Panavia PA-200 Tornado IDS Italeri 1/32

[mc65]

hi all!

I was waiting for the release from Italeri of the IDS version, and as the opportunity presented itself, I took it, I think I'm the zero buyer!

 

this version will allow me, I hope, to more easily build one of the aircraft used between 1990-91 in the desert shield/desert storm operation, as regards more specifically the Italian Air Force (AM) operation locust.

 

a bit of history: as part of the locust operation, the AM prepared 23 aircraft specially repainted in sand color and equipped with some modifications. of these 23, only 16 actually rotated in the gulf, maintaining an effective force on the field of 8 operational aamm + 2 as backup.

with a little effort and some help (thanks Tommaso and Andrea!) I managed to identify the serial numbers of the planes present in the respective time windows. obviously at the moment there are no dedicated decals, but I don't see it as a big problem, the planes used carried, in addition to the small cockades veiled with sand to reduce their visibility, only the last two digits of the serial numbers on the tail and on the doors of the front landing gear bay.

 

the model... well. in the box are crammed about 2.5 kg of styrene in several sprues protected by envelopes and apparently of good workmanship and detail. I'll spare you the photos of all the material, they are easily found on the net.

 

to make no mistake, I got some aftermarket... not all that is available, but a healthy (sic) middle ground.

 

and then I went on to study instructions and parts, to outline an action plan capable of putting everything together in the best possible way, in an order consistent with the logic of the model and the changes that will have to be made anyway.

 

I have to say that on closer inspection of the parts, I was disappointed, and not even a little. the detail is in general soft and poorly defined, signs of extractors on mangy parts to be filled, points of contact with the sprues in points difficult to resume after the cuts. an example to explain what I mean:

 

honestly I expected something better, in some points it looks like a post-Soviet kit from the 90s, even the external surfaces show the problems that the 104 kit had: a marked difference in engraving between the details of the wings and the fuselage, for example.

not to mention the breakdown of the various subassemblies...

obviously I'm not a masterist nor a kit designer, nor an entrepreneur too, but only an "end user" in its most recent sense: someone who calls the bluff anyway, whatever the cost.

 

oh well, let's start from the beginning: the cockpit. the detail is not bad, but that of the Aires set is definitely superior, of course. it's a pity that the layout is more oriented towards a RAF specimen than an AM one. in this sense the parts of the kit are definitely more responsive, I'll do a cut and sew to (try to) get the best of both.

 

speaking of the breakdown of the subassemblies, the kit foresees to assemble the front part of the fuselage separately (understandable) first of all (oh, well) but also to immediately install the stem of the nose gear, a complex and obviously fragile affair, going to protrude from its bay.

here I either modify the stem positioning system, or prepare to protect it in some way. accessory problem, nose landing gear bay and Aires cockpit are likely to conflict. here after a good planing of the resin with my trust De Walt angle grinder (the little one ).

 

There doesn't seem to be much leeway...

 

to have no doubts, I chose to plane the resin from below until the floor of the front cockpit was removed: replacing it with a very thin sheet of plasticard won't cost me any effort, and so I can better manage the process of gluing the two parts inside the forward fuselage, a three-part affair however difficult to align correctly.

 

for today I would say that I have bored you enough, soon separation and cleaning from the sprues of the first necessary pieces.

cheers, Paolo

 

 

 

[scvrobeson]

Good start!  Seems to be Italeri's ethos to be a good, but not great, kit with flaws.

 

 

 

Matt 

[mc65]

yes, Matt, that seems to be the case.

which I am very sorry about, Italeri (formerly Italaerei) has made very beautiful and accurate kits in the past, with a linear progression today one might expect excellent kits, but no.

 

well, I started arguing with the landing gear while I was thinking about how to deal with the forward fuselage issue.

after puttying and sanding as much as possible (and also trying to make the leg rings a little more marked) I took the measurement of the chromed parts of the stems.

 

and went searching through my scrap metal for compatible chrome pipe sections. well, stroke of luck. I would say that we consider less than a tenth of a mm within tolerance.

 

and here it is, with even a little more offal glued together. others are missing, eh, including the forest of pipes and cables that characterize these modern LGs.

