Ah, those deceiving little monsters…you look at the 3 views and say to yourself –mhhn, piece o’cake. Pretty square, slab-sided, regular size….
Ha! Next thing you know, you
are crying shamelessly over the building board, half-way the project, hoping
you had tackled the Tarrant Tabor instead.
Anyway, the Henderson HSF1
was a creature born of the need to give some naive bystanders their short ride
around the airstrip at a reasonable cost with certain level of safety. A
leftover Beardmore engine was bolted to the back of the fuselage instead of the
planned, more reliable –and more expensive- power plant. That should give you
an idea of the state of things around that hangar.
Nevertheless the Henderson took to the air
although with certain –understandable- reluctance and evolved to an all-enclosed
cabin apparatus nicknamed the “flying greenhouse”, not secondly due to its
aerodynamic properties.
The model, as said before,
appeared as an easy ball, but later revealed its true malign nature. I quit
counting the parts when I reached 150 and rigging the beast was not my favorite
afternoon
The images are the chronicle
of a long journey thru the barren lands of scratch-building. The wheels were
the only borrowed parts, and the use of Contrail aerofoil section and “Strutz”
material alleviated the task.
But after the storm
passed, the sun shone once again on the skies of modeling world, illuminating
the building board and the hieratic figure of the Henderson HSF1.
What can I say, it must be
love.
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