The Hawker Beechcraft Dragon MRA1, the Nimrod's replacement

[PR19_Kit]

And here's the main assembly of the Dragon done. And it's only the second day. 

The wing roots need a small amount of filing before the wing sat down nicely, but it's a very good fit now it's there. The tailplane just falls into place and a smidge of liquid glue is all it needs. The engines need a bit more care as they don't just plug in, you need to hold them in place for a short while before the glue grabs, but after that they're OK.

I did at last find one part of of the PE fret that was worthwhile fitting, and that's the upper panel fret, part PP6, which needs a decal (amazingly actually on the decal sheet!) applied to it later, but the two fuselage halves have to glued together before it's worth while applying the fret or it'd be left suspended in mid-air while you glued them up. NOT a good idea.



The canopy goes on next, and that'll be masked up with the supplied masks, and I can start priming and PSRing then. I'm not going to use the smaller window parts as they're only too prone to falling right through when trying to glue them. I plan to use Glue'nGlaze for them once it's all painted and decalled, some days away now of course.

[McColm]

Will you be adding a FLIR pod and wingtip ESM pods or leaving them off?

[Gondor]

As to why mould that part separately, quite an easy answer, probably. It's the hole that's the whole problem. Probably at the wrong angle for the moulding technology that SWORD use, if this had been a more modern Tamigawa kit, it would have been moulded in place as they have access to hi-tech slide moulding machines which can manage such things.

Ah right of course. 

I have no idea what that hole is actually, I'll either PSR it out of existence or drill it out.

It will be an exhaust of some sort, no idea what for though. I would need to look at a cutaway drawing to find out.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Will you be adding a FLIR pod and wingtip ESM pods or leaving them off?

Certainly the FLIR pod, as it comes in the kit. Not sure about wingtip pods yet as I may fit it with winglets, depending on the time left.

It will be an exhaust of some sort, no idea what for though. I would need to look at a cutaway drawing to find out.

Good luck with finding one, the U-125A seems to be well ignored mush of the time. I've drilled it out, and angled it a tad too.

[McColm]

Will you be adding a FLIR pod and wingtip ESM pods or leaving them off?

Certainly the FLIR pod, as it comes in the kit. Not sure about wingtip pods yet as I may fit it with winglets, depending on the time left.

It will be an exhaust of some sort, no idea what for though. I would need to look at a cutaway drawing to find out.

Good luck with finding one, the U-125A seems to be well ignored mush of the time. I've drilled it out, and angled it a tad too.

Don't forget the sonobouy launch tubes and dye markers tube. You could go down the SH-60B Seahawk and have them on the side of the fuselage rather than underneath the fuselage.

[PR19_Kit]

The RW U-125A launch their rescue kit from the landing gear bays! Yes, really.

It'll work on a Dragon too, because I said so. 

[PR19_Kit]

The Dragon's had 3-4 coats of Halfords lousy primer (I can't find anywhere locally else that sells better stuff sadly ) and a similar amount of PSR, and it's not looking too bad. Maybe ready for the first colour coat tomorrow with luck.

I'm well on with drawing up the decal scheme and it's a ZINGER! None of your all over drab Hemp & Grey that the Nimrods used to have, although that is the basis for the scheme. It's going to be a commemorative scheme for an almost unique anniversary, and I've had to make paper templates to ensure it fits the Dragons shape. Not as easy as I thought it might be, but I'm working on it.

The addonerry is coming on OK, but I'm not quite sure how to mount the refuelling probe yet.

[Gondor]

How about mounting the refuelling probe in a similar way that the RAF C-130's had theirs?

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

How about mounting the refuelling probe in a similar way that the RAF C-130's had theirs?

That's just about how I've done it actually. 

You'll see in the pics tomorrow, or maybe this evening.................

[PR19_Kit]

And here are this evening's pics. 

The Dragon's got all it's thingumyjigs glued on now, ECM aerial on the fin, Mad boom on the tail, IR thingie under the nose and the refuelling probe on the roof. It's had umpteen PSR sessions and had more than a few coats of primer, but the last one could have been better.........





It looks OK, but it's a good thing you can't feel it as it's as if the whole thing had been pebble-dashed! 

I got some new grey primer, not the new Halfords stuff, but some Isopon primer that's rumoured to be the same as the old Halfords primer. If it is I'm not seeing it, as it comes out of the can in a very wide spray and dries before it hits the model, thus the pebble dash.

I'll have to lightly sand the whole thing and spray it from much closer.

Ho hum.....................

[Weaver]

On the Nimord MRA.4, the fin-tip "canoe" fairing contained a SATCOM antenna.

The Nimrod was too tall to fit in the main hangar at Woodford, so they had to modify the end wall of the building (basically a steel-frame hangar structure) to have a removable panel about six feet wide above the centre of the doors. Even then, the canoe wouldn't go through, so they had to take it off first and put it back on afterwards. The cherry picker got a lot of use on those days! Procedure was for two guys to go up and take the panel off the building, then go up and take the canoe off the fin, then wheel the aircraft out, then put the canoe back on, then put the panel back on. Repeat in reverse when it came back in.

When I started working there, Nimrod was only in the end 25% of the space, divided from the RJ (BAe 146) line in the rest by a wall with it's own security doors. I'd been there several years before I went into the Nimrod area one day and saw one rolling out. I stood watching it with a bunch of fitters thinking desperately to myself, "mustn't hum the Thunderbirds theme, mustn't hum the Thunderbirds theme..." (aviation geeks were looked down on, even though 75% of the staff secretly were geeks). After ten minutes or so, I continued on my mission to the logistics office. I'm been in there thirty seconds when one of the office bods strode in going, "DA DA DA DAAAAA... DA DA, DA DA, DA DA, DA DA DA DAAAAAAA....."

[Captain Canada]

Looking good ! Love all the bits, and the new word in my vocabulary......addonery.

[PR19_Kit]

I've spent ages sanding all the pebble dash off now, to the detriment of a lot of the fine panel detailing that Sword put on there. :-(

The vortex generators on the wings were particularly good, but now they're mere hints of what they were, darn it. I'll have to do some test spraying before applying the next coat, I can't go through all that again.

[PR19_Kit]

Looking at the Dragon in the cold light of dawn, well at 0830 anyway, I may just try painting the colour coat as it is. The previously rough primer has smooth enough now I think. and there's just a few semi-bare styrene areas on view.

The Sea Grey Medium undersides will be a good start and if it doesn't work I'll do some test sprays with that new primer before I try it again on the Dragon.

[Later] Amazingly the first coat of Light Aircraft Grey went on pretty well, very pleasing.

I'm less than pleased with the performance of my latest decal paper though, it's just TOO thin and fragile and it's the very devil to get off the backing paper without screwing up the decal itself. I've thrown money at it and got some heavier weight stuff en route from Amazon, only because they can deliver today and this IS a One Week Build after all.

[Weaver]

I made two changes to the text- tale changed to tall and stee changed to steel. I too suffer from dyslesia.

I actually don't suffer from dyslexia, I suffer from a) fat fingers and b) an inability to see typos until AFTER I've posted. Thanks for the heads-up though: I've changed the original post. Unlike a lot of people these days, I do NOT take it as "rude" when people correct my mistakes, I'm thankful for it, because screwing up and correcting it is the way you get better.