Jetmads 1/32 JNSDF U-36 Learjet

[thierry laurent]

Regarding assembly, the cabin seats cannot be correctly added on their support structure. If you glue them as such on their support, they will not be positioned level. Accordingly, remove part of the tab on each support to allow each seat to be slightly moved towards the cabin alley. Then, slightly sand the lower side edge of each seat cushion. This area is invisible as it is against the fuselage side, and this will help in keeping the seat as close as possible to the fuselage.

Based on external and internal pictures of the U-36 as well as figures about the crew, two navy technicians are normally located in the cabin. The front starboard seat is visible. It is probably located a little bit further aft than the kit one, but I decided to leave it as it is because the support is on rails and the seats can be moved towards and backwards in the cabin. It should simply be turned to be oriented toward the front. I never found a picture of the port side but concluded that the second seat was probably located behind the rack located on the port side of the cabin.

[thierry laurent]

The cockpit is a good rendition of the plane with quite accurate side details and instrument panels. However, everything is not glamorous there. We will go back to that later, but any dry fit assembly shows it is impossible to put the IP and its coaming without modification. So, test fit everything and take also care of the order of the assembly and painting of the parts. This will ask for serious thinking to add everything in the right order without damaging painted parts.

I already wrote that the two cockpit seats (050) are very simplified. This is an understatement. They are simply terrible as they have none of the complex features of the full-scale ones.

They look to me like enlarged simplified 1/72 parts! This is a pity as they are visible, and their back will need to be fully recreated if you intend to open the large cabin door.

At least the 3d printed belts look nice.

The full-scale seats are fully movable on a boxy structure bolted to the floor. The two joined TM pictures show the extent of the required work. However, be careful as they show the seat in the fully extended (« up ») position and they lack the top part.

 

 

Hopefully, it is not required to fully rebuild the parts because the front side is not very visible, and the lower sides will be invisible between the central console and the cockpit sides. I guess Jetmads considered they are not very visible when the cockpit bulkhead is used but even in such a case some areas look fully inaccurate; the lower front or top area one being obvious examples.

 

To avoid scratchbuilding new seats, remove some sections from the front, rear and top. The attached picture comparing the standard seat and the modified one was shot before removing the top as I still hoped I could modify it. Finally I considered it would be better to replace the rear and top by new parts. The front change is just intended to simulate the separation between the seat and the supporting structure. Nothing more is required there as this is just partly visible through the cockpit windows. Now compare that picture with the assembly drawing showing the parts...

 

I made drawings of all components to rebuild and cut them with my Silhouette Cameo. I must still assemble them, but the painful work looks to be behind me!

[thierry laurent]

The Silhouette was also used to create the electronic warfare boxes racks. This asked for a lot of time to measure the interior and compare with the rare existing pictures of the interior to estimate the proportions and dimensions. Some parts still need modifications but scratchbuilding that would have been an absolute nightmare! The parts are too thin to be 3d-printed. So, I think the other possible approach would have been the design of a photoetched set. This would have been stronger, but any modification would be far more complicated. So thin plasticard was finally a satisfactory solution. I still need to tune the file as I found errors here and there and simply corrected them during assembly.

As this was my first use of the Silhouette, parts were not fully cut. So, I ended the work with a new cutter blade and a flat ruler.

I assembled the racks with very thin Tamiya glue. This was not easy as the plastic stayed very souple but when done they are sufficiently strong to be handled. I have to say I am globally satisfied by the result.

The next step will be the creation of the black boxes. This will ask for some serious guess work as there are very few pictures.

[thierry laurent]

Strangely the rudder part had a casting issue. It is clearly too short and had an indistinct top edge. I sanded it and added resin strips I retrieved from a resin gate. Some putty, sanding and re-scribing is still required.

 

 

 

 

 

[thierry laurent]

This picture of the nose shows again that some panel lines are very shallow. So, do not have a too heavy hand while sanding or spraying primer!

 

 

 

 

[thierry laurent]

Even on the Internet, U-36 interior pictures are rare, and they always show a very cluttered interior. Some components cannot be easily identified but it looks some boxes as well as a dinghy are stored at the rear of the cabin, behind racks and seats. I looked quite some time for appropriate items. I finally found 1/35 Black Dog military boxes as well as 1/32 medical bags and other boxes on Shapeways as well as some plastic crates from Plus Models. I still must determine what I will use but with some additional scratchbuilt components this should be more than sufficient to reproduce the cluttered effect I saw in the cabin picture.

