BA overthink the 'Retro' thing

[PR19_Kit]

In 2019 BA was celebrating some anniversary or another and painted a number of its aircraft in 'Retro' schemes, the A319 below being just one of them, it being painted in the BEA 'Red Square' scheme.



The office organising the 'Retro' idea got really into the whole idea and in one case went just a bit too far........



Trawling through museums all over the world they managed to find an almost complete HP42 airliner of the 30s, purchased it with vast sums of BA's 'Retro' fund and had it shipped back to the UK, where it was completely overhauled and updated to more modern standards demanded by the CAA. It had no rigging at all as the wires were deemed to be 'safety hazards' for the maintenance crews and the wing and tail spars and all the struts were strengthened to ensure the wings still stayed attached to the fuselage during flight.



Of course the four Bristol Jupiter radial piston engines were deemed far too polluting in that day and age and in any case no-one could find any supplies of the vintage fuel that would run them, so they substituted a more modern equivalent, the Lycoming ALF 502s, which they had 'in stock' anyway as they were used on their fleet of BAe 146 feederliners.



There was a risk that the HP32X, as it was known, would be a trifle overpowered with the Lycomings, but it was always possible to throttle back, and a pilot had never been heard to complain about having too much power available.

The HP42X was duly assembled at Duxford, the only airfield with any ground staff who knew how such airframes were built.



Unfortunately, while the great majority of the components of the HP42 were available, the windscreen was found to be missing, and attempts were made to find one, but without much success.

Sub-contracts were issued to try and get one made from scratch and these efforts were rather time consuming.....................

[Wardukw]

Oh boy ...    
Im already loving this 

[Old Wombat]

Kit's 2nd Law successfully negates the necessity to install rigging on a biplane and sets the groundwork for scratch-built cockpit glazing!   

[NARSES2]

Kit's 2nd Law successfully negates the necessity to install rigging on a biplane and sets the groundwork for scratch-built cockpit glazing!   

Beat me to the comments 

[zenrat]

An open cockpit would be more "retro".

Wonderfull idea.   

[kerick]

An open cockpit would be more "retro".

Wonderfull idea.   

That's very true!
An open passenger compartment would provide a "thrilling ride".😳

[PR19_Kit]

Right now the cabin IS 'open' as I haven't used the clear window strips Airfix provide. As it'll be painted I didn't want to have to mask up all those awkward shapes, so I'm going to use PVA in them afterwards.

The cockpit may indeed end up open though. 

[Wardukw]

Jet powered...open cockpit ..nothing could go wrong there   

[jcf]

Open cockpit with flat panel displays, side-stick control and modern crew seats.

[PR19_Kit]

Considering how ancient this kit is, and mine is one of the original issues, not a re-popped one, the engineering is remarkably good. The way the wing and fuselage parts slide into each other is very impressive, and the rest is of the same standard. I'm quite impressed.

From a modelling point of view I've had to keep the piston engine nacelles in place as they position the wing struts, and there's no way I'm going to scratch new wing struts, oh no! So I blanked off the front of the nacelles and I'll putty a bit of roundness onto each one eventually.

Amazingly the BAe 146 turbofans fit a treat! The inboard ones, with longer pylons, fit exactly under the upper wings and the shorter outboard ones do the just the same under the lower wings. RESULT! 

I've positioned the jets so they're not likely to burn through a strut, or set fire to the main gear and they don't look too bad hanging out there.

The tail surfaces were a relative nightmare as trying to get them to stay parallel to the wings wasn't easy as their base on the fuselage is only about 3 mm wide! The three fins fit ok, sort off, and the two tiny trim fins outboard needed to be superglued as they just would NOT stay upright!

It's getting there, and I'm looking for some clear to make the windshield from now.

[Wardukw]

  
This is already bloody good..it's only going to get better / worse 

[kitbasher]

I think that A319 looks very smart in BEA colours.

[buzzbomb]

Oh my giddy Aunt   

This is a great idea for this GB

[Old Wombat]

  

[PR19_Kit]

Hm, a slight problem with the HP42X, the putty I spread liberally across the front of the original piston engine cowlings is still soft and squishy after 24 hrs or so.

I had hoped to sand the putty shapes into hemispheres so they look like fairings had been added, but I may need a Plan B for that idea. And I should have done that before I glued the turbofans in place too, just getting the wet-and-dry in there to sand the putty is pretty difficult.