French Army Lynx - FINISHED

Weaver · June 11, 2021, 06:12:32 PM

Okay, here we go.

Subject is an Army-style Lynx AH.1 in French Army service. Colour will be overall olive drab, configuration will be escort/recce, with 4 x Mistrall AAMs and maybe a 20mm cannon.

Kits (all 1/72nd) are the Airfix Army Lynx, an whiff-in-the-box italeri kit of the Eurocopter Tigre HAP, which will be donating it's decals, it's missiles, and possibly it's gun, and an Italeri UH-1D which is donating some weapon mountings & pylons.

I'm also entering this one in the Modellers United #HeliGB on Twitter, hence the date-proof photo, which is one of their requirements.
Start of the Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/ModellersUnited/status/1388422624276094980?s=20

Weaver · June 13, 2021, 03:33:09 AM

Okay so there wasn't a great deal of progress yesterday, partly due to the dreaded Other Things and partly 'cos there were some issues with the Lynx that I couldn't resolve until I started building it and could measure the clearances of assembled parts etc...

Decisions:

1. I'm giving up on the gun. There just isn't enough clearance under the fuselage for it, and it would have to be recessed so far into the nose cone to get clearance that most of the avionics would have to be relocated to the cabin, and I just don't think they'd go to all that trouble for a minor variant. I could, in theory, fit it with higher skids, but I havn't got spares that will go straight on and I'm not confident of scratchbuilding or Frankensteining them in a 1WkGB. The Lynx skid-struts are quite idiosyncratic anyway, with the front ones going "up then in" while the back one go "in then up".

Turned upside down, the turret would make a fine stand-in for the pedestal-mount door-gunner M621 offered by GIAT, but I can't use it on the Lynx because the pylons block the side doors, so instead of butchering it, I'm going to save it for some other project.

2. ANOTHER Italeri Huey has entered the fray, this time a UH-1B. The reason is that the Lynx's hardpoints have a single attachement point below the doors, but the UH-1D ones have two so the standard swan-necks and pylon look "too Huey" on the Lynx. The UH-1B however, is a totally different moulding, and has the big banks of 81mm rocket tubes on each side, with two chunky, separately-molded swan-necks each, so two of those will do nicely for the Lynx. I'll have to cobble together a little plate to go on top of them, but that's no hassle.

Onwards and sideways....

zenrat · June 13, 2021, 03:51:01 AM

Best laid plans etc.

I wouldn't have put you down as an express reader H.

Weaver · June 13, 2021, 04:18:31 AM

Quote from: zenrat on June 13, 2021, 03:51:01 AM
Best laid plans etc.

I wouldn't have put you down as an express reader H.

Every time...

I don't read the papers: I only bought it for the date. I literally haven't opened it yet!

Think next time I'll get a copy of The Sun and say I only buy it for the pictures...

NARSES2 · June 13, 2021, 05:24:53 AM

Quote from: Weaver on June 13, 2021, 04:18:31 AM

Think next time I'll get a copy of The Sun and say I only buy it for the pictures...

Doesn't everyone

When it first came out we used to buy an "office copy" between us for the Tabulator Room and then hold a vote to see if that day's Page 3 would enter the Hall of Fame. You'd be surprised how many very senior Pearl staff found their way to our little cubby hole and some were quite honest about their reasons for coming

Somehow the Sun editorial staff found out about this and we were sent a couple of very large poster size, "artful" B/W shots that hadn't been used in the paper signed by the girls pictured in them

PR19_Kit · June 13, 2021, 05:55:08 AM

Quote from: NARSES2 on June 13, 2021, 05:24:53 AM

Somehow the Sun editorial staff found out about this and we were sent a couple of very large poster size, "artful" B/W shots that hadn't been used in the paper signed by the girls pictured in them

That's what I call a result!

zenrat · June 13, 2021, 06:03:52 AM

I once met a girl who's dad was a sub-editor for the Snu. He wrote some of the headlines. She was very sensitive about this and didn't take kindly to us taking the piss.

Weaver · June 13, 2021, 01:22:06 PM

Well that was fun - just spent an hour looking for the clear roof panel with the fairing and hole in it for the sight unit. The last time I touched it was yesterday and I didn't notice it go, so theoretically, it could have been anywhere in the house...

Eventually remembered that I'd been looking at alloy tube as a means of punching out the 'blob' filling the hole and found it at the bottom of a stack of paint trays next to the alloy tube pot...

DogfighterZen · June 13, 2021, 02:43:11 PM

Quote from: Weaver on June 13, 2021, 01:22:06 PM
Well that was fun - just spent an hour looking for the clear roof panel with the fairing and hole in it for the sight unit. The last time I touched it was yesterday and I didn't notice it go, so theoretically, it could have been anywhere in the house... Eventually remembered that I'd been looking at alloy tube as a means of punching out the 'blob' filling the hole and found it at the bottom of a stack of paint trays next to the alloy tube pot...

Similar has happened to me once or twice... a good way to lose parts, glad you found yours.

Weaver · June 14, 2021, 02:29:32 AM

I'd forgotten that helicopters have a much more entwined relationship between the inside and the outside than fixed-wing planes do. I may have to abandon my original idea of painting the doors separately so that I can mask the red door surround the ALAT are fond of, glue them shut and mask it later.

The roof window with the sight unit has a hole in it which you have to open up. Trouble is, it's not just the usual thin plastic: it has a dirty great blob of plastic (brittle of course, since it's clear) that alomst fills it, with two strong gates to the rim. Couldn't get a blade in, couldn't get a saw in, I eventually had to drill it out very carefully in stages until the hole was big enough for my thinnest razor saw. Why they do dis?

Trying to get a decent coat of grey on the seat cushions right now. The grey doesn't want to cover over the black spray paint.

Weaver · June 14, 2021, 08:47:31 AM

Fuselage together, many little details painted.

Weaver · June 15, 2021, 04:52:37 AM

Progress. The rotor hubs are off being spray-painted.

Gondor · June 15, 2021, 09:42:25 AM

That reminds me that I have a part finished former Lynx ....

Gondor

Weaver · June 15, 2021, 06:09:22 PM

Bloody hell! I glued the Mistral tubes onto their launch rails as per the Italeri Tiger's instructions, and I just realised, looking at photos, that those intructions are wrong: the tubes are now back-to-front on the launchers, and they're so firmly glued that they're not coming off...

Another prototype feature of the Airfix Lynx: the lower front side windows are tapered from top to bottom, but production ones are square. This means that mask sets intended for other kits won't fit. I've got an Eduard set for a Hobbyboss HAS.2 - worth having, but these don't fit and the door window masks are too small.

Weaver · June 15, 2021, 07:31:55 PM

So good news and bad news:

Good news: saved the missiles! I realised after I posted that although the missile tube bodies were glued to the rails, the end caps wern't, and are of about the same length. It has therefore been possible to very carefully cut them off with my finest razor saw and reverse them. I now don't need to spend money on anotehr HAP from Kingkit and fret over how long it'll take to get here...

Bad news: when fitting the cut-down masks to the lower front side windows, I pushed one in...

Only slightly, and I managed to push it back with a cocktail stick, but there's zero chance of getting any Clearfix onto it from the inside and anthing I might run in from the outside will probably fog the transparency.