"Give us an easy one, Bambi! You big bottom boil!"

Thought I'd start a new thread for this as it's clogging my Mosquito blog, which I'm keeping for RW Mosquitoes, not whiffer.

So, this is going to be a Sea Hornet.  Not just any Sea Hornet, but one of the proposed ones carrying Highball.  Now I've been fascinated by the Highball Mosquitoes ever since I first saw "Mosquito Squadron" back in 1982 and I've quite a few of those, but a Highball Hornet?

Yes, it turns out there was at least one, although three were ordered.  Sea Hornet PX219 was delivered to Hatfield for conversion to carry Highball 2 in April 1948, under the Vickers Type 592 designation (which also covered installation in the Westland Wyvern and Short Sturgeon too).  There's a photo of PX219, but well before it got it's Highball gear.  It eventually became a maintenance airframe.  There's a side view in the Buttler/Collins/Derry book on the Hornet and I've long wanted to have a go, and given the breakdown of the Skybirds kit I've long thought that it'd be the best basis to start from.  I'll also confess that it was an online conversation with TsrJoe that made me look at this project again.  So it's entirely his fault.  I really just wanted to play with Mosquitoes, and real ones at that.

But this won't be PX219.  I'll be doing an in service one, in the Extra Dark Sea Grey over Sky scheme, with the high demarcation and Type D markings. 

I'm not going to bore you with shots of the kit, because I don't have them.  This is one I'd part started cleaning up last year but abandoned as it would be too much work when I already had Mosquitoes coming out of my ears.  For some reason, it'd never gone back into the loft and was thus to hand after the conversation with Joe.  Unlucky for me that is.

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This is the drawing from the Hornet book.  It shows the location of the two Highballs and the vertical datum is handily where the wing spar is, so the weapon bay is behind it. The pilot's armoured bulkhead is bolted directly to it so it's fairly easy to line everything up.

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Having determined where the bay goes, I've had to carve out a channel into the Skybirds fuselage.  Thankfully, it's fairly thick plastic, but it's hard stuff to work with.  Curiously, there's a mark inside the fuselage which helped, although I doubt Mike Eacock designed the kit in the 1980s to fit a resin conversion piece from 25 years in the future to follow a drawing that was yet to be discovered.  Still, stranger things have happened.

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Early days.  I'd started carving out the channel to take the resin bay, but it needs a lot more work - you can see by just how wide that chasm is between the fuselage halves.  Behind it, the taped up port wing.  Not sure if this is before or after I started trimming the location stub.

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Although taped up, this shows some progress with the fuselage.  The resin bay is snugly in place, although this is the stunt one used for proof of concept.  I found a better one lurking in a spares box. The side view shows the bay through the location slot for the wing tabs.  They really needed cutting right down to nigh on invisible to allow for clearance.  The channel in the top of the fuselage is already in the kit, intended for the tail fin.  This needed deepening.

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The wings.  These had needed significant sanding to ensure that there was no step on the trailing edge and the join line there is a right sod to eliminate.  Lots of filler, sanding, priming, superglue and more sanding would see it gone.  But this is further in the future.

I've not photographed several tedious steps, mainly the engine nacelle assembly, adding it to the wing, the endless FSR on them, describing, nor the repeated sand - fit - tweak - sand more on the tail fin, or the fuselage glued together, because I simply forgot.  So we jump, as if by magic to here.

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That's the cockpit internals in place, and Skybirds didn't give you much, although what you did get what beautifully cast and detailed white metal.  I've yet to see a better instrument panel in injection, the seat fits perfectly to the bulkhead (the straps are painted tape) and there's just the stick to go in.  Anything more, given that's it's all painted black, is a waste.

On to part the second...

"Yeah! I have the same problem with fleas. You see, without my spectacles, fleas and bits are almost identical. Not that a flea is going to be wearing my spectacles."

We pull back from the cockpit to see an assembled fuselage in all her glory.

