Martin Baker MB5B Monsoon PR3 build thread

[NARSES2]

I was wondering if they might have puttied the wing panel lines as per the P-51 ?

[PR19_Kit]

I've never read anything to indicate that MB did finish the wings off like that, but sadly there are very few photos that show the MB5's wing from above. Almost all of them are direct side views and the surfaces are virtually invisible.

This one shows the wing in build and does show the panel lines, but of course it's early in the build process so it may not show the wing as it was when it was finished.




But in this one, that shows up in many places, you can just see panel lines under the starboard wing.

[PR19_Kit]

Mucho progress on the Monsoon this evening. Thanks to jayBee's generous posting of the AZ MB5's cockpit painting guide I managed to finish off my cockpit, albeit not as finely as Jim did, I don't have a single bristle brush. 

Skybird's instructions look very comprehensive at first sight, but actually they are pretty confusing at times, especially so as I've managed to lose the exploded parts diagram,    but looking at the parts, both plastic and white metal, I've figured out which bits go where.

There's a complex white metal part that combines the exhaust stubs with the rear bearing for the propshaft, but when fitting it I found the stubs didn't protrude through the exhaust slots, so I cut the casting at the rear end and bend it outwards a tad. It seems to fit during a dry assembly session but we'll see later, as it gets superglued in place next.



There's a platform that sits above the cooling duct outlet that needs some serious fettling to ensure it fits, and I glued that and the completed cockpit assembly into the port side of the fuselage. Conveniently Skybirds have moulded some index marks into that side to ensure even I can get the bits in the right places. 



And here's two views of the cockpit. Unlike the AZ version the Skybirds cockpit is a complete bathtub, which pretty well precludes paining the interior walls, not that you could see them anyway as the opening on the top of the fuselage is pretty small.

[TheChronicOne]

Yeah, here we go!! I love the cockpit detail. 

[zenrat]

The photo of the prototype may show panel lines under the wing.  Doesn't mean production aircraft would have them.

Which is one of the joys of whiffing.  If in doubt, make it up.

[PR19_Kit]

The photo of the prototype may show panel lines under the wing.  Doesn't mean production aircraft would have them.

Which is one of the joys of whiffing.  If in doubt, make it up.

My mantra is 'Adjust the backstory to suit the build'. 

I'll do the panel lines on the Monsoon I think, especially as they did such a good job on the moulded bits way back then when the Skybirds kits were first done.

[Hobbes]

The plastic looks like it's been painted with the Mr. Bean method (drop a bunch of fireworks in a tub of paint)...

[NARSES2]

MB 5 hasn't got many panels anyway. Indeed I may be tempted to try a bit of rescribing on a couple of those "lost" on mine. If so it'll be a first, shock, horror 

[Captain Canada]

It does look tie-dyed ! I like the Monsoon idea, nice one !

[kitnut617]

MB 5 hasn't got many panels anyway. Indeed I may be tempted to try a bit of rescribing on a couple of those "lost" on mine. If so it'll be a first, shock, horror 

Um! The MB5 was all panels. It was what was really liked about it, just about the whole of the skin panels were easily removable for ease of servicing

[kerick]

Maybe it was a smaller number of large panels.

[PR19_Kit]

Maybe it was a smaller number of large panels.

It was.

If you look at the pic of the wing panel being built that I posted above, there's just a few panels, but much larger ones than were used on similar sized aircraft.

As kitnut617 says, they were designed to be easily removable with Dzus, or similar fasteners, and that was commented on very favourably by the evaluators at Boscombe Down.

[PR19_Kit]

Now it's starting to look like an aeroplane....

I got the fuselage halves glued together y'day, and I've lost some of my admiration for Skybirds' engineering skills.....

Just like the dreaded M News P-51H that I used as a basis for my MB8 Marlin the two fuselage halves aren't the same length, a somewhat basic requirement I'd have thought! 

This time I aligned the centre sections of the two halves and I'll sort out the nose and tail  lengths later on, but even that wasn't easy. Despite the excellence of the outside of the mouldings, the interiors have varied thicknesses so I had to file down the cockpit moulding and the cooling duct interior to get the two halves to join up, but it's done now, with the white metal exhaust and prop-bearing casting sandwiched in the nose.



One thing that's going to need some work in the nose is sorting out the carb air intake. While the top of the cowling is nicely matched, the lower half is a disaster area. It'll need a lot of filing and cutting to get it looking anywhere near right, as you can see.



I'm definitely going to get an AZ MB5 kit, if only to see how things have improved in the last 31 years!

[zenrat]

Yeeeeeuch!

However, that wonderful marbled plastic would let me forgive anything...

[NARSES2]

MB 5 hasn't got many panels anyway. Indeed I may be tempted to try a bit of rescribing on a couple of those "lost" on mine. If so it'll be a first, shock, horror 

Um! The MB5 was all panels. It was what was really liked about it, just about the whole of the skin panels were easily removable for ease of servicing

Maybe it was a smaller number of large panels.

That's what I meant M'Ludd.    Compared to some other aircraft it didn't have many at all.

One of the other things that Boscombe favourably commented on was the ammunition feeds to the cannons. It appears to have been a very well designed aircraft in terms of how the maintenance crews would have worked on her.