Vogt RV-141NG for Tophe and Kitnut FINISHED!

[Captain Canada]

  This is so cool. What a great tribute

[Robomog]

Love this concept, very tophe

Mog
>^-.-^<

[zenrat]

 

You can do it.

[Weaver]

Cheers folks! 

I know I can do it, and I'm going to do it. The question is whether I can do it in time. For instance, most of this morning got taken off me in neccessary admin, and an unknown chunk of this afternoon is being taken off me for Auntie's House stuff.  Then there's the issue of glue/paint drying cycles. I'm still unsure how much to assemble before I paint it: putting all the bits together first would be quicker and easier, but there's a real danger that I might not be able to spray paint some areas. Have to see how the next installment of Adventures In Jigology goes...

[buzzbomb]

Super good look on this.. great work

[Weaver]

Well, an overall coat of "Tophe Blue" is currently drying on the model. Still got some assembly to do after that (it would have been awkward to paint if I'd glued it all together first) and decals, of course, but they should be relatively simple. It's not the greatest feat of modelling ever accomplished, but somehow it feels right for Tophe, who was always a "concepts" guy rather than a detail-freak. I've also had brainwave about a complementary follow-on project, about which more after the end of the GB...  

[zenrat]

The beauty of a Tophe build is you don't have to put stickers on it.

[PR19_Kit]

The beauty of a Tophe build is you don't have to put stickers on it.

And you can paint the canopy black and be wholly 'on theme'. So no need for a cockpit interior either! 

Hm, there's a thought. I could paint my DC88-126Z overall Tophe Blue and to hell with the blasted decals, but I'm not sure I've got THAT much pale blue paint!

[Weaver]

The beauty of a Tophe build is you don't have to put stickers on it.

And you can paint the canopy black and be wholly 'on theme'. So no need for a cockpit interior either! 

Hm, there's a thought. I could paint my DC88-126Z overall Tophe Blue and to hell with the blasted decals, but I'm not sure I've got THAT much pale blue paint!

If you can get to a Hobbycraft, they have a Plastikote colour which is perfect and comes in large spray cans.

As for the cockpit, I've kinda compromised. The glazings are still clear, but everything inside is black.

[Weaver]

The beauty of a Tophe build is you don't have to put stickers on it.

I kinda do for the backstory. At least basic ones.

[ericr]

The beauty of a Tophe build is you don't have to put stickers on it.

 

[Weaver]

'Tis done (nearly).     

Decals on, matt coat drying overnight, bit of light weathering in the morning, then photos.

Now to get the backstory out of my brain and onto digital paper - I'm superstitious about typing it out early: jinx and all that...

Thanks for all the encouragement folks!     

[Weaver]

Okay 'tis done, done.

I'll give it an hour or two to dry, because the matt coat made the clear parts misty, so I've put a coat of Klear on them to see if it improves.

In the meantime, here's another jig as a teaser:

[Weaver]

Vogt RV-141NG
The strangely peaceful afterlife of an eccentric asymmetric warrior

The islands of the Tofu Archipelago in the Pacific Ocean are one of only a handful of places on Earth where the soil and weather conditions are perfect, and have remained perfect for long enough, that the giant soy tree, or Soyquoia (Glycine Giganticus) can reach it's full majestic height. Not only do these trees produce the finest fresh soy beans on the planet, but the uninterrupted rain of unfertilised beans for millions of years, combined with the great weight of the trees, has resulted in a dense layer of compressed and fermented soy beans, hundreds of feet deep, which can be mined and processed to produce a product, also called "Tofu", which is superior to any soy bean curd produced by 'normal' methods.

