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CONQUEST 1


ruzlkampf

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Whup-dee-doooo! I've decided to try and slam-dunk yet one more build into this GB before the dead-line! :) Got the last 2-weeks of December off for vacation, so there's plenty of time for the styrene to be flying. I'll be leaving out at least 1/2 the pieces that came with this model, blowing a new canopy, and massaging the wingtips a bit; oh yeah and putting a bigger prop and P-51 spinner on too. Lotsa fun.

I'm going to post a few pics of what the real-deal looks like for those who don't know what this is exactly. Building this kit as Conquest 1, circa 1969....right after it set a new propellor-driven record of 483.041. Then it went to Reno and won (again) that year. Here's a comparison of what it looks like next to a 'stock' Bearcat. Cool, huh?! :whistle:

 

 

 

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This aircraft is now in the Smithsonian, with a much different paintjob (that I don't like), so,....I'm going to model it looking like this. Basically all white, with a medium blue prop with red tips and a small white stripe, and red #1's. It's pretty gnarly looking.

 

 

 

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Flaps are sealed up, hydraulics are gutted out, (it had a one-shot nitrogen charge to raise the gear) all the electricals taken out, oil cooler openings in the wing sealed shut, (had a radiator type 'boil-off oil cooling system), cut down canopy and wingtips, 13-1/2ft Skyraider prop, (it had to land 3-point) with a P-51H spinner. A real 'death-ride' man. :)

Pilot had to wear an ice pack on his chest to alternately put his hands on; it got over 200 degrees in the pit as his hands would literally burn without it. I've been getting into a lot of cool details about this AC, and I MUST build it. It's been smoothed/lightened/and honed for nothing but SPEED.

 

 

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LOVE IT!!!! This is gonna be cooooooool!

 

(As if you cant tell already....) I LOVE the bearcat! After Rare Bear, Conquest one is one of my faves from the Reno Golden years. Garryl Greenamyer used this ship to set a World land plane speed record in 1969.

 

Funny and unsual fact about Conquest One........After setting the world plane record in it, Darryl Greenamayer traded it to the National Air and Space Museum for a beat up and paint flaked stock Navy F8F-1 from Johnsville....

 

 

Cheers, and keep the pics comin!

 

Brian

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Bwhahahahaha! Coincidentally enough Brian, here's a pic of it sitting on the ramp at Reno in '69 right after setting the record; blistered and scorched paint/ exhaust stains and all. Had to be a bit intimidating for the competition that year?! :) Unlike Rare Bear, this had a semi-stock R-2800...not an R-3360. Had a lot of beefed parts and blower off some transports to keep the reliability, but used severe weight reductions and airframe smoothing to keep the speed up. Rare Bear was almost 50mph faster than this at 526mph?

Anyway, this was the fastest prop-job in the world in 1969; here's what it looked like immediately after setting the record.

 

 

 

post-4413-1260165665.jpg

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NOICE!

 

I do so love the Bearcat The F7F and right after, the F8F are far and away my favorite planes.

 

The Trumpy F8F-2 is fairly accurate but their F8F-1 is completely forked up.....specifically the exhast.....the 1s 5 stack very tall configuration is not even represented on the F8F-1 of trumpys, so they obviously just took an F8F-2 and gave it a shorter tail, and no cannons.......

 

Actually from looking at Conquest ones exhaust......im thinkin that starting with an F8F-2 with the taller tail and closer exhaust....and then modifying from there, might be the easiest way to go...

 

 

The guys out in Germany from XS modeling are putting out what I think will be a killer 1/32 resin version of Rare Bear and Czech mate......sure as HELL wish they would tack a 1/32 resin Conquest One on to that!

 

Lookin forward to the build!

 

Cheers,

Brian

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You have lots of fun with these Russ.

 

I think you might have planted a seed too. I've been having visions of a stripped down smoothed off Fw190.

Big blades, clipped wings, lowered canopy... Mmmm. See what you've done.

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Whah hah! Day 1 of this build had me all kinds of pumped up in anticipation of screaming thru this thing.. ^_^ Ya know Allok,...I think a contra-rotating prop, and a 'vee-tail' would go nicely with that FW? :P Heh heh, the skies the limit when you're talking racers; and anything goes.

Don't have much time left to do much posting tonight, as I've squandered it all on digging pieces outta other model boxes to see what'll fit on this dang hunk of junk. Guess I'll start with the basics. Mocked up area behind the engine and cockpit. Now, there was all kinds of fugly stuff goin on here that I didn't delve into. The carb was actually switched to an updraft configuration, and air was taken in thru the cowling, AND where the oil tank is....theres a radiator bath type intercooler set-up that I just didn't want to get into. Just wanted it to look busy looking up into the wheel-wells, and not much is actually visible. Oh yeah, got the engine mocked up too. There will be a streamlined cowling of sorts around the bell housing in front from a Lockheed Constellation to direct cooling air to the cylinder heads. So I'm not getting too wild with stuff like ignition wires,...just won't be seen.

here we go!;

 

 

 

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Lots of hacking got the prop diameter correct (uuuuh, I didn't have a Skyraider one handy. :P ) and the blades looking correct. Gonna put a 3-blade on my Trumpeter F4-U anyway, and this fit the bill to a tee. Prop blades drilled out at the base with brass tubing inserted.....stuffed into a p-51 spinner. Should have these glued at a nice pitch angle tomorrow. Scratch the prop/spinner off the got to find/build/match-up list. ^_^

 

 

 

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