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EE Lightning - Echelon vacuform


mozart

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OK, this is a kind of place-holder for the moment since I’m in Turkey playing golf till 11 March, but my intention is to build the wonderful Echelon vacuform Lightning F6, courtesy of Lothar who so generously sent me the kit after a highly speculative post on the forum from me. 
After finishing my Gladiator I ok’d it with K1 to cut and sand the bits ready for assembly, so that’s done. Pictures of where I am with progress etc when I get back. Bye for now!  

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back from sunny Turkey, so a chance for a little modelling hopefully before the growing garden makes too many demands on my time!

 

The Echelon "kit" comes as three large sheets of vacuformed styrene:

 

ec9KIM.jpg

 

and some very good plans and instructions, which I've supplemented with some extra resin bits and some reference material:

 

fZm95z.jpg

 

P7LlYy.jpg


Y3sDat.jpg

 

The first jobs are fairly tedious, time consuming and not terribly glamorous - cutting out and sanding:

 

whuEBV.jpg


46WeVm.jpg


mzi0tJ.jpg

 

2ypr1Y.jpg

 

ApS0bG.jpg

 

including opening up the undercarriage well holes:

 

pMa8U0.jpg


e18G4q.jpg

 

You have to be very careful when sanding the wings because the Lightning has a unique leading edge with some rather critical angles.....sand too flat and you lose the characteristic shape:

 

rxz3yi.jpg

 

But after a few weeks, most of the initial work has been done:

 

73DUqw.jpg

 

I may actually put some glue on the Beast later!! :) but in the meantime here's a little pornographic entertainment: 

 

Edited by mozart
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Frank Brown was the man behind Echelon - and he was pretty fastidious - both on accuracy and making the kits as easy to build as possible for those not used to the medium.

 

Frank was a fellow member of Thames Valley Scale Model club when he designed these - so we saw them come together as a project, and I built some of the 'prototype' Hunters around the time of launch - amongst the easiest, most accurate, vac-forms I've ever built.

 

I still have a Lightning.  :)

 

Looking forward to seeing this come together Max - and I've found another couple of my 'test shot' intake rings - will bring them to next Wiltshire Club meet, if you're there?

 

Iain

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Great start Max!

Looks like a nice kit. Could you give your opinion on the kit's accuracy and finesse as a vac and what's provided (or planned) for all the details ie cockpit and landing gear.

Alain

Iain has answered my question a bit as I was writing this! Thanks!

Edited by Alain Gadbois
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Thanks for your interest one and all, I hope I can do justice to Frank Brown’s work! Iain, I hope to be there on Thursday but I have a golf match at Yeovil that day and the dinner afterwards can sometimes go on a bit! If not, I’ll see you in April hopefully, good news about the intake rings though, thank you.

Alain, I’ll do what I can but I’m not a “jet man” normally so not much knowledge about the subject! 

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That Looks to be a beautiful start to a model that has always intrigued me ,

 

In fact I have an F6 tucked away , and I still have a the mad idea to cross kit it with the Trumpeter F6 , using the Echelon fuselage , and the Kit wings , along with as much resin I could throw at it , but with Trumpeter Lightnings got for Big bucks on eBay , this project is on indefinite hold 

 

I'll be following this build with interest!

 

(The T5 .. may not so much!)

 

 

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2 hours ago, Kagemusha said:

Just in case you haven't seen this, it's well worth a read, to view the images right click, choose the top option.

 

Got the kit myself, have read the Aires cockpit and jet pipes fit, but the u/c bays don't. Armoury make some superb wheels.

Thanks Kag, yes I read John's build when I first got the kit from Lothar, but re-reading it now that I'm more familiar with what's likely to be involved gives me more understanding.  I discovered this morning that the Aires u/c bays don't fit:

 

qqM57C.jpg

 

so either some severe butchery and remedial action is necessary or I scratch-build the wheel wells, can't quite decide which right now.

 

iSq3SQ.jpg 

 

I might be able to get away with something like this:

 

IeNOF6.jpg

 

It shouldn't be too horrendous once the lower wing is in place and a bit of making good done:

 

tDAxX5.jpg

 Glad to hear that the cockpit and pipes fit though! :)

 

Edited by mozart
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Some interesting old-school modelling Max, looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

 

Just a wild guess, will you be doing it in 56 Sqn markings? :)

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