The Supermarine Defender F3

PR19_Kit · June 15, 2022, 02:37:08 PM

Yes, good idea Robert.

That may work quite well, even though the RW 510 had them coming out of the wing at 90 deg. to the undersurface, there's no reason why they have to.

The Wooksta! · June 16, 2022, 03:43:47 AM

The irony is that the F4 was to have had the same wing as the FR.5, the one used for the speed record was the prototype.

perttime · June 16, 2022, 05:09:02 AM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on June 15, 2022, 01:35:24 PM
...
I'm not at all sure that the overall shape is balanced enough as the mainwheels seem a long way back compared to the tailwheel, but they can't go any further forward as the wheel struts are almost on the LE of the wings. That means the wings may have to be moved forward a tad.
...

The swept wing brings the entire wing's centre of lift further back. So the CG of the "real" aircraft needs to be proportionally further back too. The mainwheels don't have to be as far forward as on the Attacker.

PR19_Kit · June 16, 2022, 07:05:30 AM

Yes, I agree. It's a flexible situation as the wings and fuselage don't match as well as that on the 510, which is where the idea started from.

I'm try the wheels in position with Blu-Tak first, and see what it looks like. It's more complicated now as I've managed to lose the entire tailwheel assembly, so I'll have to scratch a new one.

PR19_Kit · June 17, 2022, 12:27:50 AM

Got the first primer coat on the Defender, and it's AWFUL.

It'll need many more PSR sessions to get it the right shape, so many that I doubt it'll be done for the 1 Week Build, let alone the Coventry Show on Sunday. I'll bash on with it but there's not much hope, thank goodness I'm doing the IAC Gripen, it'll give me a 'banker' for the 1 Week Build at least.

PR19_Kit · June 17, 2022, 08:09:22 AM

There's NO chance of this being finished before the deadline now, not unless I forget about going to the Coventry Show, and that's not going to happen.

The 2nd PSR session worked OK till I tried sanding it, and then I found I had the dreaded 'putty not going off' syndrome again. I don't think Presto really likes hot weather so I'll put it in the fridge after the 3rd PSR session.

Dave, could you please move this to the Aeroplane projects area for me please, and I'll get on with the tiny Gripen. That's looking pretty good for a change.

kitbasher · June 17, 2022, 10:10:56 AM

Certainly, Kit. Might not be until Tuesday when I'm repatriated with my lappy, though.

PR19_Kit · June 17, 2022, 10:50:40 AM

NP Dave. I'll finish it off, but well outside the 1 Week GB time frame.

PR19_Kit · June 21, 2022, 09:15:08 AM

Looking at the Defender project with a cool eye, I realise I've made a crass error in the wing planform.

The model was built using the Xtrakit Swift FR5 wings, and these feature the sawtooth outer wing of the FR5 and the extended inner wing of the F2. The F2 had four guns, and the wing extension was to make room for the larger ammo supplies for the doubled up guns.

While I chopped off the sawtooth outer wing LEs, I left the extended inner wings in place, and a Defender wouldn't have needed them as its two extra guns were in the nose. No nosewheel so plenty of space.....

I'll saw off the inner LE of the wings and file them down (a lot....) to produce a more '510 alike' wing shape.

PR19_Kit · June 22, 2022, 12:28:56 PM

After marking out the new LE shape I scored it a few times and then grabbed the razor saw and hacked a chunk off. Of course the LE now looked like a brick wall, so I trimmed it back a bit where it met the fuselage and pressed the upper and lower halves together before applying copious amounts of superglue and tape. When it was set I gave it a hefty session with my big file and then the expected PSR session.

It's now looking much more as I wanted it to, with a totally straight LE.

The port wing's been modified in the pic and the starboard wing is as I built it originally, with the extended inboard LE.

Still LOTS of PSR to do........

Wardukw · June 22, 2022, 05:51:06 PM

Its looking smooth Kit ..gonna be a sweet model when ya done

PR19_Kit · June 24, 2022, 02:33:31 PM

Amazingly the ~~2nd~~, ~~3rd~~, ~~4th~~, 5th PSR session on the Defender has worked quite well, and it's looking much more the way I wanted it to look now. It might only need two more sessions........

But I'm at home this weekend and the Defender is at 'my country home' so no progress for a day or so. As I have three Swift conversions now, I have lots of Swift bits that may go on the Defender, and I'm leaning toward the big wing fences that were fitted to the F2, 3 & 4. Very 1950s, don't you think?

The Wooksta! · June 24, 2022, 07:47:42 PM

Wing fences were only fitted to the mk 4 prototypes. Production mk 4s were to have had the same wing as the FR5.

If your Defender is late 40s, leave the fences off. The Type 535 I'm sort of working on isn't getting them as they're not on the Hygate drawngs for the type. And your thing is well before that.

Some guy was talking about Swift wings some time back on Britmodeller, and he reckoned that the Alleycat ones were done to duff info (however, AFAIK, they were mastered by Paul Lucas for Colin at Freightdog before he sold them to Alleycat). May be worth finding that thread.

PR19_Kit · June 25, 2022, 01:47:26 AM

I was chatting to Colin at Coventry last weekend, and he confirmed that his Swift stuff was sold to Alley Cat, and if Paul Lucas did the moulds you can bet they're 110% right.

My Defender's early 50s approx. I couldn't find a slot in the Attacker-Swift timeline to slide it into all that well.

kitnut617 · June 25, 2022, 05:44:14 AM

There's been a running article in Air-Britain's Aviation World about a Brit test pilot who was known as Pee Wee Judge. He was an ex-RAF pilot/test pilot and after a few adventures after the war, was at Supermarine at the time of the Attacker, Swift and Scimitar and did a lot of testing on them. I'll give the latest segment another read and see if there's a time slot you could use Kit.