red Dog

Thank you gents Indeed, here's what the manual says about it: Starting and reversing the engines is done by means of compressed air at 30 at. The compressed air is stored in dedicated tanks of capacity 200 liters each, connected together to the high pressure distributor (high pressure air bank 1 – high pressure manifold) through the reduction valve. The pressure reducing valve works automatically and holds the pressure in the starting air cylinders at 30 at. The tanks have safety valves set at 30 atmospheres at as well as necessary connecting valves, drain valves and control valve with pressure gauge. And the only 'official' reference about their location I could find: Some guys spent a lot of time designing the whole sub internal in 3D, here's a view of the structure of the engine room with a better view of the air tanks

I knew you'd do this one And it's Splendid just like the rest of your Falcons. What a great collection you'll have (because I know it's not over

Engine compartment is finished. It went a bit too far as many of the details are not visible once the roof is placed. Many of the details are not accurate but again my main goal was not be be fully accurate but to show that every space aboard was cramped. The two tanks in the foreground illustrate that quite well. I know there are one big and one small tanks outboard of each engine but I was not able to pinpoint accurately their position. So I chose the best Iocation possible to populate the area. View to the forward bulkhead. It is already quite busy out of the box, I made it even busier. Aft bulkhead. Less busy, just a couple technical closets added Roof and exhaust pipes are still missing. These are very hard to mate together, but since I still have to do the lighting system I have no choice but to leave them on the side for now. I'm happy with the cut of the foreground engine. It's just high enough to fill the lower spaces and not too high to obstruct the view inside the compartment I still need to assemble and paint the engine crew and main engineer and their tools to populate the compartment. The roof placed but no exhaust. It's getting very dark in there and all details in the background become invisible One final compartment left to do. As for the diesel engine, only one electric engine is supplied, so I'll have to design a lot of parts as well. The STL files for the Diesel compartment will be available on cults 3D shortly Thanks for looking.

There's a hole in the aft bulkhead for the engine shaft but I wan't able to make it match the shaft of the original engine. When you mate them, the engine is not resting flat on its support. Beside the engines should noy be parallel, but rather canted inward at the rear to accomodate the hull shape. That is futher increasing the problem with the bulkhead hole. It's easy to correct by simply filling the hole but I decided to make one last 3D part to place at the end of the diesel engine shafts and resting against the rear bulkheads hiding the hole at the same time It's purpose is not to be visible but hide the hole And with that the engines can be tricked in their new alignement:

Thanks Ernest. Here are the first impressions of the weathering. The bulkheads, floor , structure and roof were weathered as always the front bulkhead (left on the picture below) was populated with a lot more 3D goodies, tech boxes, pipes, wheel valves etc etc The engine structure as offered in the kit except for the second small vertical tank on the right (only one is in the box. Both the ones above are 3D printed) The floor, with some more goodies in the foreground (3D printed compressor and couple valves Unfinished ceiling - I had to leave it as is to ensure I could add lights at later stages. As always I will not add the roof at this stage but later in the build. For that reason, I adapt the parts to ensure I can slide the roof on top of the compartment rather than insert them in the bulkheads as per instructions. Note some more compressors on the back walls. The engines were weathered with fresh engine oils and fuel stains from AK. First time I use them and the result is quite convincing IMHO. It does remain sticky so it has to be covered with varnish at some points (haven't done it yet. I already lost some PE tiny valves and screws- that was expected... And finally the 3D printed engine support added and the backbone of the compartment assembled, ready to receive the engines. The 3Dparts really bring a lot of added value to that compartment iMHO. Well worth the dozen hours I spent designing and tweaking that part Next mating the engines. That is a little bit more complicated than what the instructions says because the engine are not parallel but canted inwards towards the rear and the holes in the aft bulkhead are not at the correct position. More on that later. Thanks for following.

there is nothing as good as a clean bench before a new projet. I don't know for you, but I personally always enjoy the moment Whishing you lots of fun with the U-2 Nice subject. I hope you have wingspan room!!

different greys for the stabs quite visible on that picture, so they were not repainted

As much as I would like the pylon if I were in your shoes (I plan to 3D design PIDS in the future) I think that it won't be long before Ukraine fields outher source of F-16. which don't have the TERMA. So I'm pretty sure you mistake will be short lived if you install regular pylons on your model. but yeah these pylons really could use some aftermarkets. Yours are going to be the first Ukrainian F16 models

Inspiring and great result, well done

Awesome and your picture are really dynamic too. What a great model and scene !!

Couldn't wait for painting that engine and have a splash of that typical green, so here are the pictures before weathering of the compartment components: that table on the far right is Photoetch and a real nightmare to assemble. She almost didn't make it Forward bulkhead: Quite nice out of the box. Some pipes just need to be added around the floor level. The aft bulkhead. Exhaust missing. The black panel is misplaced and should be at the engine control level (more forward on the ceiling) but I didn't bother to correct it as it is barely visible. The main engine before weathering. One of the highlight of the kit. Lucky I had extra PE for the tiny wheels. The kit could add a dozen and we would still miss a few of them. There are many many points where you know a wheel should be added but the instruction don't mention anything and there's not enough parts in the kit anyway. The engines were painted with Gunze H337 and H50 for the typical engine green and red for control handles but I didn't paint the rods blue as in the Laboe museum I used dark and light metallic paint instead. of course they'll both receive engine grimes and oils as weathering