 

 

 

 

[thierry laurent]

The lack of any load under the pylons B05 & B06 is another disappointment. You get nothing whereas the full-scale airframe has commonly target tug devices (AGTS-TDK-39A/JAQ5), J/ALQ-6 jammer pods or J/ALE-41 flares launching pod variants. It took me long hours to be able to identify such components, but I quickly realized the large-scale modeller is unfortunately on his own for that issue and the availability of aftermarket components you can re-use is simply zero! The frustrating part is the fact the Japanese brand Tomytec released one injected plastic accessory set with all the items, but this was only available as pre-painted parts in 1/144 scale!

 The AGTS:

The ECM pod & flare launcher:

 

I really wanted to add some electronic war load but scratchbuilding the target tug devices was going to be very time-consuming. I looked further and realized the Japanese self-defence navy is sometimes only using electronic warfare loads on the U-36. Hopefully, US AN/ALE-41 flare launchers parts are available in Revell 1/32 Phantom models, and they are identical to the initial J/ALE-41. The pods are globally OK even if quite simplified in such a scale. I was happy to have leftover parts from Revell Phantoms. This allowed me to obtain easily two of such pods. Some changes were nevertheless required to get more accurate pods. Eduard released a good 1/48 replica. So, copying the features of the resin parts was the easy path to follow. Globally, this asked for :

1.      adding an Evergreen tube to lengthen the front air intake:

2.      drilling all the launcher tube ends located at the bottom end of the pod:

3.      remove the four corners of the reinforcing plate covering the pod top (be careful to get symmetrical results!)

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4.      add strips of plastic to simulate the side edges of that top plate.

5.      modifying the connection points as the existing ones were designed to correspond to the Revell Phantom pylons. I still have to do that last part.

 I would have preferred the very colourful AGTS target tug devices but was not brave enough to recreate two of such complex devices. At least I found a partial solution! I’m writing “partial” as the rare pictures I found always show one flare launcher under the starboard pylon with the Japanese ECM pod under the port one. I still do not know what I will do for the pod. In the worst case, I will use two flare launchers even if I have no evidence of such a configuration whereas there are pictures of planes with two J/ALQ-6 pods. That pod was seemingly also used on F-4E/J Kai airframes but pictures are quite elusive. I did not find the pod dimensions but can possibly extrapolate them. Moreover, the body looks similar to the ALQ-71 one and I should still have a Cutting-Edge resin set somewhere!

Wait and see!

[thierry laurent]

For those wondering about the "JNSDF" in the thread title, the reason is simple: the U-36A is not operated by the Japanese air force but by the Navy. Japan got 6 Learjets between 1987 and 1994 and all are based in Iwakuni with Shin Meiwa US-2 seaplanes. They were part of the 91st Kokutai with some Orions and were for many years the only Japanese Navy jets. Two were unfortunately lost and the four remaining ones are now part of the 812 Hikotai.

[Sepp]

Some seriously good work, there, Thierry! Definitely following this - bizjets (and their military cousins) are very close to my heart, having flown 'em for thirty-something years.

[thierry laurent]

1 hour ago, Sepp said:

Some seriously good work, there, Thierry! Definitely following this - bizjets (and their military cousins) are very close to my heart, having flown 'em for thirty-something years.

Thanks very much! It is a pity there are so few of them available in large scale! Hopefully, we will also get the Beechraft King Air from Jetmads.

[Out2gtcha]

Great start Thierry!

[Landrotten Highlander]

Hi Thierry,

tried to send you a pm, but it looks like your inbox is full?

 

here is waht I attempted to message to you:

I realise you have already made some inroads into this build, but I was thinking the following:  I am studying for a BSc in Computer Aided Design and have acces to Solidworks until next summer.

If you want I can create some printable files for you of the more challenging components?

[waxdart]

Looks great Thierry!

[LSP_Kevin]

Excellent work, Thierry! Any chance you could upload your cut files to Scale Model Paint Masks?

 

Kev

[thierry laurent]

55 minutes ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Excellent work, Thierry! Any chance you could upload your cut files to Scale Model Paint Masks?

 

Kev

Hi Kev. I did not forget it but would prefer to correct them before!