Panavia PA-200 Tornado IDS Italeri 1/32

[Troy Molitor]

Woozier.   I don't tend to follow many jet builds but this is amazing.   

[scvrobeson]

Sand over silver is definitely a cool camo scheme, and your build is looking awesome.

 

 

 

Matt 

[mc65]

thanks Kevin! 

unfortunately I have a temper, and ignoring the desire to get a good result would have made me feel worse than ruining everything. (a recommendation: don't be like me, this mental set-up has only brought me trouble in life. For further information, ask my lawyer and my ex-wife). 

 

still waiting for these blessed decals, I dedicated myself to the Mk83. the kit doesn't include them, oh well, but it doesn't even include enough supports for all the ventral pylon stations, so I had to make do a bit, adapting what was available. test in place.

 

another missing thing, but this would have been asking too much, objectively, is the forest of spacers that block the bodies of the bombs and stabilize them. I solved it with plasticard disks and brass wire segments.

 

you won't see much of them, but I like the idea that there are. they will also make the bond actually more solid.

 

and now the good news, shall we say. assembling the underwing fuel tanks, I had noticed that all the filler caps (three per tank) fell exactly under the pylon. bizarre, in this way it would be impossible to refuel them on site.

 

not having found clear photos of the detail, I trusted the kit, until Ed of Jet Passion (thanks a lot, Ed!) pointed out to me that Italeri has struck again: the filler caps in the real thing are off-centre on the left with respect to the longitudinal median line. further targeted search finally paid off, I found incontestable photos. 

I say... to make a mistake is human, even if I don't understand how a detail like that escapes you, but oh well. but later? anyone who builds this model will end up noticing the error, and correcting it is relatively simple, knowing it beforehand: the caps are in fact molded separately. just make holes slightly offset to the left of the ones present, and glue them in the right place.

 

ALRIGHT. could I ignore it? not, evidently. 

Of course mine are now painted, decalized, waxed and weathered, how the hell I can do? after a bit of meninges, and some tests to redo the caps with the same technique of the P51B, I decided on the watermelon technique, also known as the dowel.

 

a drop of spirits would have been nice, to give me courage, but I thought I would have risked a few fingers, in addition to the tank. So let it be known, I did it sober! 

hmm, looks promising, right?

 

Oh good. so it makes sense, now.

 

so let's go! (cit. the Zohan) to avoid the well-known effects of the black hole, I inserted pieces of sponge and strips of plasticard inside to support the lucky strike packets which will be reinserted in their new place.

 

 

after which all that remains is to putty and sand. and here we are. better, I would say.

 

and two.

 

oh well, I thought much worse. 

of course, if Mrs. Italeri were to read these lines, she could be inspired to add a leaflet to the instructions specifying that it is enough to glue the caps in the right place to save the customer a headache combined with considerable disappointment, which multiplied by all the kit's buyers does a lot of negative energy to work off, imho. 

While we're in the Santa Claus area, even if my decal dealer decided to send me what I requested (in December) I'd be so grateful. it's okay that modeling is suffering, but let's give ourselves a limit, holy cow. 

 

coming soon... i don't know. without the decals I'm stranded. meh.

 

cheers, Paolo

[mc65]

present!

 

sorry for the rare appearances, I'm a bit messed up (a little more than usual)... but I produced a little something.

in the meantime, the niceties in metal have arrived, the first to be implemented is the refueling probe's head, way better, no?

 

then I placed the landing gear legs in place, slightly deviating from the instructions: to have the necessary space to position all the tubes I postponed gluing the retraction arms.

 

I guess that in the end nothing will be seen... alright, we know they exist.

 

and the Tauro decals have finally arrived. the missing cockades...

 

and individual codes.

on the decal sheet there are enough to reproduce any locust specimen, in the end the choice fell on MM7019, of which there are several photos of the time.

 

solved this practice, I can move on to underwing and ventral loads: the safety levers on the pylons and relative pins with the "remove before flight" strips are missing. levers and pins in metal wire and HGW strip, really serious stuff.

 

5 are enough for the ventral pylons, plus 3 for the landing gear's legs, which in the meantime has received the retraction arm and wheels.

 

so for the underwing pylons it will take... another 6. I'll prepare a few more in reserve, you never know.

 

why do these remind me so much of Stanley Kubrick?

 

and here we are. I'd say the bottom is complete. therefore I can definitively place tail fin and rudder, extended airbrakes, dorsal tunnel.

 

good good good... now missing some weathering on the top side and the details of the front area, but I'm starting to see the end of it, god willing.

cheers, Paolo

[Stokey Pete]

Very nice indeed. 

[mc65]

hi all, very little updating.

 

given the particular nature of the upper color and its not excessively worn state, given the relatively short duration of the locust operation, I'm experimenting with new techniques for me.

in the meantime I'm doing other little things however necessary. the first, started some time ago, is the construction of a base that will hold the completed model: a plywood frame that will be stained walnut on the sides and that will try to best emulate a parking segment of Al Dhafra, with a patch of the era to fill the otherwise deserted (ah ah) space next to the plane.

