Tupolev Tu-13 Kanberra

[PR19_Kit]

Serious building has commenced.

I wanted to use the lovely resin bomb-bay add-on, by Pavla I think, in the Kanberra, but it's designed for the Airfix PR9, not the M'box one, so the M'box wingroots protrude into the space where the bomb-bay goes. So a lengthy Dremel session was called for and now the roots are all gone.




A touch of super glue around the edges and the bomb-bay moulding slid nicely into place. 



The resin moulding really is superb, and the red arrow points to the pipework where I installed a sampling valve on 13 Sqdn's PR9, XH131, way back in 1974. I'd like to think it's still there, but when I checked a few years ago, at the Long Kesh Museum nr Belfast, my arms  weren't long enough to reach round the long range thank that's in the bay now.

[sandiego89]

Bold build Kit!   I think i have an idea where you are headed- nice

[PR19_Kit]

It turns out the bomb bay upgrade kit is from CMK, not Pavla.

But it's still pretty good, apart from the fact that bay doors are about 3-4 mm too short for their own bomb-bay........... duh?

Some work done on the first U-2 fuselage, which now looks NOTHING like a U-2 fuselage.... 

[PR19_Kit]

Oh dear, the rear edge of the bomb bay came unglued from the fuselage, and now that both fuselage halves are glued together I couldn't get back in to re-glue it.

So the only solution was to saw the tail end of the fuselage off, lever the bomb-bay back into position, re-glue it, and then glue the tail back on.

Ho hum...............

[Tophe]

Hard work, yes, poor Kit...

[PR19_Kit]

But almost normal for me. 

[Captain Canada]

Woah. Very intrigued by this one !

[PR19_Kit]

It's not going as well as I'd hoped Cap'n, I may have to re-think a major part of it, but that's Whiffwork.

[PR19_Kit]

Hmm, my original plan for this was to saw off the nose and tail of the two U-2 fuselages and glue them close in to the sides of the Canberra fuselage, a la CF-100, and link that configuration to the later Tu-16 which had a similar arrangement. But there's very little of a U-2 fuselage that's actually circular and by the time I'd sawn and filed off all the lumps and bumps there wasn't a whole lot left.

I've only done the 'work' on the Academy U-2 so I still have the Airfix one unsullied, and that could be used for other purposes, and in the meanwhile I'm trying to think how I can Whiff the normal Avons on the Canberra B(I)8 wing to make them look more 'Russian'.

Meanwhile I've added a whole new nose  and started to use some of the resin goodies I bought for it. The landing gear bays, by Reskit, look very good but they take some SERIOUS sawing to get the good bits off the moulding blocks, and their resin is a lot less workable than Colin Freightdog's stuff.

[Tophe]

Thanks for the explanation of what the project was (with the U-2s) even if this project is cancelled. Should it be included in the British book "project : cancelled !". I think no because involving zero million £...

[PR19_Kit]

Well no, because it's RUSSIAN!! 

It's not 100% cancelled, just 'modified' a bit.................

[Tophe]

 

[PR19_Kit]

Having fitted the Reskit resin gear bay moulding to the Airfix B(I)8 wings, and assembled the rest of the wing structure, I found out that Airfix wings are marginally thicker than the slots in the Matchbox PR9 fuselage. 

As it's hardly the easiest of tasks to make the slots deeper, I guess I'll have to file the wing roots down a tad and hope it's not noticeable afterwards. 

I've still not had any ideas about the engines but I'm going home for a few days next week and I'll have a look through my stock of AZ, Mikro Mir, Zvezda kits etc.

[Gondor]

Russian engines have the impression of being BIG, not just the intakes but the exhausts as well. Maybe if you scale-o-rama 1/48 engines that would work

Gondor

[Tophe]

Russian engines have the impression of being BIG, not just the intakes but the exhausts as well.

I have read somewhere about centrifugal jets being larger in appearance then axial jets, is it the explanation?