 

this simple modification allows me to adjust the compression of the nose gear, playing, once the model is finished, with the attitude of the aircraft on the ground. compressed,

 

and extended.

the wheels are the aftermarket resin ones, the kit includes two options: in vinyl, not too bad, but I don't like that material; and in plastic with a weight effect. nice rims, but tires mh mh. oh hem, even if you want the resins could be improved... then let's see if that's the case.

 

with this modification I could also make the nose gear slightly steered at will. but if in tailwheels it is veryn common to observe the tailwheel to be steered, in tricycles it is less so, and in modern ones it is rather rare, considering that one arrives at the parking stand by following painted lines on the apron which always end with a straight section, precisely so as not to leave the landing gear loaded asymmetrically.

 

unfortunately here ends the luck of the chrome pipes: all the others present (and there are several) have sections that are incompatible with my escort, no way.

while the various parts of the nose gear were drying, I did something else as usual. its compartment is detailed, but in short... it is true that once in the office whoever sees it, however, it could have been done better.

 

oh well, I have the Eduard set... let's go.

 

soon we will also talk about the main landing gear, small steps.

cheers, Paolo

 

[mc65]

and here I am again, by God, it's already been a year since my last update! 

 

where were we... the landing gear, yes. the main ones bring a nice attempt to emulate real piping and wiring, together with the already seen and cursed soft detail and multiple extractor marks (add your comments, mine are colorful and definitely excommunicating).

 

I tried to work around the latter, added some nuts and bolts and reasoned a bit about whether I could like the former. while I was thinking, I filled the wells of the main landing gear with the dedicated Eduard photo-etched parts.

 

and I implemented the floor of the same with a little gizmology. the real life photos reveal compartments saturated with pipes, fittings and various boxes, I kept the obsessed myself at pace, also due to how little of these will be seen in the finished model with the doors in the middle.

 

think and rethinking about these, the pipes have disappeared. I will replace them after giving the base color to the legs.

 

and obviously to the relative wells

 

and trying to optimize, even at the various jacks, unfortunately without the possibility of replacing the stems.

 

as usual, in the dead phases of the work on landing gear legs and wells, I did something else: I milled the inside of the front half-fuselages until the Aires cockpit sat at ease.

 

and I decided to modify the published assembly sequence: the kit foresees gluing in the same session the three parts that make up the front fuselage (4 with the front base housing the radar) with the cockpit and the undercarriage compartment inside. it seems to me a bit risky, wanting to achieve a decent alignment.

so I presented the main parts making sure they matched well, and then I glued only the two lateral half-fuselages, together with the radar base. to maintain the right distance between the two and to strengthen the structure, in which I will later insert the cockpit module like as a drawer, I inserted a plastruct tube.

 

a further element that I added is a plasticard disk about 1cm aft of the radar. this also acts as a bulkhead to contain the 60g of lead shot required to keep the finished aircraft from sitting down. to keep everything together, lead and bulkhead, I used PVA glue.

 

now I have a solid and balanced working base.

 

what prevents me now to give a little color? nothing, and in fact...

after a coat of primer, one of white and one of gloss, I placed the kit's placards plus some Airscale ones following the photos found of the real thing. then I lightly veiled with oil to avoid the dazzling white effect.

not being able to replace the chromed part, I covered it with adhesive polished aluminum (here only on the left). unfortunately the styrene base is far from perfectly smooth, despite my efforts to make it as clean as possible.

 

ditto on the various jacks.

 

after the base color I added some plumbing lines to the floor too, I'll see with everything mounted if I can add more, but I don't think so.

 

Of course I managed to forget a puller mark near the base of the force leg and glue down the jack before casing it with aluminum.

 

then I moved on to installing pipes and wiring. it will be fun to glue the legs in place with all this stuff in the way...

 

did you get a headache? you know about me! 

to be continued... 

cheers, Paolo

[Jim Barry]

Whew! What a monster project you have on your hands. Keep at it! 

[mc65]

Jim, you're absolutely right: this kit is monstrous, literally. in some points it recalls a vintage model that I didn't expect... luckily I'm also vintage, so I know how to get by.

for example the compartments of the speedbrakes: no comment.

 

luckily Eduard produces a set to implement them. a bit tedious and awkward to make all the holes in that position, but never mind.

 

surely the glance gains. planing those "details" off the bottom of the compartments by replacing them with tin wire also helps.

 

layer of white... I think I have to replenish the color supplies and budget a large order for the final livery, there is a need for a lot of material, on this big box!

 

oil wash and test in place with lined jacks. better I would say.

