SR.N8 - FINISHED

[PR19_Kit]

1/200? 

Can you actually see it without a microscope?

The Tucumcari was so large I was thinking about making it go, with R/C steering etc!

[TomZ]

Some progress.

The side walls are on. Some seats are in.
Now working on the roof. The 8 engine mounts are in. Now on to filling and sanding.





Which bl###### moron at Airfix came up with the idea to make one side and the whole roof transparent?
I cracked one side wall piece and am struggling with the roof

TomZ

[buzzbomb]

Which bl###### moron at Airfix came up with the idea to make one side and the whole roof transparent?
I cracked one side wall piece and am struggling with the roof

TomZ

Members of the short lived Department of gimmickry.

Nice work though

[PR19_Kit]

You'd have thought that having gone to the trouble of that monster clear plastic roof that they'd have moulded at least one of the main engines.

A couple of Proteus in there would have looked really good. If they'd have done one of the Rover APUs as well in the bottom right hand corner of Tom's I could have plonked a 1/144 scale me in there taking oil samples too. 

I may do that on one of my SRN4 kits. 

[TomZ]

Saunders Roe SRN-8



When the SRN-4 Mountbatten class hovercraft entered passenger service in 1968 for the Dover Calais route it was a big success and soon investigations began in an even bigger hovercraft.



One of the designs considered was a "Double SRN-4" which had twice the length and twice the width of the SRN-4. This design was called the SRN-8 and in the early 1970s it was an initial production run of 6 craft was started for the route from Harwich to Hoek of Holland in the Netherlands.



The first passenger carrying crossing was carried out in 1976 and this started a very successful career of the SRN-8. In 1991 the 6 SRN-8s on the Channel route were bought by Virgin, forming Virgin HoverTrans which operated the service until 2003, when the last SRN-8 was retired.



The SRN-8 was powered by eight 4,000 shp Rolls-Royce Proteus Gas turbines, driving 8 propellers. It could carry  up to 200 cars and 1500 passengers.




Kit: 2 x Airfix SR.N4 1/144

This one fought me on all fronts all the way. One of the two SR.N4 kits had parts that were rather warped and had a lot of sink marks.
The clear parts are very brittle and break easily. I'm not sure why they came up with the idea of moulding one side of the cabin as clear parts. They were warped, and bending them to shape resulted in a lot of breakage.
Creating one roof out of parts two SR.N4 roofs was rather a nightmare.
And then the white paint yellowed and had to be resprayed. And then the black spray of the skirt over-sprayed to the roof and the white had to be resprayed. and then the matt varnish yellowed on the roof and the white had to be resprayed......


 

[jcf]

SARO had concepts for very large 1200 ton hovercraft.

You cannot view this attachment.

[63cpe]

Waaauuuuww Tom, you really outdid yourself on this one. It's marvelous! very well done!

I think your hovercraft has even more windmills as my province has....in total....

Cheers,
David aka 63CPE

[PR19_Kit]

EXCELLENT work Tom! 

Love the backstory too, wholly plausible.

Having built a couple of SRN4s I know JUST what you mean about the warps and trying to straighten them, and I've been trying to do a Super 4 for some years now, but it's hard work.

[McColm]

Impressive 

[NARSES2]

Tremendous build Tom    Although what it would have sounded like in real life I've know idea. The ones that used to go in and out of Ramsgate were bad enough (can't remember which Mk they were) even when you were on the beach at nearby Margate.

[Rheged]

Tremendous build Tom    Although what it would have sounded like in real life I've know idea. The ones that used to go in and out of Ramsgate were bad enough (can't remember which Mk they were) even when you were on the beach at nearby Margate.

Inside an SRN4 as a passenger whilst crossing the Channel was excessively loud.  I'm still in awe of Kit having the bravery  to be in among the machinery in those circumstances!

[PR19_Kit]

The Ramsgate based Hoverlloyd SRN4s were Mk 1s, but all of them, Mk 1s, 2s and 3s (the latter confusingly also called Super 4s...) all sounded the same as they all had 4 Proteus engines each. Tom's model has DOUBLED that number so they would have been LOUD! But leaving from Harwich they would have been out to sea very quickly, with no coast to travel past.

My trips inside the Super 4s were in the APU compartment, right astern on the port side, and were luckily quite a thick wall away from the main engines, and I did have some serious ear defenders too. Of course it may help to explain why I need TWO hearing aids these days, the SRN4s and the Rotodyne..........

[Joe C-P]

That makes beautiful sense.   

[Captain Canada]

Nice work. That's defo an honest look at the way it could have gone.

[zenrat]

Who's going to build the SRN-10 Hovercarrier from which the RN flew their Rotodynes?