Hawker Henley Mk IV Divebomber

[sequoiaranger]

Sotool, Tophe, Buzzbomb, ssb9--thanks. Be patient, I have to put this worthy project away for a while.

Meanwhile, I dredged up a graphic from which I will make a squadron emblem for "the Regatta", the moniker of the Henley squadron aboard the HMS Excalibur, and will become a decal for the Henley's side. The Henley Rowing Club will feature in the backstory (forming in my brain over the last several months).

[Pablo1965]

I can see your evil intention Woahahahaha! Sorry love dramatism. I like it  

[sequoiaranger]

I worked on the Henley today, after last night's large social gathering for which we had been planning all week (keeping me away from the Henley). I had searched for a decent tailplane, rejecting dozens. I wanted it slightly larger than the Tempest's, but the same shape. I just HAPPENED to open a He-111 box that contained (I had forgotten) parts of a 1/48 Fw-190. VOILA! I had to round off and butt-joint the tailplanes, but have reinforced them with tiny steel tubing. The two parts don't match up perfectly, but the separation line will be under the vertical stab. The white plastic Henley vac-form vertical stabilizer is washed out from the camera flash, but I reinforced the future assembly with some tabs and extra structure. I widened the Heller Tempest forward fuselage a bit to mate up with the Revell rear fuselage, and reamed out the turret opening. The over-and-under Lewis guns were much more difficult to arrange than I thought, but...I did it. The canopy was cut to "hood" the turret. I needed to engineer a different prop/boss setup so that the prop can stay off the model until after painting, yet still turn.
 


This next photo shows what I used to make a bomb crutch to throw the bomb clear of the propeller. The bomb was so large (will be a 1900 lb AP, but was a 1/32 100-lb bomb, I think) that a Stuka or Dauntless crutch wasn't nearly big enough. I had to resort to....a Halifax landing gear (!-on right) and shave it down a bit to make it work.

[Pablo1965]

I see your way...Good luck

[James]

I'll be keeping an eye on this one. 

[sequoiaranger]

Progressing rapidly (comparatively), I have added some features to the forward fuselage.

I wanted the "car door" look of the early Typhoons, but the aftermarket kits from Ventura are prohibitively expensive. I had thought of vac-forming some of the fuselage and attaching a canopy piece, and having the "car door" slightly ajar to "show off" the car door, but I have so many "issues" right there with trying to match up different fuselages, wing parts, and cockpit parts, that instead I have gouged out a "doorframe" and handle to give it the look without the work (heh, heh!). I may change the camo on the door slightly, as if it were a replacement off a different Henley, and to bring attention to that detail.

I wanted the early Tornado dorsal carburetor look, so I found a double-barrel stirring straw for a "pig-nose" double intake.

The "dual exhaust" holes for the two rows of Hurricane "horn" exhausts are evident--I need to putty and obliterate the old exhaust area.

[Mossie]

Enjoying this progress.  For the car door, would it be possible to persuade the forward portion of a P-39 or P-63 canopy to fit?

[sequoiaranger]

>For the car door, would it be possible to persuade the forward portion of a P-39 or P-63 canopy to fit?<

The P-39 not only has a curved clear piece front-to-back, but the entire door is relatively uniformly curved, like a parenthesis....(  The Hawker "car doors" are shaped more like the Spanish pre-question mark, that is, a straight and squarish window panel (clear) on top of a curvy door....¿ Shown below is a photo and drawing of the "car-door" Typhoon. I now see that the "door" is very short, that is, it does not go all the way down to the floor of the cockpit. More like the flaps on Hurricane and Spitfire cockpits, but with some of the canopy window attached. The one on my Henley is going all the way down. Hmmm.



>Enjoying this progress.<

So am I! This project is complex enough to test and challenge my skills, but I am enjoying the progress, too!
I have the tail (vertical and horizontals) on, and am now turning to the wings. The complexity here is that a mating of the Heller Tempest and Hurricane wings is fairly straight-forward *IF* I didn't want to show off some hole-ly dive brakes a la Douglas Dauntless (or Brewster Buccaneer, where they came from, and, incidentally fit the Henley to a "T"). Substituting the holed flaps means having to add structure to the center inside of the wing to keep the proper thickness during the substitution. Too bad, because the Hurri and Tempy's wings go together so nicely!

