The RAF's sole Savoia Marchetti SM-77 - Egypt, 1942

[PR19_Kit]

I built it by wrapping styrene sheet round a tube, gluing and clamping the rear end with clothes pegs and then cutting it to shape when dry.

That's a neat idea Fred, thanks. I'll give that a try when it comes to engine mounting time. 

https://www.sgtsmess.co.uk/shop/artillery/gn9-qa-oerlikon-20mm-aa-with-pedestal-mount/

How about a 20mm  if not the site does lots of other interesting bits

Maybe, but they fail to mention which SCALE the 20 mm are!

[PR19_Kit]

I checked the two glued up hulls after their overnight setting, and the 1/2" gap hasn't re-appeared as I feared it might. That's STRONG glue, that Revell Contacta. 

But each hull will be a putty queen for sure, the small gaps are numerous, and the sterns of both hulls are totally different to each other. Mucho filing was called for before they started to even look symmetrical. Sadly, it seems the large hatches on one side of each hull are on the INSIDE of the hulls, which means that using them as gun hatches will be a waste of time. However they could be used to arm the two torpedoes that will he carried under the centre section I guess. maybe I'll cut gun hatches on the outsides too....

I keep forgetting that this is a 1980s repop of a 1973 moulding, and the mould quality is NOTHING like today's kits. Thus I'm having to SAW various parts of the kit off the sprues, and use a hefty file to clean each part up as well. 

The cockpit's coming on quite nicely, both pilot's seats and the panel are in place, Revell give you two different pilot's seats in the Lanc kit, so I just used both of them. And there's a rearward facing flight engineer's seat at the back facing an engine controls panel. I've pinched the control wheels from my recently purchased Eduard Sikorsky S-43 for the S77, they're the correct oval shape and should look OK. I'll sort the S-43 wheel problem out later, when I get to build it. The captain's seat is too tall for the canopy at the moment, but I'll chop the top part of it later.



The two hulls aren't glued to the centre section yet, and the centre section is in two halves. The bits are all just placed in position in the pic.

[tigercat]

They're 20mm scale for War games which is 1:72

It is a bit of an oversight

[PR19_Kit]

That's a very neat casting at that size then.

It's almost worth all the hassle of cutting new gun hatches just to use the cannon! 

[Tophe]

Looking good!

[PR19_Kit]

I haven't got as far as the booms yet Tophe. 

[tigercat]

https://www.sgtsmess.co.uk/shop/modifications/gm2-six-50-cals/

They also have 50. Cal

[PR19_Kit]

They might work better actually, thanks for the link. 

[PR19_Kit]

This has to be the silliest looking cockpit I've ever built!

It's like building one on a tea tray, the lower centre section of the S77 being so wide. But it's done now and I can start the difficult stuff of getting the Lanc wings attached to that centre section with a strong enough joint.



The S-43 control wheels can just be seen mounted on the bizarre T-shaped column that the Savoia flying boats used, and the engineers panel can be seen at the rear.

The nice little Merlin engine in the foreground comes with the Revell Lanc kit, and there's TWO of them in each kit, each with eight parts! Handy to know for future builds, and I'll be displaying the S77 with one of them open to view. That is if I can ever figure out to build the engine nacelles. This Revell Lanc kit is one of the most complicated kits I've ever seen, just finding where the bits are on the umpteen sprues is difficult enough, never mind getting them all glued together! Revell's method of allowing the props to rotate isn't all that good to my mind so I'll be making appropriate mods.

Talking about props, the rear engine of the stock S55 kit is a pusher of course, so that means the prop's different to the front one. Which means I'll have to make pusher prop(s) for my S77, and I'm not all sure what to do to the Lanc props to do it! Do I need to twist the blades the other way round, file them to a different section, glue them on back to front, or all of the above? I've looked at the props in the original S55 kit and can't figure out which is the back and which is the front, both sides have the same size 'rod' sticking out of them. 

[zenrat]

I thought I might have a close up of a built nacelle with the engine exposed.  But I don't.  Sorry.
IIRC it isn't possible (easilly - anything is possible if you go to enough trouble) to build the nacelles without the engines inside.

As far as the pusher prop goes you "just" need to mount them backwards (so the blades are the same direction and angle as the front blades) and then tell us in the back story that the rear engines rotated in the opposite direction to the front ones (or they were double ended V24 Merlin developments - Rolls Royce Gandabherunda maybe?).

[PR19_Kit]

Delving deeply into the Revell instructions, the Merlins are meant to be installed in the #2 and #3 engine nacelles, and if you don't do that the exhausts have nothing to hang on to, and you can't see the Merlins if you don't do all the cutting and trimming that they suggest etc.

However, I have a cunning plan to install the exhausts without the engine being in there............... 

Also on the engines front, the S55X has its engines mounted back to back, and with a large amount of upthrust, 11 degrees as I measure it, and the question is, why?



The thrustline doesn't go anywhere NEAR the CG or the aerodynamic centre, and the larger, 3 engined, S.66 doesn't have anywhere near the same amount of upthrust. The VAST Dornier DoX, which also has its engines well above the wing and fuselage, has no upthrust at all, so why does the S.55X  need it?

I think my four Merlin engined S.77 may do away with upthrust altogether unless someone comes up with an irrefutable reason why I might need it.

Thanks for the thoughts on the props Fred, perhaps the Merlins they found in the scrap dump at Heliopolis were experimental opposite rotation versions with an extra idler gear in the transmission, like the ones on the starboard engines for a DH Hornet? Then they could use standard camshafts etc. 

[Old Wombat]

However, I have a cunning plan to install the exhausts without the engine being in there............... 

Yes, I'm sure you do, Baldric ... I mean, Kit!


Actually, that shouldn't bee too difficult, I would have thought. Although that'll mean you'll have 2 Merlins without exhaust stubs, however they're quite plentiful in aftermarket resin.

[PR19_Kit]

All sorts of progress on many fronts on the S77 today. Here's a pic of quite a few areas as they'll look eventually, maybe.....



Both Lanc wings have been fettled so they mate (almost...) with the S55 'fuselage' and the dihedral brace that Revell supply has been cut in half and one half used on each wing. It works of a fashion and will work better when they're packed out to size. The cockpit top is now glued in place, but the hulls aren't as yet. There's LOTS of work to do on them before they're added.

I've sorted the engine nacelles, and there'll be four of them, mounted back to back in pairs, and you can see a rough assembly in the foreground. Lots of work to do on them still of course. I have figured out how to get the exhausts to fit on an engine-less nacelle, it's just a case of blanking off the hole where they protrude from and glue the stubs to the blanking plate. I've done one as a test and it works fine, so I'll do the rest later.

The Merlin's mounted in its cradle now, but only after filing flats on the supercharger's sides as otherwise it's too wide for the mounting cradle.

'Test Build'? I don't think so. 

Lots still to do, but at least the main idea seems to work.

[jcf]

From the N.A.C.A. Aircraft Circular #35: "Savoia" S.55, Military or Commercial

It will he observed that the engine nacelle is inclined so that the line of thrust of the engines is
about 8 degrees out of the horizontal, and a slight upward null or push is exerted. No doubt this
is done in order to direct the slip stream on to the tail, the engines, necessarily, being fairly high
in this seaplane.

https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279584/m2/1/high_res_d/19930089827.pdf

[PR19_Kit]

Ahah, that makes some sort of sense I guess but I'm not sure that anyone else did that, or did they? Thanks for that Jon. 

The engines on my S77 will be almost in line with the fins, and maybe the tailplane will be higher too, so I may not bother with it.