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Special Hobby 1:32 Airacobra AH574 - First Tricycle Deck Landing


TorbenD

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Very nice work Torben!

 

I've just had a really quick skim over your progress here so far (which definitely warrants going back properly when I get the time!) and your cobra is looking mighty fine indeed.

 

I noted in particular your method for the internal structure of the stabilisers and fin; I think I might have to do something like that on my B-17. 

 

Craig

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Thanks Craig, Jim, Kev and Mark, always much appreciated.

 

 

Some fantastic scratch and paint, Torben.  Love what you're doing.

 

What are your references?

 

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mark

 

Mark, many hours trolling the on the internet has been a great help (and sometimes hinderance... too little time, too much detail!  :frantic: ) but a good chunk of the best visual ref has been with the following books/plans:

 

DSC02132-X2.jpg

 

Wings of the Weird and Wonderful is by far the best for this particular aircraft, as well as a great text written by Eric Brown himself there's some great images including cockpit pages from the original Pilots Notes. Geoffrey Cooper's wonderfully detailed Farnborough and the Air Fleet Arm which tells the history of BAE catapult trials at Farnborough also has a couple of very small shots of AH574 - more of which in a mo... For anyone with a specific interest with the minutiae of this area with in FAA, well worth a punt.

 

The MMP book is also a great general source with some good photo refs, although some of the accompanying plans have some quirks that seem to be at odds with other photographic reference - whilst useful worth double checking.

 

David Doyle's In Action book has some interesting shots too whilst the flying Cannon book is more of a history/anecdotal publication with less imagery useful to the modeller.

 

Whilst I'm on a quick plea for help:  :help:

The original image that got me into this mess is the below:

 

Screen%20Shot%202016-06-22%20at%2015.50.

 

If I can get enough reference I'd love to try make a base of this which I now know, courtesy of Geoffrey Cooper's book,  is the C.I (K.I?) Accelerator on Jersey Brow at Farnborough. As already covered in his book there are 2 small images of the reverse and front view:

 

DSC02133-M.jpg DSC02134-M.jpg

 

 (Used here under fair use but if an issue I will remove). Whilst the book also has images of other aircraft on the same or similar set up I could really do with much larger/clearer copies of these images so I can get the detail right - not only of the catapult mechanism but also the cable hook attachments on the front of the aircraft wings near the root. 

 

My question is this - short of approaching the publisher themselves does anyone know a more straight forward way one can get hold of such high res imagery (preferably online) - the MOD site that looks like it may deal with such enquiries seems to be constructing it's database at the mo. I believe the first image copyright my even be owned by the guy who runs/ran Osprey Publishing (name escapes me right now)

 

Any links, thoughts, suggestions gratefully received

 

Yours hopefully,

Torben

Edited by TorbenD
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  • 1 month later...

Time for a mini update on this one too which is trickling along in the background.

 

The undercarriage requires some minor attention to bring it up to the rest of this build. Staring with the wheels which where ‘weighted' via sanding flat at the correct spot and adding a touch of Milliput to give a suitable bulge. AH574 also had no covers for the main wheels and what appears to be a unique polished metal wheel hub which had to be scratched. I drew up a circular grid in Illustrator so I could accurately eyeball where to place the three holes which seem to mimic those on the nose wheel hub

 

B_DSC02137-X2.jpg

 

Can anybody speculate what the circular mark (pointed to in green) to the right of the righthand hole might be? I think the two small marks at the edge of the rim where tyre slippage indicators

 

 

B_DSC02139-X2.jpg

 

more to follow shortly..

Edited by TorbenD
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On to the nose wheel area.

 

After discarding the extremely disappointing SAC legs back for the kit versions I noticed the lightening holes were a little too wonky to ignore

 

B_DSC02143-X2.jpg

 

After cutting out and scratching a replacement with punch and die cut thin plastic sheet I added a few missing bolts, mouldings and eyelets with more thin card punched out and sliced up stretched sprue for the smallest nuts and bolts - about 90% done in the images below

 

B_DSC02206-X2.jpg

 

B_DSC02202-X2.jpg

Shot under low winter sun so apologies for the high contrast...

 

I then did a similar number on the main legs.

 

B_DSC02208-X2.jpg

 

B_DSC02213-X2.jpg

 

B_DSC02215-X2.jpg

 

B_DSC02216-X2.jpg

 

Again about 90% there with these - I just need to add the brake lines and connectors

 

TTFN

 

Torben

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  • 1 year later...

Yea Gods has it really been that long..... but not forgotten.... :D

 

Distractions abound with far too much work (nice problem to have being my own boss) and my Aerotech Supermarine S5 providing the main time hungry activities but I do intend to get back to this Airacobra before too long Thor. In fact, when checking out the remaining tasks to do on the kit the other week I realised I’ve totally lost the throttle so have literally just started scratch building that... Hope to restart in earnest when back from vacation in September

 

Torben

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Glad to hear it, Torben. This is one of my favorite builds of all time, and being that I have a pair of these in the stash, I continue to look forward to what you will do with it. Inspiration abounds here! 

 

Hope you are well, brother. Looking forward to the next update!

 

THOR    :ph34r:

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