[sequoiaranger]

In one of those RARE instances of whiffery, the divebrakes were EASIER to make and install than I had thought. I found I did not need to make inner wing structure to keep the airfoil, as I had previously feared, and the thickness of the dive brakes corresponded EXACTLY to the place they would occupy. WHEW! The dive brakes come from the injection-molded Brewster Buccaneer (expensive kit, and merely parted out for other models!). I carefully cut out sections in the Henley wing, then cut and matched the Buccaneer pieces to fit. In the pic below, I pasted the new look onto an older photo. On the left, of course, are the dive brakes mounted in the wing. The inner dive brakes are "half" flaps (no holes in the wing above it), and will be mounted dropped down on the finished model. the outer flaps are presumably the "butterfly" type (holes top and bottom, split, top half opening upwards, the bottom half opening downwards). I'm also going to have only one 20mm per wing.

I included the tail assembly so you can see the hodge-podge of color--white for vac-form Henley, light greenish for the modified 1/48 Fw-190 horizontal tailplanes, and the dark gray-green of the Revell Tempest fuselage. Still a lot of work to blend everything together and shape it properly, though (ain't there ALWAYS!?).

[Pablo1965]

Good idea! Dauntless style flaps.  cool 

[sequoiaranger]

Here's the Henley a little farther along. I got all the parts of the wings mated (no small task), and worked on the "gap" behind the original Heller Tempest coolant radiator (added Revell's) and how the turret well matches up with the wing beneath it. I had added white sheet plastic spacers to the thin Tempest inner wing to match up to the Hurricane outer (and Henley) airfoils, and now am considering making the protrusions wing-leading-edge oil coolers (as seen on later Hawker products, and already on Mossies and Whirlwinds). I have kept design elements of the Hawker line of products, more or less substituting available injection-molded products for the cumbersome vac-form that would have been the Formaplane Henley. I still have some issues with the underside fuselage, and may add a top fuselage strake to the tail, kind of like the Aichi D3A (Val). Maybe.





Now it looks kind of like a Hawker Tornado elongated into a two-seater and given a four-bladed prop. Yeah!! That's EXACTLY what I wanted!

[sequoiaranger]

I used a few of my leftover Tempest parts to try out the paints and decals I intend to use for the completed Henley. Of course it's a carrier plane, so it will have "overwater" camo. I am keeping "Medium Sea Gray" as one color, but will add my own concoction, "I.O.P. Blue" (or "Indian Ocean and Pacific Blue") to replace the "green" ("Slate Gray") usually found on sea aircraft. No, it won't become part of the "Confederate Air Force" (Blue and Gray), but will kinda look like that.  I wanted medium contrast (not two dark, or two light colors) and an "Allied" look (Japanese naval planes were green on top by that time in the war).

The real "Operation Pedestal" to aid Malta in August of 1942 had British aircraft sport yellow tails for easy ID. I am carrying that to another level with yellow tail, yellow squadron codes, yellow spinner, and yellow leading-edge wing bars (which will get the Henleys in trouble out in the Pacific, with the "Japanese-style" wing bars and red circle on the wings and fuselage! But that is part of the full backstory yet to be published.) I wasn't sure if the Microscale letters would show through the color underneath. They didn't, to my satisfaction, anyway. The final codes will be "L 6 @ G", worn by a real Skua from 806 squadron sometime early in the war. Also included will be the serial number, "Royal Navy", mission and/or kill markings, and the "Excalibur" motif shown in an earlier post.

Also note that I have outlined the "car door" in black and (feebly) used an "opposite" camo color scheme to try to accentuate the door (as if borrowed from a different Henley).

[NARSES2]

This is coming along nicely.

Must admit this type of surgery scares the crap out of me 

[van883]

I'm looking forward to seeing this completed.

Van

[sideshowbob9]

I'm looking forward to seeing this completed.

As am I. As you say, it looks right on the money for an extended Tornado.