Needless to say, not only the entire economy of Tofu revolves around the cultivation, mining and export of these soy products, but they also form the major component of the islands' food supply since, being located thousands of miles from any continent, bulk imports are prohibitively expensive. However the wel- known side effect of excessive soy consumption, namely the reduction of male testosterone levels, brings the islands both benefits and problems. On the one hand, the lack of aggression means that the violent crime rate is near zero, and the islands are the most peace-loving state on the planet, not only having no armed forces, but even having no police force (or at least no force identified as such). On the other hand, the reduction in fertility means that the islands have to accept a constant flow of immigrants to maintain population levels. Pacifists and people seeking the quiet life flock to Tofu from all over the world, and the Tofulian government has to carefully vet these immigrants to ensure that they won't disturb the peace and tranquility of the islands. Disturbing the peace is a huge social taboo among the Tofulians, and great shame and social exclusion awaits anyone found guilty of it.

Reading about the general state of affairs on the Tofu Islands convinced Richard Vogt that this was the perfect place for him and his wife to retire to. Vogt was a German aircraft designer with innovative, if sometimes eccentric, design ideas. Before WWII he had worked for Dornier in Germany, Italy and Japan, before accepting a position at Hamburger Flugzeugbau, which later become Blohm & Voss. Whilst at B&V, he designed the asymmetric BV-141 tactical reconnaissance aircraft for which he is, perhaps, most famous. Despite it's strange appearance, this aircraft flew well, vindicating Vogt's approach, and was only rejected for mass production because the competing Focke-Wulf design used non-strategic engines that were more readily available. After WWII, he was recruited by Operation Paperclip and moved to the USA, where he worked for several organisations and companies including Boeing, before retiring in 1966.

On emigrating to Tofu after his retirement, Vogt no doubt thought that his aircraft designing days were behind him. However, once he'd settled in, the government of Tofu approached him with a proposition. It turned out that although violent crime was nearly non-existent on the islands, that didn't means that other crimes didn't take place. Corruption, embezzlement and theft all thrived on the islands, carefully covered up by the government to preserve their international image, as well as the crime exercising their minds on this occasion: smuggling.

Since the Tofulian economy depended on the international market price of Tofu, the government had entered into a cartel arrangement with the othe major producers, Curdistan in Central Asia and Soyanara in Central America, to fix the price by controlling production. However the restricted supply relative to the demand had created a lucrative black market for illicit Tofu, which criminal gangs obtained by bribing warehouse guards or even conducting illegal mining operations. These gangs, known collectively as the "Soy Boys" would then use speedboats to run the contraband out to passing freighters in international waters, whose captains would then sell it at their next port of call using forged paperwork.

The Tofulian government wanted an aircraft with which to chase down and stop these smugglers. Of course, the Public Harmony Executive (the nearest thing Tofu had to a police force) could have just bought imported aircraft, but the Ministry of Economics, long concerned about the islands' over-dependence on a single export, saw the presence of a famous aircraft designer as an opportunity to start a domestic aircraft industry. The aircraft would have to be a floatplane since Tofu had no space for runways, every spare square metre being devoted to Soy production, and it would have to use non-violent PHE-approved methods to stop the smugglers.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, Vogt decided to resurrect his BV-141 design, possibly because he was still piqued that it had never entered production. The design was updated with a modern "plexiglass bubble" style of cockpit and a turboprop engine. To gain the additional thrust necessary for a water take-off, a small turbojet was added in the now redundant rear cabin space, fed by a retractable dorsal intake (the jet's fuel consumption was too high to run it constantly). A single float was fitted below the fuselage, but due to the asymmetric weight distribution, only a single outrigger float was required, fitted outboard of the cockpit pod. A radar under the port wing would find targets initially, before a steerable searchlight under the starbord wing was used to identify them and loudspeakers mounted on the outrigger float would shame them into stopping.

