Hawker Hunter FR.5: given up :-(

Weaver · July 05, 2021, 05:01:48 AM

Okay, I'm going to put up a couple of placeholders, but I'm not starting either of them yet. Although I'm out of hospital, I'm not quite on a even keel meds-wise, so I need to sort that out first. Shouldn't take too long though.

Project 1: Hunter FR.4

This will be a Revell Hunter FGA.9, with a Freightdog F.4 conversion and a Quickboost FR.10/11 nose. The backstory is the same Britain-buys-American timeline that my North American-Supermarine Sabre and Grumman-HSA Panther come from. The original Hunter loses much of it's early production to the licence-built Sabre, and it's later production (F.6/FGA.9) to the supersonic, radar-equipped P.1083. However it is useful for a couple of things the Sabre can't do (at least not easily), namely training and photo-recce, this model being the latter. (Both Sabre and Hunter, however, do share the orders that went to the Swift in real life.)

There actually was one F.4 converted for photo-recce testing in real life, but it had a different camera arrangement to the FR.10 and never went into production, because the Swift was available. It had five cameras: one forward-facing in the nose, two facing outwards and downwards in the nosecone, and two facing straight out left and right just in front of the cockpit bulkhead. The FR.10, which did go into production and was based on the big-bore F.6 airframe, only had three cameras, front, left and right, all in the nosecone.

This should be unusually subtle for me. The reward will come when some JMN looks at it on the table, doesn't notice the F.4 wings and jetpipe, and says "that's just an FR.10 - what's the what-if?"

Weaver · August 03, 2021, 04:26:29 AM

Well that was an immediate disappointment: the Quickboost nose doesn't have the eyelid door in the tip for the front camera: just the side windows. Scoring that's going to be fun. My first thought is to use a bit of alloy tube to do it.

I'm beginning to wonder what a solid clear-resin nose will look like painted up anyway: will it look right or will the camera windows be too 'bright'? I'm tempted to drill it just so I can paint the inside black..

PR19_Kit · August 03, 2021, 11:29:17 AM

I've got a conversion for an RF-4C which has a nose cast in clear resin, can't remember who did it though, and it looks pretty good with the camera windows clear varnished.

Of course there are resins and resins and this one was pretty old, maybe mid 70s.

Weaver · August 04, 2021, 04:29:36 AM

Cheers Kit!

It's amazing how much 'wrong' can be incorporated in one small part when you really put the effort in:

1. The PR.10 nose also has a small window in the underside, which Quickboost have missed,

2. It's not just the lack of a scribed eyelid shutter: close examination of photos shows that while the standard nosecone tip is an ogival radome for the ranging radar set, the PR.10's 'tin' nose is a simple cone, possibly fractionally longer than the standard one. Quickboost, of course, have moulded their recce nose with the ogival shape...

This means that the nose is going to be 'wrong' no matter what I do. I don't have a suitable substitute either: all the recce noses I have are either too pointy, too small, or too large. I suppose that's freeing in a way: it doesn't matter if I cock up the scribing now 'cos it was always doomed to be wrong... Oh well, it'll give the JMNs another nit to pick while they're missing the fact that the 'photo-recce F.4' never went into production anyway...

BTW, I've changed the designation from FR.4 to FR.5. In this timeline, the Sapphire-engined Hunters never happened, their place being taken by NA-Supermarine Sabres so a production recce F.4 would logically be an FR.5, doing the job that the also-non-existent Swift did in real life.

Weaver · August 07, 2021, 03:33:52 AM

Just arrived from Hannants: an Eduard mask set and RAFDec RF7213 decal sheet, the latter in order to get W-series serials appropriate to an F.4/F.5.

Probably going to use the markings for an 41 Sqn F.5 from 1956. 41 don't seem to have had a strong fixed role and they became a tac recce squadron in the '70s with Jaguars anyway, so it doesn't seem unreasonable for them to have been a Hunter fighter-recce outfit in the mid '50s.

Hoping to actually get started with this project this weekend.

Weaver · August 08, 2021, 10:45:23 AM

Obligatory parts layout:

Freightdog parts on the right hand side, Quickboost nose next to the kit one.

Weaver · August 08, 2021, 03:55:24 PM

Aaaaand within an hour of posting that I was feeling rough again, and have therefore done nothing with it yet. Seems to have passed now, but I am so done with this s**t....

