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

[Gondor]

So after having most of the bits that will be used in this build for several years I am finally getting around to doing something towards making this very fictional aircraft. The name, which is for a large aggressive fish, came partly from looking at a Crossword Companion which is really usefull for finding names for aircraft, and also from this

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EnAS1mQ1b0E

The fuselage is mostly from a NOVO Fairly Firefly and that will have most of a Novo Hawker Sea Fury fuselage fitted for the single cockpit. The engine from the Sea Fury will also be used and possibly one of the outer wing sections to replace the rudder   
Weaponry will be provided by a Torpedo from the recent Airfix Bristol Beaufighter TF.10 and the 20mm cannons will be left in the wings as well.

I am worried about the undercarriage leg length due to having to carry the torpedo and the further forward I mount the torpedo the propeller will get in the way so the engine may end up getting mounted quite high as well although compairing the undercarriage leg lengths for the Firecrest and the Firefly I think I may be ok.

So far other than trying to work things out in my mind I have painted the interior of the Sea Fury and that will be glued together shortly as will the Firefly's wings and fuselage, which already has the engine removed.

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

May be easier, given the fuselage cross section of the Firefly, to utilise a Matchbox Tempest* Centaurus and associated wing root intakes.  Failing that, there's a Centaurus Tempest conversion from one of the manufacturers but I can't remember who.


*There's a couple of relatively inexpensive ones on ebay.

[NARSES2]

Failing that, there's a Centaurus Tempest conversion from one of the manufacturers but I can't remember who.

Heritage did one for the Academy kit

[Gondor]

This is the part I like best, the cut and shunt part of the build 

This picture shows you what was left after the first session with the disc blade in my mini drill, note the ends of the upper wing surfaces have been opened out a bit so there is no ridge through the middle of the undercarriage bay for which I am thinking of changing the door layout as its not really a Firefly, and certainly won't look like one when I have finished with it 



What I did to the Sea Fury was this....



The upper part of the fuselage is all that will be used of the fuselage, I may use one of the outer wings later but that's not guaranteed 100% at this time.

Since these pictures were taken I have found that I will need to reduce the sides of the Firefly so that the cut is lower. I have also just realised that if I change the undercarriage bay doors I could both scratch the bay and undercarriage 

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

You may get away with using the front end of the Sea Fury to help get the engine cowling to blend with the rest of the fuselage. 

[Gondor]

I guessing that most people on here can relate to what I am about to say.

I find that when I start a project there are always points that they stop due to natural causes, paint/glue needs time to dry, time to cook/eat/sleep. What I find heppens is that duering the paint/glue drying time I turn to another project, either that's in progress or to start a new one. This process then repeats itself with infrequent if ever returning to the original project. The end result being several projects, the number may vary from person to person, sitting in bags/boxes or simply on shelves in various stages of disassembly or even assembly. some may even have paint applied to the exterior 

So what you may wonder has this to do with what is going on here.

Well simply that the amount of rebuilding and converting and even scratch building that this build as a whole is going to require has grown out of all proportion to what was intended and to what I may or may not have posted with regard to intentions to carry out, such as using the mount for the engine cowling from the Sea Fury kit or not. That will depend on how other parts of the build go and if the engine needs to be raised above the centre line or not.

The latest part of this build that has got me very distracted is the undercarriage. Obviously by using the Fairly Firefly the undercarriage is that of the Firefly which is reasonably distinctive, there is also the change in roll between the kits I am using and what I intend to finish with which includes the carriage of a torpedo, something that was never intended for the Firefly. So I have the feeling that I need to lengthen the undercarriage which also brings the question how wide can I have the undercarriage which means I can fir more undercarriage in the non folding section of the wings and still have the aircraft fit onto the average Royal Navy carrier deck lift?
I have already sketched out in my mind how to build the undercarriage, metal core to the leg with either metal or plastic tubing on the outside to make up the various external parts of they hydraulic rams etc.
So until I know how wide I can have the track of the undercarriage this build grinds mostly to a halt as far as the wings go.

Gondor

[TallEng]

Well if your main worry is the length of the U/C legs to allow clearance for a Torpedo,
you could always say that the Oleo is compressed as the U/C retracts. There are several
aircraft that do this in real life, and very possibly theres a '50s piston engined one that did
it too. although for the life of me i can't think of one now.
one other possibility is for the U/C to turn through 90deg as it retracts and stow in the wing
behind. Now there are a couple of '40s/'50s piston engined aircraft that did that, Corsair, Hellcat etc.
maybe that will provide a solution?

Regards
Keith

[PR19_Kit]

The Bearcat's legs shrunk as it retracted them.

[scooter]

Perhaps this link to FAA 'Raiders (AEW.1) on the Bulwark might help?

