Soviet Stealth - SU-40 Flatliner

[DogfighterZen]

Well, had a slight change of plans and chose to work on the wings first, makes things easier for the elevators.

[NARSES2]

Coming on well 

As for decorating. A certain person most of us UK guys knows has his rooms decorated as though blood is running down the walls from the floor above  I've seen the photos and he was still alive when I saw him on Sunday 

[jalles]

I really like the re-contoured horizontal stabilizers, I really wanted to steal that for my build.  The trust vector petals are great too, nice work on scratch building the duplicate.

[DogfighterZen]

Coming on well 

As for decorating. A certain person most of us UK guys knows has his rooms decorated as though blood is running down the walls from the floor above  I've seen the photos and he was still alive when I saw him on Sunday 

Thanks, Chris. From what i've read somewhere on this forum, i think i can guess who he is, and all i can say is: Wild!!

I really like the re-contoured horizontal stabilizers, I really wanted to steal that for my build.  The trust vector petals are great too, nice work on scratch building the duplicate.

Thanks.
If you like them, go ahead, i'd be honored if you'd do them like that too. My build will be an unarmed concept demonstrator, yours will have weapons, could be a further development of this base design.

And tonight i've got the wings sanded down to a rough shape and glued on...



Still need some fine sanding done on the wing roots but i'm very happy with the way this is shaping up.
One of the engine compressor face bits apparently wasn't glued on well enough and came off without me noticing and it disappeared into another dimension... looked for it everywhere in a 3 meter radius around the bench but simply couldn't find it and had to make a new one just to cover the hole.
Won't be very visible after the intake covers go on so i didn't waste too much time with it, it's just a round bit of plastic sheet with the next thing i could find, which was a bit of sprue, so glued that on and roughly sanded it round... it's much bigger than the original part but i don't care, nobody's gonna see it when it's done.

[RAFF-35]

Loving this build, the wing shape change alone has made this aircraft look more genuine than the original ferret ever did in my opinion 

[zenrat]

Yep, the wing change is spot on.
IMO one of the problems with Testors design is that the centre of lift of the wings is (visually anyway) too far forwards.
I've addressed this by fitting a longer nose.  You've fitted more swept wings.

[DogfighterZen]

Glad to know you like it, guys, thanks!

I've always thought the wings were too short, and i never liked the downward angle and their shape, too round for all those sharps lines of the fuselage.
I also thought he front end looked too short for the wing's position, and like you said, the sweptback wings push the centre of lift more to the rear, and IMO, it makes the aircraft look more balanced. I also wanted to use the original nose, only with a minor re-shaping.
I took some inspiration from the SU-27 and Mig-29's design for the wing position and sweep, but they already look different from that last photo, the wingtips were sanded down to their final shape.
Tonight i'm gonna work on getting the elevators sorted...

[DogfighterZen]

So, after some thought and dry fit, it started building up the horizontal stabs fairings on the tails...





The wings were just barely glued so i took them off to make the sanding easier and here's the result...





Also did some more work on the nose, used some of the scrap styrene from the kit's plastic to build up the shape and fill the gaps, and everything was smoothed out with putty to get the shape i was looking for...



After the first PSR session...







Second round of PSR to follow on the nose, which will require the windshield to be in place, to be able to properly blend it in.

[Tophe]

Good! Go on!

[Rick Lowe]

I'm really liking how this is coming along.

Likewise, I'm going to 'imitate in the Sincerest form of Flattery' (alternate description... sounds better than 'Steal', don't you think? ) some - well probably a lot! - of your design features.
Just giving you fair warning... 

I'm looking forward to more progress.

Cheers,

[DogfighterZen]

Good! Go on!

I'm really liking how this is coming along.

Likewise, I'm going to 'imitate in the Sincerest form of Flattery' (alternate description... sounds better than 'Steal', don't you think? ) some - well probably a lot! - of your design features.
Just giving you fair warning... 

I'm looking forward to more progress.

Cheers,

Rick, please do so! I'm very happy to know that you like these changes enough to use them on your model, i'll be watching out for it.

[DogfighterZen]

Ok, second round of PSR is done and the nose is almost ready so i masked the windshield to glue it in place for the next PSR stage.

[DogfighterZen]

Well, still haven't glued the windshield on because, in order to get everything straight, the part that covers the intakes and the fuselage top aft of the canopy has to be puttied after glued on. It has gaps to fill on every seam and will take some work to get it all sanded smooth.
As the inside of the intakes and engine fans, which will barely be seen, should be painted before that part is glued on, and that meant i had to choose the color that would match the finish so the a final scheme choice came earlier than i expected..
I also wanted to see if the nose was ready or not, it had a bit more sanding done on it and seemed to be good so i had to make sure to be able to stop sanding before i ruined it, so i used Tamiya's XF-69 Nato black, which will be the final color, to also serve as a primer to check for seams and irregularities on the putty covered areas but you can see i got carried away...
I know it's not very original but i don't have any models finished in all black scheme so, this is a first for me and will not be the last, i love dark, dull aircraft... 



So, what i'm hoping to get done tonight is paint the engine fans, close the intakes, do the respective PSR on them and maybe even finish blending in the new nose with the windshield... quite a bit of sanding still to be done as the wings and stabs still have to be dealt with after this...

[DogfighterZen]

Yesterday it was looking so good, today it's the opposite...



The top of the fuse was sanded smooth after the putty cured, the nose/canopy affair is almost ready, just some minor work around the windscreen. Next are the wings and stabs.

[jalles]

The new nose is killer.  I also really like your reworked LERX and you got rid of those RWR, it's looking awesome