Turboprop Floatplane Torpedo Corsair UAV

[Spellbinder99]

I started fiddling around with the few kits I have to hand here, plus a load of glue, filler and sheet and tube plastic.
I don't have suitable floats as yet, but I am home on holidays in two weeks so I will see a good donor kit while there.



The entire cockpit area was razor sawn off and laminated plastic glued in to fair in the fuselage area. Still some filling and sanding but it has ended up with quite a nice transition.
The propellor is the contra-rotating one from the Trumpeter Wyvern, and the wing tanks and torpedo will come from that kit as well. I have pretty much worked out how to adapt the Wyvern prop to the Corsair shaft so that the assembly can still rotate fully.



I may make the tanks tip mounted, or mount them underwing outboard of the floats, which will mount to the lowest point of the gull. The fold lines and gun ports will be filled, but the wing root oil coolers will stay as even Turbo-props need them.



The premise of the British prop and engine, torpedo and tanks is that this is a Fleet Air Arm project, so it may even get done in dark grey and sky with Suez stripes.... Inspired by Jennings drawing of the late mark Corsair in FAA colours...

The cooling flaps are to be fully filled and the cowling lines rescribed to reflect a four part "petal" arrangement. The exhausts of which I have only done the left one so far are scratchbuilt from plastic tubing thinned and capped at the end.

I am also thinking of adding the -5N radar pod as part of the unmanned ship targetting setup.

Cheers

Tony

[Glenn]

Oh, yea, I like!
Glenn

[Gary]

Oh WOW!

That looks sooooooooo cool!

[noxioux]

That's wicked!  

[Tophe]

Wonderful
Question: how will you name this beauty? F4U-13 Corvern? Tell us...

[cthulhu77]

Super cool idea !!!!  Looking forward to seeing the end result, too !

          greg

[Patrick H]

wow, great stuff.



Patrick

[proditor]

I never realized how hot a Corsair would look with contra-rotating props...

Darn...another project for the back burner.

[Sisko]

Very cool    

[Allan]

Keep it up and more piccies please.

Just love your neat, clean modelling style.

Allan in Canberra

[Captain Canada]

Wow, Tony....is that ever cool !

I can't help seeing it all red, like that goodyear racer type that's on the circuit.

Love the idea, tho.....but I'd love it even more if it had a pilot ! The story sounds neat as well.

So, what are you gonna build with the leftover Wyvern bits ?

[AeroplaneDriver]

Wow!

Cool as this thing will look on floats, I cant help but see it painted bright red rounding a pylon at Reno, 50 feet off the ground doing about 490 knots.

Sweet looking bird!!!

[Spellbinder99]

No idea what to call it Tophe, perhaps the Westland Bucaneer? Westland now has a history of licence built aircraft and the Bucaneer name at least keeps in with the Corsairs pirate theme.

Thanks to Alan and all. I actually enjoy the putty/sand/repeat phase of building so the actual modifying part is quite easy. Just imagine and start cutting. Plus you can't be afraid to view any kit, no matter how new or expensive as material for kitbashing.

AeroplaneDriver and Captain Canada, I actually am swaying between making this the original UAV style concept and adding the floats, bright paint scheme and tiny low-profile bubble canopy to become an entrant for a ressurected Schneider Trophy style race.

Imagine this for the back story. The concept is pitched by Westlands to marry their licence built floatplane Corsair with the engine and prop from the stillborn Wyvern for use as an unmanned torpedo assault plane. Though several prototypes of the Westland Buccaneer are built, the concept falls out of favour or is cut in a defense budget review, so the completed aircraft are sold for scrap apart from one retained by Westlands for a company hack after being modified with a small bubble canopy and pilot controls.

Several years down the track, the resurrected Schneider Trophy sees the aircraft tweaked and repainted as a contender in the hands of a private owner. It then goes to compete in the US air racing scene with small retractable landing wheels in the floats in the early sixties where its record is good but no better than Silver champion at Reno owing to the drag from the floats. Plans to remove the floats and fit a Corsair undercarriage are stillborn when the aircraft crashes and is totally destroyed at Reno '77 when the rear prop goes to reverse pitch at 300 miles per hour.

What think ye?

Tony

[Spellbinder99]

For Captain Canada and Aeroplanedriver I decided to see what it would look like as a manned version.
After all, a lot of early drones had some sort of cockpit setup if only for test flights.



The low profile racing canopy is half of the droptank in the kit with the front sawn off and replaced by the cut down canopy from a 1/100 scale Tamiya Me-163. The filler will fair it in when dry, rubbed down and polished.



The filler around the tailfin is where I cut it off and reset it to zero offset. Of course, the original Corsair had a huge radial engine swinging a huge four blade prop, thus a lot of torque. A contra-rotating prop should have much less, so the fin offset had to go. Cut, glue, fill!



The rest of the filler is to fill in the wing folds, gun access panels and wheel wells. The guns are glued in merely to fill the holes, they will be trimmed and sanded when dry. The rear wheel well and hook recess is also being filled and smoothed and I will probably add a ventral fin.

So far I am liking how it is turning out. I have to admit, the appeal of a manned racing version is starting to creep to the front.

Cheers

Tony

[Geoff_B]

Hmmn The Air Racer version has a kinda nice appeal to it, i suppose you now spoilt as to do it as a Schneider float plane racer or Land Based hybrid for the US circuit.......

Looking good though Tony.


Cheers

Geoff B B)