jenshb

For 3D printing - assuming that Rikki sticks with 3D printing as he has done for the other projects - there are no tooling costs. However, 3D printing (stereolitography) is a slow and expensive process, and the CAD work required will be quite a task.

I don't think it will be too heavy unless they actually cast it in resin. From what I have seen on Rikki's other projects, it is 3D printed (stereolitography - liquid resin cured by laser), so there is no reason to make a massive fuselage. I would think the kit would provide shapes and main panels only, leaving the modeller to add most of the surface detail.

Just a thought; although you enjoy making your own cockpits, would the kit instrument panel fit better and still look the part? I don't know how thick the fuselage and sidewalls of the real aircraft was, but if it was an inch thick of plywood and balsa sandwich, you're looking at 0.8 mm thick walls in this scale. Jens

There is some indication of the HK Models fuselage being too wide in this thread: https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/80781-hks-b-17f-219-the-photon-steps-up/page/3/

Having seen them first hand at last year's Scale Modelworld, they are eerily real... Any chance of seated pilots too?

If you're hiring a car...

It would be a shame to never complete the Tigercat and the Hornet when you've put so much work into them. If you're convinced you'll never finish the Hornet, I am sure you wouldn't have any problems selling it to someone on the forum who would be delighted to finish it.

I'd love to see more of it too Guy.

That's because I haven't finished my F-16BM conversion yet:)

The Archer rivets are very easy to use Harald, and will add a lot of the character to your Lynx. Just tedious cutting strips of rivets and applying them (like decals), but not difficult. Jens

Ah. God luck to your son - I hope he will enjoy piloting one of the sexiest bombers ever designed.

Fantastic result! I'm a bit surprised about the absence of decals on such an invovled project.

If the early parabrake housing can be sourced (or swapped), then it doesn't look like it would be too hard to make a P from a PD/PDS...no? A matter of scribing panel lines in different locations...? I seem to recall from a similar discussion on ARC (I think it was), that Lt. Belenko was regarded as a traitor in the (former) Soviet Union - which Ukraine (home of ICM) was then a part of. For that reason, and the fact that the P wasn't widely produced or exported, it is probbably not likely to see that as a released version. Having said that, Begemot have made decals of Red-31 in 1:72 and I believe 1:48, so they think there is a small market for those who want to add Belenko's last ride to their collection.

I did ask one of the guys at the Aires stand at Telford last year whether they would be releasing a cockpit of the KH F-5, and he shook his head. Don't know how deeply he is involved in the decision making process however...

These past few days I've been working on the cockpit and forward fuselage. I still remember the "blurb" in the Tamiya catalogue about a "detailed gun muzzle", but as we know, Tamiya moulded that solid. Back in 1982 I used a heated needle to make six indentations to simulate the gun, but now we know better, right? Here's what Eduard wants you to do: Roll a piece of etched brass and then fold the circular plate and Bob's your uncle. Well, that didn't work - the brass is coated with something that the solder doesn't stick to, and the length is just exactly right to meet edge on edge. Instead, I rolled a piece of brass to be slightly smaller in diameter that thanks to the springiness of the metal, held the circular plate with the curved slot in place just tight enough for me to solder it in place. Right, the resin cockpit. I always need to fettle, sand, dryfit and repeat, which makes me wonder if the people who produce these wonderfully detailed cockpit actually test fit them to their own kits? I though I had it all set, but I realised that thefront cockpit wasn't right. Using the instrument panel and front coaming as a datum, the lower IP should touch the sidewalls forward of the quarter panels, and the gap that the resin left shouldn't be there. Hence the Magic Sculpt to fill those gaps. Having secured the bathtubs with epoxy and superglue, the easiest option was to cut between the cockpits and into the roof of the wheel well (luckily I intend to display this in flight) to allow me to bend it up, and then add some spacers to the pegs to allow the front to sit a couple of mms higher. To accommodate this change, the front holes to fix the wheelwell, were milled out. Also apparent are the sidewalls in resin with Magic Sculpt being added to fill gaps. The sidewalls for the front also had to be modified to fit the revised location of the front cockpit. On the starboard front wall there should be a bar running from the rectangular piece under the canopy hooks (their tops should be flush with the sill, but they stand slightly proud), but this no longer lines up with the slot in the front starboard quarter panel... However, under a closed canopy with a decent paint job, I think it will look all right. The canopy has a fair bit of distortion due to the inside surface having a draft angle and the outer surface having the correct horseshoe shape, so any further anomalies in proportion may not be obvious. Looking at the pilots, they're not as good as I remember them to be... Jens