The British answer to the SR-71....

[Gondor]

So on that note does anyone have the 543 Sqn deals from either the Airfix Valiant add-on set or some of the AirDecal sets? I have decals from various squadrons which at some point have done pathfinding or photo recon, but none for 543.

Not really worth it Stuart.



The Polar Bear is the only thing that can not be got from a generic decal sheet or two.

[Steel Penguin]

its a lovely looking job youve done,  and park of my mind looks at it and goes, " if you print it out at 1:144 or 1:200 how would it look under the belly / wings of a 1:72 V bomber as a hyper-sonic cruise / stand off missile ?) 

does that give you and ideas as well?

[scautomoton]

So in the end I couldn't be bothered to fart around waiting for decals to turn up, so I used some TSR.2 17 Sqn left overs from the Model Alliance kit Geoff gave me. 

All in this has only taken a couple of three weeks to do. Its amazing how much time is saved not mucking about with landing gear, their bays, and cockpits and canopies. Overall it was a simple enough shape to design, but there are some very tricky cross-section shapes and transitions around the canards and cockpit.

However, she is a big girl in 72^nd scale. And I mean over 2 feet long big, ~690mm plus the pitot. So painting it was interesting. I also deliberately left a gloss finish and allowed my hamfisted spraying to give it the variance in shine. I deliberated over colour for a while, but in the interests of JFDI I went with Anti-Flash White. All panel lines etc were done with preshading, then a quick touch up with a 0.3mm mechanical pencil with a 2B lead in the places I laid the white on too heavily. I also forgot to add the ejection hatches in Fusion, so had to draw those on after. Finally (I will stop waffling in a moment), I wasn't about to mess about with clear plastic for the single side window, so I did the ship modelling trick of painting the window light blue and then shading the top and bottom lighter and darker respectively. It looks OK I guess.

Kit - My own 3d design

Extras - Master metal EE Lightning pitot

3d Print - Er, 99% of it

Vac Forming - Not this time

Scratchbuilding - nope

Primer - Mr Surfacer Grey 500 and 1000, Mr Base White 1000

Paint - Alclad II Jet Exhaust; Tamiya X-1 Black, X-2 White, X-10 Gunmetal, X-11 Chrome Silver, X-32 Titanium Silver; Mr Gunze Aqeous 8 Silver; custom mix Air Superiority Blue for the pilot's window and an off-white about 1:5 Tamiya White and Light Grey for the radar/aerial/etc panels

Weathering - Tamiya Weathering Master Snow, Soot; Sludge wash; Alclad Hot Metal Violet

Varnish/Finish - Gloss Coat Gauzy Agent; 0.3mm 2B pencil for some of the panel lines; Ammo MIG Panel Line Wash Sky Grey, Light Grey

Decals - Model Alliance TSR.2 17 Sqn markings, various random V-Bomber low viz from the spares drawer

And here she is. She's quite a big girl so I apologise for the ad hoc photo booth situation, it meant it was hard to get enough light.

And finally, to give it some scale, here she is next to a Saunders-Roe SR.53:

[Steel Penguin]

 
wow! 
super looking and i ha-dent realised how big till the final pic
the side window works well.

[Gondor]

That's BIG, and Pointy!