The first aircraft, resplendent in Tofu's national colour (baby blue) and known as "Tophe" since it's registration combined the prefix of the Tofulian civil register with the initials of the Public Harmony Executive, was rolled out (well, floated out) in 1970. Five more followed and they proved to be a great success, significantly reducing the smuggling problem. Once a radar contact was obtained, the pilots learned to throttle back their engines and glide almost silently to within range of the suspect craft, before illuminating it with their searchlight and blasting it with demoralising loudspeaker messages such as, "YOU'RE BEING VERY NAUGHTY! STOP IT NOW!", "YOU'RE DISTURBING THE PEACE!" or the absolute killer, "YOUR MOTHERS WOULD BE ASHAMED IF THEY COULD SEE YOU NOW!". Some of the boat crews were seen to be sobbing uncontrollably when PHE launches caught up to them and took them into Custardie (the port which is the PHE's main base of operations, known for it's buildings' distinctive yellow stucco). Soy Boy crews came to fear the 141s so much that they nicknamed them "Whispering Grass" because of their silent approach and the shameful stories they would tell their families as punishment. Because the 141's design meant it had to circle the target in a right-hand, i.e. clockwise, turn, getting spotted by them because known as "being clocked".

A small but steady stream of exports kept the production line running and the enterprise was considered a success. Richard Vogt died in 1979, and the facility, formerly known as the Public Harmony Aircraft Factory or "PHAF" for short, was renamed the Vogt Aircraft Company in his honour. In the late 1980s, a series of improvements and updates to the aircraft resulted in a new version called the RV-141NG (the designation changing to RV to honor Richard Vogt again). The original and long out-of-production Blackburn Bullfrog turboprop was replaced by a more modern and powerful Spratt & Houston-Peaty 6A, with extended jetpipes in a not entirely successful attempt to prevent exhaust staining on the fuselage (it merely moved it to the tailplane). The Turbomeccano Pamplemousse turbojet was replace by a Babbiliz W4VE high-bypass turbofan, and the vastly improved fuel economy of the latter allowed it to be used during the whole flight, considerably increasing the aircraft's speed. In consequence, the somewhat troublesome retractable air intake was replaced by a much larger fixed one. Lastly, the searchlight was replaced by an electro-optical turret, with full night-vision capability.

When the -NGs were first proposed for the PHE flight, there was the nearest thing to a revolt that Tofu has ever seen. It was more economic to replace the old aircraft with new-build airframes, but the thought of scrapping Old Tophe, as the first aircraft was now known, filled the pilots with horror. After a vigourous letter-writing campaign and some polite demonstrations (which shook the PHE leadership to it's core), a compromise was reached whereby most of the old aircraft would be replaced, but Old Tophe would be stripped down, zero-timed and rebuilt to the -NG standard. As one of the pilots said to a newspaper reporter, "Old Tophe will go on in our hearts for a long time yet."

Vale Tophe, Vale Kitnut. I hope you're having a good chuckle somewhere.

The Model:

Base kit: Airfix BV-141
Cockpit: Airfix Gazelle
Prop: Airfix Tucano
Prop intake and jet exhaust: Matchbox Meteor
Main float: Revell Twin Otter
Outrigger float: unknown from spares box
Radome: H2S from a Lancaster (unknown make: came in a box of spares)
Jet intake: Monogram F-89 tip pod
EO turret fairing: Hind D chin pod (make unknown)
EO turret: map pin from a stationary shop
Loudspeakers: turned alloy ship horns from a supplier on Ebay
Float struts: K&N "streamline" brass tube with Evergreen rod inserts.
Turboprop exhausts: alloy tube
Paint: Plastikote Satin Baby Blue and matt varnish rattle cans
Decals: Fantasy Printshop Luftwaffe serials & rescue markings. Heart from a set of nail-art decals, rest nicked from various sheets.














The model sits somewhat awkwardly on  a flat surface, leaning to the right (for most pics there's a block of foam under the back of the main float). This is NOT because the outrigger struts are too long, it's because the outrigger's step is too far back and the model's a tailsitter, which means it falls back onto the shallow rear section of the main float, which IS higher than the outrigger.





I think the best solution is to make a beaching trolley to display it on, and of course, an asymetric beaching trolley requires an asymetric tractor...

[ericr]

oh !