Sunday, July 29, 2012

Mozhaisky steam-powered monoplane

 (The completed model is here:)
 
The dream of getting into the blue yonder wasn't born in a specific place. Almost every man through history longed for wings. By the end of the XIX century, Alexander Mozhaisky, a Russian national, built and tested a steam powered monoplane that basically had the right stuff. It is arguable that he achieved a great degree of success, although the machine made a promising hop. Bureaucracy, lack of support, lack of funds, his own death, the usual things, prevented what could have had the chance to really make history, a fate many other pioneers would share. There is some material around about this strange bird in the Net and in WW1 AERO magazine, among other sources. 
I will humbly dispute the numbers almost universally given for the size of this plane, which, if made with the given span and length, would be almost ridiculous. Fortunately, and after a certain time spent researching, an unexpected text (The Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet Navy by Norman Polmar) provided with the much more credible span of 12.2 meters. Why the other sources state, for example, that the main propeller was 28.7' (almost 9 meters) the span 74' (more than 22 meters) and so forth, seems to escape common sense; perhaps the common mistake of confusing metric and imperial? some other contemporary Russian measure system? Time will tell. Or Won't. This model is a commission, a happy one, since my own interest is usually geared towards odd-balls; besides, my ancestors came originally from Russia.
What can I say, give my a glass of vodka and a balalaika (and an Xacto)

 
 





Friday, July 27, 2012

I updated the Pander Postjager entry in this same blog with a number of photos, showing the whole building process as some of you requested. A written article was also uploaded:



Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Bristol Tourer / Coupe

The Bristol Tourer conversion from the F2B Airfix kit is finished.
The process can be followed in the previous post.
Quite a bit of work, complicated by the difficulty in handling the model for the final steps with all those wires and external details.
The woman in the photos is my friend's Soenke sekretary. He sent her from Germany, previously shrinking her with one of his multiple evil rays. Her name is Fraulein Preiser. She is nice, but constantly complains about having to wear the same dress over and over again.

                                     

Thursday, July 5, 2012

1/72 Airfix Bristol F2B converted to Tourer/Coupe

What does one do when in England? yes, one buys an old Airfix kit.
How old? look at the photos, 1957 vintage! a mold 55 years old to this date.
Man those Airfix -and successive re-incarnations- squeezed the pennies out of that mold.
What I want to do with it? you betcha. Convert it to a civil machine, likely some variation of the Bristol Tourer/Coupe.
History: At some point after the war it was realized that transporting people was much, much nicer than bombing then. This very painfully-obtained knowledge was not, however, kept in mind for a long time. The Bristol Tourer/Coupe was a direct derivative of the Bristol F2B. In that regard, many countries, like Japan, France and Germany were doing the same: hastily converting war leftovers for the incipient civil market, many times with the procedure of producing a “hunch” to protect the weary passengers against the elements.
I may refer you to two of my models:
-Hawa F.3 (in this very blog, and old post):

 -Hansa Brandenburg W.29 J-BCAL:
You could model a civil machine without modifying a single part of the Bristol Airfix kit, though. There were a couple of Canadian machines (G-CYBC / DP and at least one Spanish that flew the plane as it is represented in the kit (minus armament, of course).
Beware, since some of the other civil versions had different engines, cowls, radiators, rudder, passengers’ compartment covers, supplementary fuel tanks on the top wing, and minor details. Look at your photos, not even at drawings: photos.
Since I was looking more and more at some G-AUD_ civil versions I did some preliminary chopping, cleaning, filing, filling and sanding as per images. All the stitching was eliminated at this point, later to be replaced by other devices.
You can see in the building photos that some areas have been removed and the section corresponding to the passenger cabin altered to represent the increase in fuselage width that was incorporated in the real plane in order to accommodate the side-by-side seating arrangement. Not all Coupes/Tourers had this increase in width; again, check your photos. Some formers were cut, and the usual interior paraphernalia prepared for the cockpit and passenger cabin. Some external elements (augment rudder, different nose, hunch, top wing tanks, etc.) had to be scratched too.
As you can see in the images the major work was concentrated in two areas: the passenger cabin elements and the nose. The former is a complex area that need careful observation of the photos and accurate execution. Of special note is the transition from the former back of the pilot (which has a sort or triangular shape at the top) to the first passenger cabin former, which is quadrangular with round corners at the top, and leans forward.
The second area of effort as said was the nose. A wood master was prepared in order to vacuform the cowling. Engine, radiator and ancillary parts (like the oil tank) were scratched. The engine alone insumed about fifty individual parts. Again, attention needs to be paid to the sections’ transition, from firewall to radiator. At the firewall the top is rounded and the bottom straight, and that reverses at the radiator’s cross section.
Home-made decals were prepared: a bundle of “stitches’ strips” and black regs on white decal paper stock. More details related to the upper wing, control surfaces, ancillary parts, etc. were made; paint ensued with a home-made custom color of all sub-assemblies.

 



The fuselage bottom was cut out to allow for the curvature of this section

More chopping and some assembling, including a new, larger rudder adopted by some of the G-AUD_ versions

 The modified top wing with a dry run of the added tanks