms and stuff!! 


I love this collabo effort going on. As I said before.. I'm glad to have people help me along with this. There's quite a bit of the community here in this bird.

Hahaha, you're welcome bro, glad to assist  I'm liking the collabo too  hopefully you can assist with my U-2 build too  by the way, could you take a picture of your cockpit as my kit has NO instructions and my cockpits not quite fitting together for some reason