The fastest freighter ever, the 'Stretchcorde'

[PR19_Kit]

Triggered by discussions in the Inspirations thread, I commented then that a 'Conroyised' Concorde would look a hoot, so I started sketching one but it just looked too tubby. Then I remembered my stretched Concorde design of a year or so ago, as below :-

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It's stretched about 16% and has a larger wing span (now THERE'S a surprise, eh?  ) with a slightly larger fin too, but it still looks like a Concorde. Adding my intended fuselage upper lobe to the longer Concorde looked a lot more likely, albeit totally bonkers. 

The side view looks like this :-

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The upper lobe comes from a Revell 1/144 DC8-63 with its lower half sawn off, and the front end formed from the DC8 tail cone inverted and flipped front to back. It might work with a LOT of PSR.........


Here's the mandatory 'boxes and packets;' pic, and you can see that they're all pretty ancient, the Concordes are Airfix prototypes with the short tail, but I'll stretch them, hopefully.

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[kerick]

The Concord Guppy!! Or is that Beluga?
Bonkers is good!

[The Rat]

When it absolutely, positively, has to be there yesterday!

[Old Wombat]

When it absolutely, positively, has to be there yesterday!

Although it may take quite some time & a few detours getting there.

    

[PR19_Kit]

I certainly hope Airfix have done some remedial work on their prototype Concorde mould, having re-popped it recently! 

I built one when it was first released, in the late 60s or early 70s, and it didn't fit too well then, but the more 'worn' kits that I'm using for this build are diabolical! It has zillions of tiny clear windows, which I'm gluing in place to minimise the PSR for the freighter version of course, and the ejector pin marks are larger than the windows! I've sliced myself more than once trimming them down to fit....

Here's the build so far, with one wing located on the drawing for the new, larger version.  While the lengthened fuselage should be pretty straightforward I suspect the larger wings will be much more complex to construct.

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[PR19_Kit]

Looks like I'll have to go to Plan B on this one.

It's almost impossible to covert a short tail Concorde to a long tail without extensive scratchbuilding of the rear fuselage, and as I'm doing that to the front fuselage already, there won't be much left in the middle!

So I've dug out an Airfix 'long tail' Concorde and I'll graft the already filed and sawn up extended nose onto it.

In passing it looks like box art for this kit was done by the same guy who did the 'tailplane-less Lightning F6' box art as the Concorde on the lid has a SHORT tail!!!

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And yes, there really is a Revell Concorde kit in the same box., don't ask me, that's how it came. 

[PR19_Kit]

I'd forgotten just how good the long tail Airfix Concorde kit is. It's a night and day better than the original one, no common parts at all, thank goodness. 

I've now got THREE Concorde fuselages built up, some sawn up into various lengths, and two sets of wings. 

The DC8 fuselage is in the process of being sawn and sliced up too, but that's a bird of a different feather. Old Revell styrene tends to be a) thick b) strong and c) pretty brittle too! It's not an easy job freeing the upper fuselage lobe from the lower.......

[jcf]

Ambitious. 

Would grafting the nose, wings and tail of the Concorde to the DC-8 fuselage work? 

Maybe Heller 1/125 Concorde wings to get the size increase?

[NARSES2]

Don't think I've seen that particular Concorde boxing artwork before ?

[PR19_Kit]

Ambitious. 

Would grafting the nose, wings and tail of the Concorde to the DC-8 fuselage work? 

Maybe Heller 1/125 Concorde wings to get the size increase?

The DC8 fuselage is quite a bit larger in dia. than the Concorde's, which is why I chose it for the upper lobe. Matching the nose and tail would be a lot more difficult than grafting the upper lobe on top of the Concorde.

I checked a Heller wing, but it's too long chordwise and makes the nose look dumpy. I've only increased the span on my Stretch Concorde in the first sketch, and that will fit the existing wing root fairings............................I hope. 

[PR19_Kit]

Here's all the fuselage bits placed in position, well, some of them anyway. There's not much left of the short tail Concorde, just the short nose extension, as the long tail nose is so distinctive I figured it'd work better than a cobblered up short tail one.  The wing root had to be sawn off, and then filled in, no doubt lots of PSR there to follow.

No idea what I'll do with all the rest of the short tail fuselage bits I've sawn up now.

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The DC8 fuselage upper lobe has been sliced off (only 157 knife strokes. Yes, I counted them, nerdy I know but.....  ) and in the process the left and right halves came unglued, but that may help alignment with the Concorde lower lobe later on.

[McColm]

Looking good, that reminds me I must finish the three Revell 1/200 Boeing SSTs.

[Gondor]

No idea what I'll do with all the rest of the short tail fuselage bits I've sawn up now.

How about a stretched fuselage Concorde with extension fore and aft of the wing using the bits left over from this build?

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

How about a stretched fuselage Concorde with extension fore and aft of the wing using the bits left over from this build?

It's actually quite difficult to find extension bits as there's hardly any parallel sections of a Concorde fuselage which don't have chunks of wing fairing on them. Getting rid of the fairings while still retaining some strength in the fuselage is VERY difficult.

Looking at the project as it is at present I'm wondering if I shouldn't just build a Stretchcorde as I drew up originally, but that would mean not taking part in this GB.

I've probably got enough Concordes to do a StretchCorde anyway, and I'm thinking of doing it as G-BOAD, the one with a Singapore Airlines scheme on the port side and a BA scheme on the starboard side. But I'd do it with the gorgeous Landor scheme, not the Read Tail one as 'AD had in reality. 

[loupgarou]

No idea what I'll do with all the rest of the short tail fuselage bits I've sawn up now.

How about a stretched fuselage Concorde with extension fore and aft of the wing using the bits left over from this build?

Gondor

Or a Shortcorde instead?