SM-64 Navaho

[PR19_Kit]

Back in 2012 Mr. Renax, who ran Sharkit models in France, managed to produce a last SM-64 Navaho kit for me, goodness knows how as they'd been OOP for years by then, but he did, and I've been very grateful ever since even though all I've done is oggled all that lovely resin in the box.

But that's now changed as I've decided to build it. 

The kit doesn't come with any sort of launcher, and it'll need one as the Navaho never had any landing gear, but of course this being WhiffWorld that's liable to change. 
I may scratchbuild some sort of launcher, or maybe add landing gear, modelled on that of the X-10 of course as that's exactly what an X-10 was, a Navaho with landing gear. Who knows, there's a long way to go yet.

Here's the beautifully presented box with its impressive box art. The box is quite small, maybe 10" x 5" x 2.5" but the model will be quite a bit larger when it's all assembled.




Inside there's a bag of smaller parts, like the various wings and fins and stuff, and a number of cylindrical mouldings all wrapped in a hefty amount of bubble wrap.




There's also a large sheet of drawings and instructions, but just the one. And no decals but that won't matter too much........




Following the instructions implicitly I started off with assembling the wings, which come  moulded in two halves, left and tight, and it even tells you which side is which by writing on the wings themselves! It says to glue them together on a flat surface, and as the kit is all resin, superglue was the adhesive of choice. Sadly my 'standard' Gorilla Gel glue didn't work worth a light, and I had to re-sand the glue surfaces and use some medium Grip glue instead.

I figured that the wings would end up glued to the flat surface itself if I didn't take precautions, so assembled them lying on an Evergreen styrene plastic bag. NOT a good idea as it turned out as the bag ended up firmly glued to the wings, and took some levering to get it off! The wings will need lots of filing and sanding to get rid of  all traces of the bag too.



Yes, the Navaho wing really is that strange shape at the tips, but doesn't include the single air bubble. I'll PSR that out later on.

You may ask how do I plan to Whiff this device, which is pretty much a Whiff in the RW! I've got two ideas, and neither include changing the shape of  the thing at all (No, not EVEN extending the wings!  ) as it's the shape of the Navaho that attracted me in the first place. Plan A is to do it in SAC service, complete with Star Spangled Band around the nose, and Plan B is to do it in a white RAF scheme, a bit like the Thor missiles we had in the 60s.

I've not decided yet, and of course it may end up TOTALLY different eventually, who knows?

[UhuFin]

Cool choice! Shame Sharkit closed down. They had so many interesting kits like this!

[Steel Penguin]

looking forward to this 
thats a wierd looking assembly on the box pic, but the overhead drawing looks like a true piece of art      real things of the future looking 

[Rheged]

I look forward to seeing a completed Navaho.   Perhaps you could consider driving the hypercritical realism fraternity to the brink of apoplexy  with a diorama of part of the  Bloodhound battery  at Marham  with a Navaho in RAF colours  on one of the launchers?     There's a fascinating backstory there with reference to all of those wonderful RAINBOW code names.......Red Heathen,  Blue Envoy, Violet Club,   Beige Plastic  etc   Or slip it into a Swedish Bloodhound battery........


Sorry, that last one was an NHS advanced multi-role tactical hearing aid.

[PR19_Kit]

thats a wierd looking assembly on the box pic, but the overhead drawing looks like a true piece of art      real things of the future looking 

In the RW the Navaho launched almost vertically, and that long arm under the booster on the box art swivelled up to launch it, and then folds back down again.

[Accidental Loggie]

When I saw the listing for this in my feed, I (naturally) thought that it was going to be a Whiffing variation on the AH-64 Apache, only obviously with longer wingstubs....

Looks like a good kit, Kit 

[Wardukw]

That picture is great ...shows how cool this weapon looks so I'm going to copy that pic just because 
Very very interesting model 👌

[PR19_Kit]

The proper assembly of the Navaho has started, I've glued the centre fuselage section in place on top of the wings. There's a clever ramped end to both parts to ensure they fit exactly in the correct position, very nice. The rear of the centre section needed LOTS of filing though, as Mr. Renax is quite economical with the resin filling there's very little excess resin to remove from the pour, but not enough to saw off, so it was filing all the way. The other parts are similar, so I could be in for a bout of 'Filer's Elbow' maybe.

I filled the small air bubble near the trailing edge of the wing with a slice of styrene, and some PSR of course.

[sandiego89]

Watching with interest!  Our mutuals tastes for obscure launchers, VTOL and gizmos continues! 

While not the proper shape for the Navaho launcher, I have found the ancient 1/40 Revell Nike Hercules launcher a great WHIF platform for scaleorama for 1/72 fighters.  I used one for my 1/72 ZELL Jaguar.  It has all the proper looking hydraulic rams etc.  I scratched the platform, stairs and railing with evergreen products.  it goes from flat to vertical.   







https://www.scalemates.com/kits/revell-00011-nike-hercules-missile--102116

[PR19_Kit]

Oh YES Dave, that does look the business as you say. 

I've scaled up the pic on the box top to the correct size and I started to look at Evergreen box sections etc. but your idea looks even better. With some added bits and pieces it may well do the job, if I can find a Nike Hercules kit of course.

[PR19_Kit]

Actually there's loads of them on ebay, just picked one up for £25 p&p inc.   

[sandiego89]

Nice.  The hydraulic rams are a bit fussy, but it is a nice launcher.

[loupgarou]

Nice.  The hydraulic rams are a bit fussy, but it is a nice launcher.

No problem. Hydraulics has no secrets for Kit. 

[sandiego89]

No problem. Hydraulics has no secrets for Kit. 

True.  Kit will likely make working hydraulics for the launcher at about 75 PSI.....

Just needs about 5 hands to keep all the rams into the actuator sleeves during assembly. 

[PR19_Kit]

Yeah, right. 

I won't make the same mistake I started to with the Martin Monterey beaching trolley though. I was all set to fit ALL the hoses such a system would need, and then figured the umpteen drain hoses would be somewhat less than the diameter of a human hair in 1/72 scale! 

I gave up on that idea, and I'll only aim for the pressure and return hoses for the Navaho launcher.