Royal Navy Skydiver FU.2 - FINISHED!

[Weaver]

Okay, I'm going to try to do the project that never got off the ground/seabed due to my aunt's death: an "improved" Royal Navy version of the Skydiver aircraft from Gerry Anderson's UFO.

It's based on the toy-like Imai kit. Full disclosure: some of the bits of this were glued together when I got it, but ALL THE ONES I'M USING HAVE BEEN SEPARATED (see photo).

I'm not using the original rocket/booster pods because:
a) they're firmly glued together,
b) they're really bad mouldings,
c) they're quite strongly spring-loaded to fire their nose cones, which would get real old, real quick on a show table full of other peoples' models.

The idea is to make it slightly more logical. It will have a new back plate with jet exhausts and a boarding hatch, so that the air doesn't have to mysteriously get from the nose intake to the rocket/engine pods, and said pods, whose back halves will now merely be boosters for take-off, will be above the wings to protect them during landing. Speaking of landing, the kit has a non-canon tray on the bottom designed to support some toy wheels. I intend to convert this into a Convair Sea Dart-like hydro-ski, using scratchbuilding and some 1/48th F-19 Stealth Fighter weapon bay trapezes.

Customary parts and box shots:

[Dizzyfugu]

Nice! 

[zenrat]

  

[Rick Lowe]

I remember that one... not fondly... I passed mine on, so I'll be interested to see how yours comes out.

[Weaver]

I remember that one... not fondly... I passed mine on, so I'll be interested to see how yours comes out.

Yeah, the fit of the glazing into the cockpit is... interesting. The frames are part of the fuselage, but the glazing doesn't bulge out between them on the side panels, so it's going to have framing that's about a scale three inches thick. Can't see any way around that to be honest (not in the available time anyway). The other thing is that the glazing pretty much has to be installed after glueing the fuselage halves together but before putting the nose section on (the nose is in two sections: the ribbed bit and the intake). That pretty muck rules out doing a scratchbuilt cockpit the normal way, but it might be possible to have at least a seat on a "swing" pre-attached to the glazing and then fitted with it.

We'll see.

[The Chaos]

 

[Rick Lowe]

How about making a 'bathtub' type affair for the cockpit and slide it in under the glazing?
Make a platform inside the fuselage for it to sit on and slide it onto that.

And maybe replace the canopy entirely with a jet one? Before or after the display it's intended for.
Just paint over the bits that aren't meant to be clear.
Something Sabre-ish might work.

[Weaver]

Progress:

Blobs removed from fuselage sides and filled (the looked ugly and obstructed key real estate for decals).
Intake plate drilled out and replaced by F-4 nosecone to make it look deeper.
Belly pan plated, filled and detailed to make hydroski.
Ventral bay detailed with engine bay tubes.
Greeblie plate part completed for centre of ventral bay when fuselage halves joined.
Guns removed and drilled out for alloy barrels (had to be done: one was missing anyway).
New back plate made up with engine nozzles and docking hatch (not finished yet).
Rocket/booster pods extended with Evergreen tube.



I think I'm going to have to paint the canopy black on the inside: test fittings show that you need to get your finger and the canopy in through the nose opening in order to fit it, and there's just barely enough room for them. Adding anything on the bottom of the seat would make it impossible. You can't see much in there anyway, due to the solid roof.

Ideally I'd have liked the engine nozzles to be deeper, but I've dithered too long over various ways of making them and the back panel, so now they're just stuck on.

I'm still debating how to detail the back ends of the rocket/booster pods.

The belly pan had two ugly steps in it which I've had to plate over and fill in order to make a credible boat shape. You can't see that in this shot.

[NARSES2]

I keep reading the title of this and open the thread expecting to see a Doglas product in BPF colours 

[Weaver]

Had to do real-world stuff today, so relatively little progress.

Fuselage halves joined (a right pain too!).
Ventral bay fully greeblified.
Rear panel fully greeblified.
All going for a coat of white paint in the bays shortly.



(Ignore the black thing: it's just an upturned mitre block used a convenient stand)

[Rick Lowe]

Coming along well. 

[Weaver]

Primer on tonight. Still lots to do though.

Managed to break one of the strut assemblies that hold the hydroski on, but I think it's fixed.

Realised that some of my paint tins had dried out and that I didn't have all the spray can colours that I thought I had, so, shopping expedition tomorrow.

[Weaver]

Hmmm... not sure this is going to work out. Being totally unable to buy Humbrol spray cans anywhere locally, I took a chance on some Plastikote Pewter, since I'm using Plastikote paints for some of the other colours. However, I've just put it on and it looks a bit "sparkly", rather than "sheeny". We'll see how it dries: either way I'll just have to put up with it since time is marching on.

Don't have any new pics since almost everything's in paint at the moment, so here's the Lego assembly jig    :

[mexchiwa]

Beside the point, but I do think it's funny that there's a kit of something that was originally kitbashed

[Rick Lowe]

Beside the point, but I do think it's funny that there's a kit of something that was originally kitbashed

Is that 'Meta', or Ironic? Or is Meta the New Irony? 

Lego - useful for more than just making dolls' houses...