NARSES2 · August 09, 2021, 06:35:20 AM

Hope you feel better soon H

kitbasher · August 11, 2021, 01:59:26 AM

Quote from: NARSES2 on August 09, 2021, 06:35:20 AM
Hope you feel better soon H

Likewise.

Weaver · August 11, 2021, 03:30:19 AM

Cheers folks. Feeling better now - think it was just a reaction to changing some drug stuff and it took a couple of days to settle down.

(Where's a crossed-fingers emoji when you need one?)

I did actually cut one half of the fuselage on Monday morning, but stuff keeps taking my time off me since. However, it is offically, if minimally, started.

NARSES2 · August 11, 2021, 06:16:56 AM

Good to hear

Weaver · October 11, 2021, 04:49:30 PM

Well I'm officially declaring this one a dead entry.

Partly, it's incredible bad luck: for almost all of August and September, EVERY FREAKIN' TIME I set aside some time to work on it, something or someone took it off me again within the hour. Surprise hospital appointments at 24 hrs notice, escalating admin jobs, sick relatives, sick me, it just went on and on. However I've got to be honest and admit that lack of morale played it's part too. When the GB was extended I even took several days off work in hope of getting it finished at the lat minute, but when it came down to it, I just couldn't motivate myself.

Lack of mojo has been an increasing problem for me in the last few years. Don't really know what the solution is, to be honest. I need to have a good think about it...

DogfighterZen · October 11, 2021, 05:19:07 PM

Quote from: Weaver on October 11, 2021, 04:49:30 PM

Lack of mojo has been an increasing problem for me in the last few years. Don't really know what the solution is, to be honest. I need to have a good think about it...

Hope you figure out what's holding you back and deal with it ASAP so you can get back at the bench soon with a fresh mindset.

Old Wombat · October 11, 2021, 07:29:51 PM

Quote from: Weaver on October 11, 2021, 04:49:30 PM
Well I'm officially declaring this one a dead entry.

Partly, it's incredible bad luck: for almost all of August and September, EVERY FREAKIN' TIME I set aside some time to work on it, something or someone took it off me again within the hour. Surprise hospital appointments at 24 hrs notice, escalating admin jobs, sick relatives, sick me, it just went on and on. However I've got to be honest and admit that lack of morale played it's part too. When the GB was extended I even took several days off work in hope of getting it finished at the lat minute, but when it came down to it, I just couldn't motivate myself.

Lack of mojo has been an increasing problem for me in the last few years. Don't really know what the solution is, to be honest. I need to have a good think about it...

I find that after an extended period of Real Life (a.k.a. RWS) getting in the way of Whif Life I struggle to get the mojo back up to speed. I guess it's because you have to suppress it while you have to go through all the RWS &, the longer you do that, the harder it is to drag it back up from the mental hole you've buried it in.

Currently struggling to get the spray painting area set up again, so I can get on with my VW of the Zombie Apocalypse, but that's got as much to do with re-animating the mojo after a stretch of doing RWS than anything else.

Ooh! Thought! ... Zombie Mojo!

kitbasher · October 12, 2021, 02:24:24 AM

Quote from: Old Wombat on October 11, 2021, 07:29:51 PM
Quote from: Weaver on October 11, 2021, 04:49:30 PM
Well I'm officially declaring this one a dead entry.

Partly, it's incredible bad luck: for almost all of August and September, EVERY FREAKIN' TIME I set aside some time to work on it, something or someone took it off me again within the hour. Surprise hospital appointments at 24 hrs notice, escalating admin jobs, sick relatives, sick me, it just went on and on. However I've got to be honest and admit that lack of morale played it's part too. When the GB was extended I even took several days off work in hope of getting it finished at the lat minute, but when it came down to it, I just couldn't motivate myself.

Lack of mojo has been an increasing problem for me in the last few years. Don't really know what the solution is, to be honest. I need to have a good think about it...

I find that after an extended period of Real Life (a.k.a. RWS) getting in the way of Whif Life I struggle to get the mojo back up to speed. I guess it's because you have to suppress it while you have to go through all the RWS &, the longer you do that, the harder it is to drag it back up from the mental hole you've buried it in.

Currently struggling to get the spray painting area set up again, so I can get on with my VW of the Zombie Apocalypse, but that's got as much to do with re-animating the mojo after a stretch of doing RWS than anything else.

Ooh! Thought! ... Zombie Mojo!

I know exactly what you both mean; going through a similar patch at the moment, although I have in the last returned to a couple of part builds that are helping me to get over that feeling.