English Electric Rapier F.1

[The Wooksta!]

A recent purchase was Tony Wilson's English Electric Lightning: Genesis & Projects. Lots of drawings of the Lightning, from the earliest sketches to more developed machines.

One, dated Feb 1952, is the first P1B.  Looked very different sans belly tank, spine and with the small fin and an armament of four cannons and no missiles.  With an ITP that year, it's possible that the first aircraft could have been entering RAF service by late 1955.

Is it possible to scratchbodge it?  Yes.

Out with an old Airfix Lightning F3.  Remove spine, cable ducts and belly tank, then sand off any remaining raised detail and fill all the sinkholes.  I used plastic card to wrap inside the fuselage to plug underneath the gaps.  The hole for the spine was plugged using part of the very thing removed, whilst the yawning chasm that was the now vacant bellytank was planked with scrap plastic card before being filled with superglue and baking soda.

The cockpit was filled with a spare Hunter tub from a Revell one turned into a two seater.  Not ideal and not a Lightning one, but then this isn't a Lightning.

The jetpipes also looked different, being the same shape as that of the P1A.  Now I have an Aeroclub conversion and the white metal jetpipes in that are very nice, so they got cloned.  There was a bit of a gap but I used normal filler to sort it out as I didn't want to damage the resin piece.

This is how it looks so far.

Fuselage.  Note the large area filled.


Better view of the filled area.  The jetpipes haven't come out too well on the photos due to being white and the resultant flash.


Another shot of the jetpipes.  The filler here is all sanded back now.


Shot of the cockpit.  Looks like it was made to fit, but it did need the sides trimming just a tadge.


All together now.  Two shots showing how it looks different and yet so similar.  Wings and tailplane are not glued in yet.


You can get a better idea of the filler work done on the spinal gap here.



Extra!  Aftermarket bits for Lightning are being deployed.  Aeroclub undercarriage, FOD guard and mainwheel doors, resin bang seat from somewhere, Whirlybird early P1B/Lightning mainwheels and Matchbox maingear doors.  Some dude on Britmodeller is doing 3d printed Lightning boarding ladders.  Pricy, but I may invest.


Fins.  The beige one is a Maintrack one included in a conversion I bought years ago, the white one is a clone of the Whirlibird P1B early fin. The latter being the better one of the two, that's getting used.

[Tophe]

interesting...

[Gondor]

Looks good Lee. Certainly a project to use up all those little accessories bought over the years 

Gondor

[NARSES2]

These are really coming on well Lee 

[The Wooksta!]

Should be together and in primer by the end of Tuesday.  I hope...

[The Wooksta!]

And here's some in progress shots.  It's all assembled and awaiting filler.





I killed the flash to see if the exhausts woud come out better.  Hmmm, a bit...


Underneath, showing the extent of filling the hole left by the now vacant belly tank:


And the bubble canopy.  This is a Swift one as a stand in.  It'll probably get a Lightning windscreen with a Sabre bubble, or I have something else in mind IF I can find it...

[The Wooksta!]

And here's the finished model that was displayed at SMW2021 at Telford a week back.

[PR19_Kit]

4 Sqdn, yeeeeeaaaaah! 

[kitbasher]

T'is very smart, Lee 

[AeroplaneDriver]

Very nice.  That book is a treasure trove of Lightning What If ideas. 

[Glenn Gilbertson]

That looks really good & different!

[NARSES2]

Nice one Lee

[AndrewF]

Very elegant!

[Rheged]

Another good one, Lee!!

[Dizzyfugu]

The bubble canopy works really well.