 

the photos of the time show rather dirty surfaces, as do the current satellite photos. we'll see what I can achieve.

 

other little things I'm doing are pitots, replaced with syringe needles.

 

and the 27mm muzzle guards, 3D printed by Jet Passion, very serious stuff.

the comparison with the original printed pieces is merciless.

 

a 0.8 needle is perfect for emulating the barrel itself and providing solid support to the very fragile 3D piece.

 

voilà in place, with the Master's metal angle-of-attack sensor visible above it.

 

I have finally placed the seats in place, now I'm working on the accessories such as the side tubes and the various stripes that connected the crew's limbs to the seat.

 

and that's all for now, I'm approaching the end of this tormented little work in small steps.

cheers, Paolo

Edited April 23, 2023 by mc65

[Kagemusha]

Very impressive work.

[MikeMaben]

Wow !  nice work Paolo 

[mc65]

thank you, pals!

very small advances on the base, each step required adequate glue and color drying time, but slowly I am getting closer to the end of this tribulation. decided the final arrangement of the parts, and traced the orientation of the "tiles", made with sheets of sandpaper.

 

from the available photos I understand very little about the surface of the Al Dahfra parking area, except that they were filthy and that the yellow line was scarcely visible. I did it anyway, after making the expansion joints with a mixture of PVA glue and black acrylic.

 

and then I devoted myself to the rubbish, trying to make sense of it and not to overdo it so as not to steal the scene from the plane... I don't think I'll insist any further.

 

soon general weathering of the upper surfaces, for which I am still doing tests elsewhere, and definitive basing.

cheers, Paolo.

[mc65]

oh, how long!

sorry for the absence, I haven't had much free time in the last two weeks.

 

let's see what I've done lately... little stuff: I've added the white and blue straps that connect the ejection seats to the crew's limbs, so as to automatically recall them to the body in case of ejection. having done this, I definitively positioned the autarkic canvas screens that keep the navigator displays in the shade.

starboard side

 

and port side

 

then, since I'm a genius at self-harm, I decided that I wasn't convinced by the pin I had inserted at the base of the canopy to keep it in place (I remimd you that Italeri didn't think of anything for this eventuality, except a strut ugly and out of scale, imho). so I cross my fingers, uncrossed them, and took the drill. on the apex of the fuselage you can see the hole previously foreseen for the pin.

 

I then glued three magnets of 150gr of attraction force.

in this photo you can see, on the bulkhead behind the headrest, also the right air vent redone with tin and copper, as the resin arrived damaged at that point. in the previous photo you can see better the left, original of the Aires set.

 

in the canopy's corresponding points, after making housing using the considerable thickness of the transparent, I placed two 33gr magnets on the sides and one 110gr in place of the pin seat.

While I was there, I completed the interior with the air ducts and relative vents which in reality match those on the bulkhead behind the navigator headrest. you can see (out of focus) the handles added during the locust operation, afterwards added on all the Italian Tornados.

 

to determine wich was the optimal angle to position the canopy, and consequently the magnets, I made a slightly longer (and to scale) brass tube strut than the one supplied in the kit.

normally on a pre-flown aircraft this strut was removed, together with most of the external covers/RBF flags. also, as you can imagine, the navigator must be a kind of eel to access his own place.

 

marked the correct height and position, I glued (in two sessions) the apical magnets, the ones that govern the angle of the open roof, in two-components.

 

using the already known kitchen foil technique: inserting a piece of film between the two magnets avoids the possibility that the epoxy ends up between the two, permanently gluing the canopy in position.

 

et voila.

now even without the strut it remains opened, with the advantage of having tje option to may remove it for better access to the cockpit, but above all making the joint shock-proof: the pin, although solid, was too rigid, and was anchored to the roof on too small a surface to keep me calm.

along the way I added some weathering with pastels, in this photo you can see the marks left on the front fuselage by the ladder and boots, or at least this was the intention.

 

and finally I placed it definitively on its base, it is finally safe from my clumsy hands in the various movements.

 

now I can install the last more fragile details such as pitot on the radome, fuel probe, and retouch different color points, as well as giving the transparent glossy and matt according to the points.

cheers, Paolo

 

[Bstarr3]

Che bella, Paolo! This really looks incredible, and the Tornado kit looks like a nice one.  I'm still trying to figure out exactly what you did with the magnets on the canopy, but it looks ingenious.  I'm trying some magnets on my current build so looking out for all the different ways people utilize them.  

[scvrobeson]

Fantastic progress!  I really like the idea of using magnets on the canopy to hold it open

 

 

 

Matt 

[LSP_Kevin]

Brilliant work, Paolo!

 

Kev

[MikeMaben]

Verrrry nice work Paolo 

[spartacus2000]

Beddu assai!!!(beautiful in Sardinian)

Bravo I like it

Edited May 27, 2023 by spartacus2000