Project FAAST - Convair P-7A Coronado II

[CammNut]

This is my first group build in whifland, so I have picked a subject I will surely struggle NOT to finish in time, as it only has three parts - Microscale's 1/144 Convair 990.

I plan to complete this challenging build as a Convair P-7A Coronado II, developed in the early 1960s under the U.S. Navy's secretive Fast Attack Anti-Submarine Technology (FAAST) program.

It will be finished in early P-3 Orion grey-and-white colors, although I am not yet sure whether to pair the white with the dark grey or later light grey. The kit has no gear, so it will be flying.

The P-7's companion will be a Revell box-scale (1/136) Martin XP6M-1 SeaMaster modified to a production P6M-2 (redesignated P-6B after 1962). That is not part of the group build as it is already started.

The idea of FAAST was to counter the Soviet ballistic-missile submarine threat by creating a "hunter-killer" team between ships and carrier- and land-based ASW aircraft that could detect and track them and a fast attacker that could dash to intercept the boomers with nuclear weapons.

The Convair 990 made an ideal platform for FAAST because it was the speediest commercial airliner in existence, achieving Mach 0.97 in tests - three times as fast as the Grumman S-2F then on aircraft carriers and twice the speed of land-based Lockheed P-3As.

Because the jet-powered 990 could not operate at low altitude like the turboprop P-3, the P-7 could not employ any of the anti-submarine sensors then in use, such as magnetic anomaly detector and sonobuoys. Instead it was sent targeting data from other ASW assets and used weapons with powerful nuclear warheads to compensate for any targeting inaccuracies.

The weapons - nuclear depth bombs and torpedoes dropped by parachute or rocket-boosted to strike more distant targets - were carried on rotary launchers mounted in the fuselage fore and aft of the wing.

Because the P-7 did not carry much of a sensor suite, except a radar in the nose, it did not need a large crew manning consoles in the cabin. Instead it had a bomber-like crew of only four, sometimes carrying a second crew on long missions.

As a result the Convair 990 was modified by installing a pressure bulkhead several feet aft of the cockpit, creating a pressurized volume for the flight deck and crew rest area, but leaving the rest of the fuselage unpressurized so that the weapon bay doors could be opened in flight.

The P-7A and the mine-laying P-6B both belong to a time when the U.S. believed nuclear weapons were the answer to every combat scenario, tactical as well as strategic. That changed with the Vietnam War and neither the Coronado II nor the SeaMaster had long service lives.

Here is the kit:









At first glance it looks nicely, if simply moulded. Just some mould seams to be sanded off. I am not much of an airliner person, but its shape looks okay - love those Kuchemann carrots. I won't be using the airline liveries on the decal sheet, but here it is:

[Captain Canada]

I thought you were joking at first with the kit only having three parts ! Wow. Looks pretty cool tho !

[Old Wombat]

Different but cool!

[zenrat]

When you said three parts that was not the breakdown I imagined.

Good luck.

[PR19_Kit]

A Microscale Coronado! 

An airliner modellers Holy Grail for sure. I've only ever seen one before and that was built up.

Love the idea of one as a P-7 though, that's going to look REALLY good in a USN scheme. 

I flew in a 990 once, back in the 80s, out to Majorca from Birmingham Airport. It even FELT fast back then! 

[sandiego89]

When you said three parts that was not the breakdown I imagined.

Good luck.

Me either!  Good thing it came with those comprehensive instructions.

Great subject.  Wonder what specific fuel consumption would have been like down low?! 

Those wing fairings are begging for something.  Sonobouy launchers, torpedoes....

[PR19_Kit]

Oh yes, I LOVE those Alaska decals, really racy and very 60s. 

They'd look good on a Concorde!

[CammNut]

Finally I can report some progress with the Convair P-7, and its non-group-build companion the Martin P-6. The paint is on. Some touch-ups still do do, but then it is on to decaling. The Convair was simple to put together, the hold-up has been work and the gosh-darned reworked nacelles on the SeaMaster. The first one went well, but replicating it proved nigh impossible.

[AeroplaneDriver]

That looks gorgeous!  Cant wait to see this one finished!