"Don't Tell Him!" Short Brothers Torpedo Attack Fighter 1950's

[Gondor]

Decided that the vac-form canopy was too delicate to work with on this build and as I have a real world build of that type in the stash the canopies have been swapped. Adapting the fuselage around the cockpit has been carried out and will probably need tweaking . Next thing to work on is the cockpit interior includeing providing some kind of instrument panel..
I have fitted a hole...... for the undercarriage leg to go into. This was a section of plastic tubeing fitted into the lower fuselage and of course it has a hole in it so I have fitted a hole. Some aditional filler has also been added as I found a couople of cracks and a slight hollow that needed filling which as it was shallow required some liquid polly added to the surface of the hollow to ensure that the filler was keyed to it's surface.
That's it for now

Gondor

[Gondor]

Something new for people to look at



That's all the ribs in the undercarriage bays sorted, now just got to build the rest of the structure that's going in there.

My idea about the ailerons has hit a snag which I will probably sort with saw and filler. The upper surfaces and lower surfaces of the ailerons are of different chord, think I am using the right word .   This means there is less front to back aileron on the upper surface than there is on the lower surface which makes me wonder how that works 
The easy option, which I will probably use is to cut out what I intend to be the aileron and fill in any remaining panel line/gap remaining, this is a different aircraft than the Firefly I am basing parts of it on 

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

This means there is less front to back aileron on the upper surface than there is on the lower surface which makes me wonder how that works 

Many aircraft's flaps are like that, and they have linkages which mean they can pivot and lower at the same time. Similar linkages could make your ailerons work too, in fact it might be handy as they'd have built in differential action, minimising any adverse yaw.

[buzzbomb]

This coming along great. The work on the Wing extension and bays is terrific.

Be interesting to compare this to the Fairey Spearfish, which is sort of a contemporary time frame

[The Wooksta!]

This looks to be about the size of a Firebrand or a Firecrest, Spearfish is big enough to make an Avenger look small.

[Gondor]

This coming along great. The work on the Wing extension and bays is terrific.

Be interesting to compare this to the Fairey Spearfish, which is sort of a contemporary time frame

It's just thin strips or flastic rod glued onto a larger peice of plastic card that makes the roof of the undercarriage bay, not much detail in there, well not yet.

This looks to be about the size of a Firebrand or a Firecrest, Spearfish is big enough to make an Avenger look small.

Absolutly Lee. The backstory will be that this is a loosing contender for that requirement.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Little progress over the last couple of days but I have been doing work , just not enough to make takeing pictures worth it.

Currently working on the tail fin which I am scratch building because I could not find the outer wing from an Airfix Sea Hawk I was going to use. This is probably just as well as it probably would not be particularly good for the purpose. The biggest problem is trying to transfer a freehand drawing into plastic, it just dosent look the same so I may end up cutting out the drawing and sticking it onto the lamanated plastic card blank.

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

That's what I did with the fin for the Buccaneer. 

[Gondor]

The fin is roughly sanded to shape and holes drilled for the supporting pins. Will do that over the weekend and then cut out the rudder so I can pose the rudder at different angles, I could have a go at makeing it movable 

Gondor

[Gondor]

Slowly plodding through this. The tail fin and rudder are fitted in place though part of the trailing edge of the fin broke away earlier today. I would love put a trim tab where the edge failed but its right near the bottom or the ruder so not a normal place for a trim tab so it looks as if it will have to be a repair instead.

The tailplanes needed more plastic added to them 



My won fault really as I should have realised that the rudder would impinge on their movement if it was moving as well so the easiest thing to do was to extend them. Other options were to move the tail planes either forward them rearwards, rearwards would make it look too much like a Firebrand and moving them forward would have looked really odd. There was also the problem of having to rework the fuselage to tailplane joint if I had moved them which I considered more work than extending them.

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

Bearing in mind it's a Shorts aircraft, you may want to make the fin look something like that of the Sturgeon, Shetland or Sperrin for that family look.

[Gondor]

I hadn't thought of that Lee. Way too late now though.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Tailplanes are now sanded to shape, filler has been applied to one of them as I didn't get the extra strips right so there is a hollow that is getting filled and will be sanded back tomorrow. After that I will be using the knifing putty to fill the odd recess that should not be thereand the edges to the movable surfaces scribed now that I have found my 6" ruler!
Think I will modify the undercarriage so that it dosent need the in-line strut which simplifies the undercarriage bay work and will only leave me with scratch building the extension/retraction jacks and working out the blocks that the top ends of the undercarriage rest on as well as another couple of hundred other things as well I am sure.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Pictues to go with all the work I have been doing.



And a rough overall view



Admitidly only the fin is glued in place, the tailplanes are simply pined with Albion Alloys brass tube, 1.6mm outside Diameter, as that's the only combination of drill and tube/wire I have that easily match.

The fillits for the tail surfaces need additional plastic added as the tail surfaces are larger than those that came with the airframe they are attached to were. The wings still need some work as does the cockpit or I will never be able to get to work on the forward end of the fuselage, but I thought the public deserved to know what was going on.

Gondor

[buzzbomb]

So chunky, so full of goodnessness.. really loving this build