Boosted Brewster Buffalo

[Scotaidh]

A few weeks ago in one of the aviation discussion threads, someone - it may have been me, I dis-remember - said something about re-engining a Buffalo or a Boomerang with the engine off a Corsair.  Having a Matchbox Buffalo handy with no particular plans for it, I thought I'd have a bash.  After all, to quote my favourite line from Top Gear - How hard could it be?



So I ordered a couple of cheap Corsairs from Squadron with the intention of pillaging their corncobs ... Yeah, no.  The Corsair's engine is of smaller diameter than whatever the Buffa-slow had, so that wouldn't work.  With the recent demise of my tame aeronautical engineer I lost my ready reference for answers to questions like What would happen it a closely-cowled radial was put in a looser cowling, one larger than wot it were designed for, like?

So I decided I just need to stack styrene discs of the correct diameter between the back edge of the cowling and the firewall, to make up the missing thickness/length of the Corsair engine.  I therefore assembled my sheet plastic, circle punch, glue, and the cowled engines to make sure sufficient depth of plastic was achieved. 



At first I used a 1" punch, then figured out I'd be grinding away just about half of each disc 'cos it was too wide/big a diameter.  I needed, apparently, a .75" punch ... now try to find one.  <grrrr!>

So I purchased a 1/2" punch, resigned to much PSR to build out the required thickness.  So there it is - the 1" stack nearby, the first 1/2" stack already in place.  Now, I was going to just glue the stack to the rear of the cowling, but I can't - the cowling is oval, the stack circular.  I'd have had about 1/8" glue area to hold the thing steady ... I had my doubts.  The top of the 1/2" stack was therefore ground away with a dremel-tool so it fits into the cowling, and is full-face glued to the back of the engine disc supplied by the kit.  Therefore more discs are required to make up the distance - that smaller stack is awaiting glue-dryness to be added to the engine assembly.



I've not really planned out how I'm going to lengthen the fuselage behind the cockpit - that'll be fun! 

[Leading Observer]

Could the Corsair help there as well?

[Wardukw]

I like where this is going Scot but i am surprised about the difference in engine sizes..the buffalos is a small little engine compared to the monster the corsair was powered by ..like ya said it could be the close fitting cowls which is where the difference lays .
Ahhhh Clarksons famous last words  ..another big Top Gear fan here and me mum too..and shes 87 
Ive lengthened both aircraft ive stuck on here so if ya need an idea how its done check em out ...theres pics on what i did ..im keeping a close eye on this build cause its very cool and as the old rule goes...there's no replacement for displacement 

[frank2056]

According to Wikipedia, the Wright R-1820 Cyclone in the Buffalo had a diameter: 54.25 in (1,378 mm) vs 52.8 in (1,342 mm) for the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp in the Corsair... so it's probably a minor scale difference/loose cowl.

The main question is what'll happen to the rest of the airframe when you give it an engine with twice the performance...

[Wardukw]

Frank the airframe will either handle 2000hp ..or it wont..either way its gonna be fun 
Hell it'd be bloody fast tho..lets see a Zero keep up with it ..if it holds together long enough

[Scotaidh]

According to Wikipedia, the Wright R-1820 Cyclone in the Buffalo had a diameter: 54.25 in (1,378 mm) vs 52.8 in (1,342 mm) for the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp in the Corsair... so it's probably a minor scale difference/loose cowl.

The main question is what'll happen to the rest of the airframe when you give it an engine with twice the performance...

The Corsair kits are Hobby Boss.  Each consists of almost a dozen pieces, once of which is the cowling with engine molded into it.

To answer your main question - the basic airframe will receive a sprayed overlay of Whiffiam with the highly stressed areas getting actual reinforcement -  triangular fillets of unobtanium welded into place.  It shouldn't be too big a project - we all know how unobtanium literally melds into whiffiam at 350 degrees f ... 

Creative B/S aside, this would be a trial aircraft, a prototype.  As such the air frame would be pretty much hand-built.  Since the air frame is already being stretched to preserve the CG, not to mention being reinforced to carry the much heavier and much 'torquier' engine.  It's going to need more vertical stabilizer area to fly straight and larger control surfaces to manouvre.  The total wing area might be OK, but the wing-loading will be much greater, too.  It would probably be very unpleasant to fly. 

But this is just for fun. 

[The Rat]

This should be mega-fun! You might want to enlarge the vertical stabiliser and rudder to account for the extra torque.

[buzzbomb]

Nice.. I am waiting to see how long the snout becomes.. either way, the look of the Buffalo will change. Name change to Pinocchio ?

[Wardukw]

Left as it is ..this little beast would be much like the famous or infamous Gee Bee racer.
Big mother of a motor..teeny winny everything else..and as Scot said..very unpleasant to fly.
I think with the mods this will actually end up looking kinda cool 

[PR19_Kit]

If all else fails, add another row of cylinders, or two..... 

[Dizzyfugu]

I pimped a Buffalo in a similar fashion a while ago: it received a new engine (a planned R-2600 turned out to be too long), a different tail and slightly longer wings (all with square tips), a fuselage plug behind the cockpit and an F4U "bubble canopy".


1:72 Brewster &#x27;Bison&#x27; Mk. Ic, aircraft &#x27;FA-S/A-51-41&#x27; of 82 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF); Morotai/New Guinea, August 1944 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr

[Scotaidh]

Something I was just reminded I'll need to do - put cowl flaps at the new back-end of the motor.  The ones on the Buffalo are really just lines inscribed into the plastic. 

Very nice, Dizzy, as always.  I'd never have guessed that started as a Buffalo, though - at first glance I thought it was some species of Hellcat.  I'm not knocking your work - as always, I'm in awe of what you've done, but you have your way and mine is a bit different from yours. 

I will enlarge the vertical stabilizer & rudder, but I'm going to try to keep the same overall shape - I want this to be clearly seen as a development of the Buffalo.

[zenrat]

I pimped a Buffalo in a similar fashion a while ago: it received a new engine (a planned R-2600 turned out to be too long), a different tail and slightly longer wings (all with square tips), a fuselage plug behind the cockpit and an F4U "bubble canopy".


1:72 Brewster 'Bison' Mk. Ic, aircraft 'FA-S/A-51-41' of 82 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF); Morotai/New Guinea, August 1944 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr

Sofa so good...

[63cpe]

I did a quite radical unlimited Racer from a Brewster Buffalo some years ago:

https://flic.kr/p/2eDgbWm

I think I graved a R-2800 on the fuselage. Not sure, Will check. It reminds me i wanted to do a less radical racer from a Buffalo one day.

David aka 63cpe

[PR19_Kit]

I did a quite radical unlimited Racer from a Brewster Buffalo some years ago:

https://flic.kr/p/2eDgbWm

I think I graved a R-2800 on the fuselage. Not sure, Will check. It reminds me i wanted to do a less radical racer from a Buffalo one day.

I LOVE the prop on that, where did it come from? Looks like a higher pitch version of an XF-84H prop.