 

in short, I proceed slowly. I spend most of my time at the work table looking for solutions to improve a series of things that, as they are, don't convince me.

coming soon: engines and no.

 

cheers, Paolo

[mc65]

well, if the comparison of the outside of the engines is unforgiving enough...

 

the inside is definitely out of the race!

 

oh well, it is known that the resins, in particular Aires, are clearly better than the corresponding parts of the kits... and I would like to see, with what they cost!

now the busillis lies in grafting the resin terminals onto the styrene bases, so as to have a solid bond of equal length between the two engines.

by the way, the kit requires that the tailplanes be glued now, which is not at all convenient, I still haven't found a solution to solve the problem.

 

after a series of attempts to simplify the operation, I gave up and sectioned the styrene engines so as to have rings to glue to the resin exhausts in order to obtain an alignment, if not perfect, at least as was thought in the kit.

 

but what really commands the positioning of the engines is the size of the shells of the reverse. having decided to make these closed, I had to go crazy to make them fit in the best way with the resin exausts and the styrene base.

 

please note: now I start with a long boring text for the benefit of those who, wanting to assemble the same kit, will read these notes. I suggest that anyone who is not strongly motivated jumps to the following paragraph!

 

however, the instructions say to install engines and reverse and then couple the fuselage and tail.

It doesn't seem like a great idea to me, I think it's better, especially if you replace the exhausts with resins, to assemble the entire terminal part on its own, taking care to have the internal part of the engines of the right length, so that you can then rejoin the two (four) parties comfortably.

a problem that arises in doing this (but there would still be, and worse, following the kit's instructions) is that of correctly positioning the 8 main parts that make up the exhausts cones and shells. in this photo (apart from Cigolino, the disgruntled supervisor) you can see quite well how the parts are NOT correctly positioned: lopsided shells, misaligned actuator gears, odd positioned photo-etched parts. sigh. 

 

instead with a few simple tricks it can come out almost easily, I obviously got there by banging my head like a moth on glass:

- thin the two side fairings as thin as possible from the inside with a grinder, in order to make room for the resin gears, which are bulkier than the styrene ones.

- eliminate the resin actuator arms.

- DO NOT glue the PE stiffening ribs inside the shells, if anything, do it after gluing the completed module. ditto for the side strikers for the actuators.

- glue the two side fairings to the base (the 8-shaped piece in the photo of the disassembled parts above).

- glue the shells to the base and to the fairings one pair at a time, using the respective resin terminal to better align them.

- once the bonding of the styrene parts is solid, position the PE sides so that they are straight, aligned and specular. if desired, also the stiffening ribs (which in any case will be invisible in the end).

- are the PEs well fixed, puttied, sanded? well, glue the two resin exhaust cones with epoxy glue.

it may seem complex, in reality it is without a guideline ... which I did not have. having to do it again today it would take much less time and less secret - and not secret - invocations to the saints.

the whole system tends to be a bit lopsided, but - precisely - by following this path, a reasonably straight and solid styrene base is obtained, even if the petals will tend to open and not align correctly with the cones. I solved this little problem thanks to the epoxy long gluing time, to its resistance, and to some ancestor in the holy inquisition:

 

to force the shells in their position I blocked the base on a surface with double-sided tape, so that it wouldn't twist, and I made micro-holes in the shells themselves through which I stretched some fishing line, so as to keep them in shape until gluing was completed.

 

after 24 hours i removed the stitches and verified that the end piece, now a solid sub-component, mated well with the rest of the engines and the fuselage.

 

after that I recovered the actuator arms from the kit and positioned them in their place. I don't have a decent photo of this step, except this one, where the 4 central arms are positioned, and the 4 outer ones not yet. the comparison with the terminal of the kit says it all, I think.

 

and finally I can (I have to!) paint this part: it would be almost impossible to do it once the assembly is complete. especially as regards the innermost parts of the engines.

 

various stunts with the Alclads, and here we are.

 

but I'm still very very far from where I would like to go:

 

but I got rid of a fairly full-bodied mange, I'd say.

now I have to solve the cockpit and then in theory it's all downhill to the colors...

 

cheers, Paolo

Edited January 12, 2023 by mc65

[themongoose]

What an insane amount of busy work for a new tool kit. You’re killing it by the way! The work you did in the air brake compartments really woke it up. That soft piping they did was embarrassing to whoever designed it. Enjoying the build over here! 