[Gondor]

I did think about oleo compression and thought it was too easy a way out. The Skyraider probably rotated it's undercarriage 90^o so that more of the underside of the wing was available to hang bombs from and there is not enough space to put the existing undercarriage leg in that orientation with the available wing.

Remember what I was saying about stalled projects, I have a Hasegawa Skyraider that is to be used in Vietnam so I measured the distance that the sockets for the undercarriage  are to each other and they are only a few millimeters wider that the Firefly's undercarriage.

You guys got me thinking about different aircraft types so I looked out the Fairly Spearfish in my stash and found out the track for that aircraft, which is around the same time frame I am looking at. Well the kit came with drawings which makes things easier, especially as they are to the same scale as the aircraft. The outside of one undercarriage leg to the outside of the other is 7cm which will do for me  as the distance is roughly 5.5cm for the Firefly producing an increase of 1.5cm or 0.75cm per undercarriage leg. 

The possible increase works out to just over 50cm in real life compaired to just over 20cm for an 8" torpedo so I have a little room to spare   unfortunately some of that will be used up in creating a little space so on the centerline so the undercarriage doesn't hit the torpedo when extending or retracting. 

So thanks to those who replied to the thread as that means I can forge ahead and create new inner wing sections which will be somewhat testing but I look forwards to it as I am sure that Kit will as it means an increase in wingspan .

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

 

[Gondor]

A little bit of an update seeing that I am now past the difficulty of how wide the undercarriage track was to be. Famous last words as I am probably going to need a fleet of car's worth of filler

The cockpit and upper fuselage are just balanced on top of one another to give a rough idea of what the majority of the fuselage will look like



Note that I have also cut out most of the wing root, this is for what will become the roof of the undercarriage bay



Talking about undercarriage bays....... This part is going to be modified quite a bit. The tong at the top of the picture is going to have it's width kept down the centre of the underside to give a safe width for the torpedo to hang from. This in turn means that the flaps will end up having to move outboard a bit as well but then I am increasing the span so that will not be a problem, yet. A large part of the under wing section will be removed to be replaced later with a new skin cut to the new undercarriage plan. A front and rear spar fitted to what remains of the wind/fuselage joint and will be longer than required to just be used for the front and rear of the undercarriage bays.
This is far easier to wright than it will be to produce but at least I can write it down to see if the idea will work. More tomorrow I think, although I could easily spend another half hour at least typing out my work plan and seeing if anyone spots holes in it, though obviously at the moment there are holes everywhere   

Gondor

[Gondor]

More work so far today. Yesterday evening while looking for L shaped plastic rod I found mu stash of plastic strip, one pack was for 60 x 80 thou which I have ended up using as I could not find much L shaped rod so I will have to buy some of that some time. I also found my Aircraft Modelling scale Rule and Saw in 1/72 so now I can measure everything to scale 

So having something that was to scale meant that I could easily convert the 7cm to 1/72 feet which I make to be eleven scale feet. So if I make the width of the area allowed for the torpedo etc as one scale foot that still leaves me a scale five feet either side for undercarriage which is similar to the Spearfish so I think I am on the right path.

So the central gap between each undercarriage bay is defiantly less than one scale foot. I added three sections of the 60 x 80 rod which came to as near one scale foot as I can manage as the middle rod was fitted on its short side while the other two were fitted on their long sides as per below....



The two arms will form the back of the undercarriage box as well as provide something for the outer wing sections to sit on and being longer can easily accommodate the increase in wing length. It was at this point I found out that I made a mistake by doing this....



I had glued the wing sections together without checking that I didn't need to modify the inboard end s to fit the arms from the previous picture which of course they do need to do 

However with the use of a small hand held drill and a micro chisel the problem was resolved along with an appropriate space for the front spar which is to be some brass rod. problem alleviated and the other wing can be fixed just as easily. 

Next step is to install the front spar and to finish creating the undercarriage box on both sides of the fuselage.

Gondor

[Gondor]

So I added what was going to pretend to be the front sparand then fetteled the holes in the outer wings to accept all the arms without any problems.



The next step was defiantly another step of no return, as if cutting up the fuselage was not enough 



This is just a rough cut out, the inside edges need tidying up before I start do fir the walls, ribs and other details. The outer wing sections are going to get a skinning of plastic card which will form the roof of the undercarriage bays, but I have said most of this before.

One new thing that I have realised is that the inner section of flap will need to be moved outboard about six scale inches per wing to ensure that they don't interfere with the torpedo. I am also tinking of dividing the flap into two sections per wing rather than just the one length of the Firefly.  The outer section of flap would fold along with the wing but the inner section would stay attached to the fixed part of the wing.

That's all for tonight, there should be more tomorrow.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Are you sure you're not building the Forth Bridge Alastair?