Shorts Belfast

[McColm]

I'll check to see if mines okay.
Back to the Belfast, if you had the A400M Atlas in your stash and change the engines to Tynes, kitbashed the cockpit area. It would look similar to the Belfast, sort of!

[kitnut617]

You're nearly right with that, I've done a comparison with the 1/72 Belfast and A400M I have and they are quite similar in size

[McColm]

Actually the cockpit area is very similar, its changing the nose cone or reshaping it and T-tail.

[kitnut617]

Well, sorry to pour water over your cornflakes, but the cockpit area is the least that looks similar.  Actually, now I've looked at it a bit closer, I'm finding there's not very much that is similar except for the length of them. Also, if you've been looking at side profiles of the two aircraft you're really getting a false idea of how similar they are.

Just dragged my two models out of their boxes and taken a pic of the two fuselage sides:



But first I can tell you that you will be very hard pressed to make a Belfast out of an A400M if looking at the real thing, well looking at models of the real thing is anything to go by.

The Belfast fuselage cross-section is dead round and measures 72mm diameter (in 1/72 scale), the A400M is 78mm diameter but is only partially round. Looking at a clock face, imagine the fuselage cross-section is round from about 8 o'clock up to 12 o'clock and back down to 4 o'clock, if you then draw a straight line from 4 o'clock to 8 o'clock that would be the cargo floor.  Below this the bottom of the fuselage flattens out so if you measure top to bottom of the fuselage, it measures out at 71mm.  The Belfast is about 15-20mm longer than the A400M

[McColm]

I see your point.

[kitnut617]

The direction that the A400M propellers turn on each wing is unique but not the first --- the Breguet 941 also had it's propellers on each wing turning in opposite directions, only the opposite way around to the A400M's.  That is with the blades at the 12 o'clock position, on the A400M they turn towards each other, on the Breguet 941 they turn away from each other

[PR19_Kit]

Makes you wonder why we're spending all those Euros on A-400Ms when we had 10 of them  already in the 60s! And then  STOPPED using them and sold them to the civvie market.

[kitnut617]

My thought too Kit, I wonder how long will they keep the A400M's this time around

[Thorvic]

Makes you wonder why we're spending all those Euros on A-400Ms when we had 10 of them  already in the 60s! And then  STOPPED using them and sold them to the civvie market.

Because we pulled back from Empire to focus on NATOs northern flank, but post cold war we have found we needed that global reach, thus the C-17s and the Atlas. Technically the C-17s replaced the Belfast's, the Atlas will replace the Hercules.
The one we should have had was the AW681 Aldershot as the Atlas appears a scaled up, turbo prop powered version of the AW-681 layout 

[kitnut617]

The one we should have had was the AW681 Aldershot as the Atlas appears a scaled up, turbo prop powered version of the AW-681 layout 

Got a nice Brochure in CD format on that aircraft and have been wondering how I could make one.

[Thorvic]

The one we should have had was the AW681 Aldershot as the Atlas appears a scaled up, turbo prop powered version of the AW-681 layout 

Got a nice Brochure in CD format on that aircraft and have been wondering how I could make one.

I think you may see my two builds on the forum somewhere, the first used a Hercules, and was done as a HS-681, but the 2nd was based on the Transall, both used KC-135 wings and a fair amount of re-profiling to get the right look.
With your collection of large sized 1/72 kits available to you Rob, you might be able to find a better shape match in the vac and resin kits than we have for the normal plastic kits. I did wonder if the Starlifter had the right fuselage diameter or not as that could possibly be cut down to size ?

Cheers

Geoff

[kitnut617]

I will have to give it some more thought Geoff -- when I bought a C-141 vacu-form (1/72) I got the A & B fuselages with it. I'll have a look at it's diameter but when I was doing some match-ups with a C-135, I found it's diameter is very close to it. So I don't think it would be a good donor --

[McColm]

Really the C-160 and C-135 wings? What engines do you suggest?
Got a Heller 1/72 C-160 in the stash (another one to keep!) Had some C-135 wings for the Monogram Rockwell B-1B project.

[Thorvic]

Really the C-160 and C-135 wings? What engines do you suggest?
Got a Heller 1/72 C-160 in the stash (another one to keep!) Had some C-135 wings for the Monogram Rockwell B-1B project.

Yeap :- http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Thorvic/library/Aldershot%20C1?sort=3&page=1

Theres the AW-681 with VTOL pods thats now in Midkland Air Museum, and the earlier built HS-681 thats in a Glasgow Museum.

Engines, the HS-681 used Mig-15s from what i recal, the AW one used resin self cast resin engines from a master i made but i cant remember what i used.

[kitnut617]

I think before I get and finish this thing off, I should make some castings of the nacelles.  They'd work on the AW681 -- I can always modify the rear ends.