Douglas Baby-31 Redmast Air (finished page 3)

[Tophe]

In the topic https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=47024.0 I explained that I bought the Anigrand XB-31 Raidmaster 1/144 kit, because I wanted the (included) XP-54 Swoose Goose 1/144.
But the XB-31 will be built also, of course, not sent to garbage. I don't like bombers but I will decrease its size into a baby plane, civilian or animal.


At first I planned to focus on the XP-54 part, but I needed to check if the content was complete also on the XB-31 part. So here are the parts, all right:

[Tophe]

This is the project of making it a baby triplex-boomer:

[PR19_Kit]

I wonder why the XB-31 had such a HUGE fin? 

There's not that much area forward, and it's got quite a slim fuselage.

[Rheged]

Just imagine that aircraft stalking  you,  with only the fin showing though the cloud layer!

[JayBee]

Wingspan.

Indeed with such a large wingspan, and nothing else to add to the overal stability, it would require a large keel area to make it work.
Mind you as they used to say "if it does not look right, it will not fly right" and that beast does not look roght !

[Tophe]

Mind you as they used to say "if it does not look right, it will not fly right"

To "look right" sounds for me as to "look realist", and I prefer dream or gentle madness, maybe more in a what-if spirit...

[Scotaidh]

Mind you as they used to say "if it does not look right, it will not fly right"

To "look right" sounds for me as to "look realist", and I prefer dream or gentle madness, maybe more in a what-if spirit...

Proportion is all, and whatever one may say of your builds, mon ami, they are proportionate - and I love that. 

[zenrat]

Mind you as they used to say "if it does not look right, it will not fly right"

To "look right" sounds for me as to "look realist", and I prefer dream or gentle madness, maybe more in a what-if spirit...

I can't speak for JayBee but for me to "look right" means that looking at it gives me pleasure.  I can't put it into words and I certainly can't quantify it objectively.  Proportion is part of it but there are lots of other elements.  It's not just "is it realistic" or "would it work".

[Tophe]

OK, thanks.
For me: "looking right" (for an airplane) is "being twin-boom"
This XB-31(+XP-54/5/6) was the first Anigrand kit I bought and I was surprised there is no sprues, but maybe that's normal for resin kits. I used for booms sprues from my Caudron C-174 Heller 1/72:

[Tophe]

Here are the parts I am going to use, truncating the fuselage after the wing, and truncating the wings out of the engines (using only external parts here, into a glider). The booms will be oblique into a layout like \!/

[Captain Canada]

That's pretty wild stuff Tophe !

[PR19_Kit]

That's pretty wild stuff Tophe !

I don't think Tophe does 'UN-wild' stuff, does he? 

[Tophe]

"wild" seems to mean "uncontrolled" and yes, all of us what-ifers are not controlled by Historians (but we are a little controlled by moderators, hehehe  )...
And the butcher came  to cut the huge XB-31 model into 2 little airplanes:

[Tophe]

For more than one week, I am adding putty, layer by layer, slowly. There is the cockpits big hole to fill, as I have not used the transparent part for the two canopies side by side (1/144), but this will be a saliplane like canopy of single seater, 1/72 or 1/48...
Below is the basis and a simplified view of the project:

[comrade harps]

Radical surgery is your thing