Back to the 3D design and print bench. Other parts missing from the box are the foreground (or starboard if your prefer) ventilation and exhaust systems and some other minor things to populate various areas. The exhaust is not really critical as it connects to the part of the engine that I didn't represent and the rest of it is on top of the pressure hull, above the rear torpedo compartment. So I didn't spend too much time on it but nevertheless mirrored the supplied part to complete that area. The engine compartment ventilation system on the other hand is probably the most complicated part I designed in 3D till now. It took me a few attempts and a lot of time spent on Fusion 360 tutorials to be able to come up with something satisfactory enough. The port ventilation system (exhaust blower) is supplied but it's cut in the middle leaving the starboard bulkhead quite empty - as seen in the picture below. Of note also is the ventilator engine missing , we should see a dome on the port blower. The starboard ventilation (supply blower) system shouldn't really obstruct the view inside the compartment so it had to be designed. Below is the WIP design. That one was too long and had to be modified. After a few more hours of design and a few more testprints, I finally printed the candidate for final piece: (note the 3D printed cone on the port ventilator) The 3D part is still a little bit too outboard but should work quite good due to the absence of ceiling in that area. From there I decided to give it a try to mirror it and replace the supplied styrene parts. That's very easy to do and 4 clicks later I had the design: As expected though it doesn't fit because the initial starboard piece still being too outboard. Obviously the mirrored part is also too long, making the issue too problematic. So I'll go back on to the drawing board to address that issue - shortening a bit more the initial part and mirror it again to fit the ceiling.

That make senses Tony. I use a cleaning and curing station and I usually make multiple passes in different axis to ensure the parts cure evenly. but definitely something to pay attention next time The kit's engine is a gem. It's a lot of small details and a lot of pipes. It assembles pretty well and gives a very convincing result. Two things to look for maybe. First the instructions don't mention the 6 top PE valves. They do mention the lateral 6 ones but clearly there are 6 wheels left on the PE fret and 6 pins to add them on the top of the arc piped of the engine. All 12 valve wheels are missing, I'll add them after painting. the top ones are not mentioned in the instructions Second the 12 actuators are all on the same level and it looks a little bit better if they are not. So I decided to cheat a bit to give them all different inclinations. Not sure it is going to be very visible but it was worth it anyway. The splash of paints and weathering will really bring this one to life. On the engine room ceiling I added some more pipes before painting. the hole on the right will be modified as there's no way you can pass the exhaust through there in that configuration. I'll open the hole on the side so I can slide the ceiling at later stages, just like the other compartments. Thanks for looking

wish you all the best with learning all the new tools. It's a steep learning curve but definitely very rewarding once you get past the frustration level I'm sure you will do wonders !!

thanks but I don't know I see a lot of rookie mistakes in there not ideally placed supports, elephant feet, some print mishaps slightly altering the shape, too tight tolerances, and something I really don't know how to address: warping.... there's a small mistake on the first rib of the resin reproduction. I'll correct that for the final STL. but the rest came out pretty close - at least close enough for me The warping of the support ribs part is quite visible in the picture below I guess printing all ribs separate would solve the issue but I hope that cyanoacrylate will solve it so I don't have to print this part again The resin ribs are thicker than the plastic ones that was done on purpose It's a real shame these parts are not included in the kit, they really create a huge empty area which is very counter productive IMHO. Having the two engine supports really adds to the model. Now I just hope they fit inside the hull

I can probably help with the custom decals if you want. I'm currently working on differents F-14's requests. So I might be slow but I can see what I can do to help

First test out of the printer; Both these printed in less than 45 minutes. quicker than removing the supports I usually don't print flat but I gave it a try for the engine anyway as the defaults under it will not be visible

I decided to continue with 3D design with the second engine which is missing from the box. There's no real added value to have a full engine in place as it would obscure the view too much, but at least the lower part would add to the scene I hope. This was rather easy to do as it's basically a copy of the original part with the addition of the artistic licence for the inner cylinders and rods, added to create a bit more volume.

hehe, not sure I will be able to sculpt his typical face Took me longer than I thought but I learned a great deal of fusion 360 by doing this each rib is different than the previous one but close enough to be duplicated and edited. The engine support is now complete This will be fun to print

next compartment is the diesel engine room. The kit offers only one engine and it's exhaust and one support structure. The foreground of the compartment is left completely empty. The choice is logical from the manufacturer perspective as the second engine would completely block the view inside the compartment. My plan is to complete the lower foreground structure and the lower part of the second diesel engine to populate a bit more the engine room without blocking the view inside. Ideally the best solution for that is to have access to extra sprues for the engine room and mirror the available parts. Unfortunately I do not have access to these parts so I decided to build my own with Fusion 360 and the 3D printer. Perfect teaching lessons for a 3D newbee like me. The process might be complicated and time consuming but relatively easy as I have the kit's parts available to be used as templates for the 3D design. So off we go into fusion 360 to design first the support ribs of the second engine: These first two ribs are replicas of the kit's parts - only their assembly on the main frame has been mirrored

Seating guys have been added. Little bit of a pain to get the folding tables right. It's not perfect but that will do As expected you don't see much of the sleeping guys or the open cabinets or even the kitchen What is missing are the roof and the many supplies I plan on adding but I'll do that at later stages. It's probably the least exciting compartment of the build and I am eager to move to the next one.

Bunks and their occupants are complete: next the seating guys ...

Nothing much to show as progress is slow while I work on the little guys Carnation is done. It's usually the only part I do with oils, then the rest of the fatigues are painted with good old humbrols. The beds are first wrapped in decals for the linen and then the blankets are done by dipping toilet paper into a mixture of white PVA glue and water. After a good night's rest, the paper turns solid and can be cut and painted. The rest of the room didn't get much attention, yet the kitchen is very small and hardly visible. lots of stuff missing from the box such as the toilet in the foreground and the big ventilation duct from the center of the kitchen's roof.

Merci these are exactly the ones I have been looking at and probably my solution indeed

exact reason why I started 3D printing. their prices were utterly crazy