Vigilante - The Practical Kind

[Spino]

Last night I designed and printed the tail fins.  I tried to get them as close as possible to the fins on that NAA mockup, fairings and all.  I think the nose cone may change color to white, since I have at least one black nose jet in the pipeline and the Vigilante commonly has a white nose.

[Spino]

As the old saying in aircraft design goes, if it looks right then it probably is.  And a Vigi with twin tails certainly looks right!  I don't understand why the real-life one didn't have twin tails, it wasn't like it was a new concept or anything (Vought had proven it on the Cutlass after all), and it would have eliminated the need to fold the bigger single tail for carrier stowage.  I dry-fitted the canopies, attached and painted the new tail fins, and got the first coat of white on the nose.

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Here you can see the twin tails.  I canted them outward just slightly, similar to the configuration on the F-14 rather than the complete slab-side arrangement found on the F-15 and MiG-25/31.  The original single tail was usually supposed to be painted all white, not sure if I'll do that here or not.

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[NARSES2]

She looks "right" with twin tails 

[Scotaidh]

I like it! 

[buzzbomb]

Nice project. As its 1/48th It has some size around it. I have built the 1/48 Su-24 Fencer, so know how big that is, this is a similar size.
This was one of those kits where the modelling fraternity said... fantastic going to buy (insert number) but I have seen very, very few actually built, so this is good to see.

[kerick]

The old Vigilante never gets much love. It just seemed to fall between the cracks. The twin fins will give it some stand out!

[McColm]

It's the sort of aircraft which the Air Ministry would have bought if they hadn't chosen the F-4K Phantom and paired it with the Crusader III.

[PR19_Kit]

The old Vigilante never gets much love. It just seemed to fall between the cracks. The twin fins will give it some stand out!

I LOVE the Vigi, 2nd only to the Mirage IV in the 'every schoolboy's idea of a M 2.0 bomber'. 

I've done quite a few re-skins of Vigis in Flight sim too.

[kerick]

The trick is finding a decent kit. I have one in 1/72 that is ancient. I think it's the Revell kit. Not encouraging.

[PR19_Kit]

The Hasegawa/FROG one is pretty good to my mind. I've built a few of them as well as a couple of Airfix ones. The Airfix one always seems a bit 'blurred' somehow.

I have a Trumpeter one too, but it's still in the box....................

All 1/72 of course.

What we really need is a decent conversion for a 'bomber' Vigi as all the kits, apart from old Revell one (I think it's 1/87) are of the RA-5C recce version.

[Gondor]

The Hasegawa/FROG one is pretty good to my mind. I've built a few of them as well as a couple of Airfix ones. The Airfix one always seems a bit 'blurred' somehow.

I have a Trumpeter one too, but it's still in the box....................

All 1/72 of course.

What we really need is a decent conversion for a 'bomber' Vigi as all the kits, apart from old Revell one (I think it's 1/87) are of the RA-5C recce version.

Your prayers might be answered Kit

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/mixvs-minimax-f05-a-5a-vigilante-basic-conversion-set--1415708

[PR19_Kit]

Might be, if I could find where to buy one. Seems they maybe 3D prints.

[Gondor]

Might be, if I could find where to buy one. Seems they maybe 3D prints.

It's also listed as "future release", so it might not appear.

[Spino]

What we really need is a decent conversion for a 'bomber' Vigi as all the kits, apart from old Revell one (I think it's 1/87) are of the RA-5C recce version.

Well technically this kit could be built as a "bomber" Vigi.  All you'd have to do is omit the belly fairing that houses all the recce gear and you'd basically have an A-5B (though they only made one or two of those if my information is correct). 

[Spino]

Just to put into perspective how big the Vigilante actually is (particularly in terms of wing size), I pulled some 3D-printed missiles out of my spares box.  And yep, those are AIM-174B Gunslingers!  And they actually aren't all that big on the Vigilante.  Imagine if this thing was still around, it would probably be a better platform for carrying those ludicrously big missiles than the Super Hornet!  You could easily get two more of them by adding a pair of wing pylons in between the two existing sets, and I may end up doing just that (though not for AIM-174s). 

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Just to be absolutely clear, all these missiles are dry-fitted and won't be part of the final loadout 

I'm currently looking at four AGM-123 Skipper IIs, two AIM-9s of some variety (either H or L most likely), and maybe a pair of AGM-84s or AGM-65s, and possibly a pair of Aero 1D drop tanks.