[mc65]

here I am, how long!

the cold has finally arrived here too, and I've had to pay a little more attention to real life in the last few days.

so, we were talking about the exhausts and the thrust reverser shells... after a certain amount of tests, I got bored and threw on a little color, go as it wanted:

 

nothing exciting, but playing a little with the weathering it seems better. upper side,

 

and underside.

I say I like them, in the end I'll give them a round of black pigments inside and a metal drybrush outside, but for the moment I'll let the oils dry in holy peace.

 

and I have therefore arrived at another rock of this kit: the cockpit.

it's not too bad by itself, but the details are always a bit soft, compared to those of the Aires set, which however needs to be modified to bring it closer to the Italian version of the time: some instruments and panels are positioned differently. obviously it's not easy to get the right arrangement right, without Tommaso's constant help (thanks!) I'd still be groping in the dark with my hands tied behind my back.

for example, the rear station was born like this:

 

but the Italian layout was like this, at the time of the locust operation:

 

in fact almost like this... as I go on modifying, something new comes out to be reviewed, but slowly we will come out of it, I trust.

therefore a lot of patience and downtime, in which I try to do something else. one thing supplied by the Aires set is the pair of cockpit side rails. a crazy thing, to install. true that the kit is totally smooth, in those points, but I found it really challenging to install the two resin parts. you have to mark WELL how much and where to remove from the kit, and then intervene to remove the extra.

 

once the two semi-fuselages have been cut and sanded, these two resin pieces must be glued, making sure they are parallel and at the right height. not easy, I must say.

 

at the same time I started working on the seats. the same goes for the instrument panels: Aires makes Italeri 4 to 0, and in any case you have to make sure you get the right configuration right.

 

here, for example, there is one belt too many, which will have to be removed after quality control...

 

in the meantime, coat of primer to begin to understand something.

 

in short, s l o w l y , but I'm progressing. 

cheers, Paolo

[chrish]

wowzers!!

[jeroen_R90S]

+1!

What kind of adhesive aluminium did you use for the gear legs? Looks nice and shiny

[themongoose]

Beautiful 

[mc65]

hi Jeroen, 

I've tried different types, the one used here I got it in a chinese shop, it has no name.

I chose it based on its shine, and I must say that placed on a smooth surface it does its duty! 

[mc65]

thanks, pals!

sorry for the wide intervals between one post and another, it's not that I'm slacking off, but... almost: some passages eat up a lot of time, besides the fact that I haven't been dedicating myself much to the workbench lately.

 

the intervention on the sides of the cockpit went all in all quite well, a little putty is needed only in some points. I don't remember if I had mentioned the pilot's glareshield: the Aires one contains the HUD and is one with the instrument panel, so I eliminated the one from the kit without any regrets, it had a bad longitudinal seam and was all in all poor in detail a comparison of this. of course it will be fun to make it uniform with the fuselage, but I trust, that it is a way like any other to say that I am an unconscious madman: failing to insert the Aires module correctly (designed for the Revell kit) in the fuselage would mean throwing everything away , quite a bit of damage.

while about the seats, I removed the extra belt (the horizontal one on the headrest) and given a round of basic colors.

 

applied the last details, various handles, decals from kits and more, and made a thousand thousand touch-ups. now I'm ready for oils and pigments, then that's it, I'd say.

and finally I may start with the colors, but which ones?? the gray of the interiors, although well defined by the instructions (FS 26231) leaves room for some interpretation. since I have now understood that the colors and I live in two very distant universes, I did some tests before launching myself into epochal nonsense.

the choice of the base color, however darkened and lightened to vary the various panels, fell on the Tamiya XF53. painting this two-seater jacuzzi is a long and rather boring job, having the reference photos in the phone: it is a continuous search for the reference image (and I have several) checking, retouching, turning the display back on and starting again, panel for panel.

test with the seats in place with still a lot to do...

ditto for the instrument panels: as I progress I find corrections to make, parts to replace and improve.

roughly we should be there, at least I hope!

 

until next time, hopefully soon, cheers, Paolo

 

 

[Smeds]

Not sure about other Air Forces, but in the RAF the hoses seen on the left of the seats what I assume to be the man portion PEC. Once they crew out, they fit a seat portion which is a blanking plate basically. The man portion PEC is part of the flight gear.