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This is after significant sanding to get the nose flush with the separate nosecone and I've yet to fit the tail fin proper.  It's just push fitted here.  All the filler work is confined to underneath.

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Given that the Highballs are where the guns go, the ports needed filling, plus the lower section doesn't quite fit and needed blending in.  It's a single piece from the nose to aft of the wing (there's a hatch scribed in) but I've roughly cut out where the Highball bay goes.  Not accurately enough for the frontispiece, but that's what filler is for.

It got a lot more sanding, before we got to here.

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Yes, the wings and tailplanes are on.  The starboard wing needed some shims to get the angle right, plus plenty of filler for the resultant yawning chasm.  Again, a lot of cutting and sanding were required to get the tailplanes to fit their location slots.  There's some reprofiling needed on the rear fuselage fillet there too, but I'll get some primer on that first.

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And underneath.  Not quite as much filling to do here, although the area around the radiator flaps is tricky.

So we come to the fairing around the Highball bay, and this is where it gets a bit...murky.  On the Highball Mosquito, you can assemble the fuselage, fit the bay and fairing and once it's all done, then you fit the wings.  Well, if you've any sense you do.  But as the Hornet has the wing lower, I've had to button everything else up first before fitting the bay fairing.  Which is okay, I've known that since I started.  The Hornet is a lot slimmer than the Mosquito, so I thought about bodging the fairing from an old Aeroclub Mosquito B35 bomb bay.  So I gave it a go.

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Hmmm.  It was okay in width, but too long and just flopped about a bit.  I trimmed it down and dug out a resin piece for the back but test fitting showed that it wasn't going to work.  And so I dug out a badly cast copy of the Paragon Mosquito fairing and cleaned it up.  Still too wide, certainly too deep, so the sides were trimmed down, sorting out some of the poor casting.  Hmmm, still not a bad fit but too wide, so I took a slice out of the middle.

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It'll need a bit of filler, probably superglue, so I'll give it a coat of primer first before going any further.

So it got test fitted to the Hornet, and we get to this.

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That's just blue tacked in place for now, but it may need a bit more trimming at the back so it doesn't interfere with the flaps.

The next task will be to give it a coat of primer.

Really happy with it so far.  It's actually been a lot easier than I thought.  Well, the conversion anyway.

Looking forward to this Lee 

"Look. Nobody's fed Special Patrol Group, have they?"

Now with added primer!

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There's a few areas that need a smidge of filler, although the fairing around the bay will need a lot of work.  That's got a lot of air bubbles that need fixing before it goes on.

"This is a pub, they don't do coffee!"

Well, it had to go on at some point.  And then lots of filler copiously applied.

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The first lot is partway through being sanded down, but I'll know better once its had another coat of primer in the morning.  It needs it near the tail where I'd fixed the trailing edge fillet.  At this rate, I may well have it finished for Bolton - given that the temperature is about to rise somewhat, spraying in the shed could be a bit more comfortable than getting frostbite. 

I need to start looking at the props.  I've got one cleaned up and I'll need to do the other, but the spinners are not an easy fit - the prop boss needs judicious sanding to get it to fit.  I have cleaned up the doors and the wheels, so the hubs will get done tomorrow and I'll give the doors a coat of primer.

Very cool. Coming along nicely !

Any idea how much that fairing would have affected the Hornet's performance Lee ?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Sadly, as it's now firmly glued on, I can't test fit it on a Frog/Novo one as I'm tempted with another...

Whilst looking for colour schemes, I discovered a drawing in the Richard Franks Valiant Wings book on the Hornet.  And it's wrong.  He's gone, quite logically, with a Mosquito style fairing but has went with an F.1 fin, yet photos of PX219 show it with the fillet, and that's just after it was rolled out.  How much else in that book is complete bollards?  Given his track record with the Mosquito books... probably quite a lot.  Thankfully, I've got the Tony Buttler Warpaint,  his tome on the Hornet co written with Hornet authority David Collins and the George Cooper Hornet File, so I've far better references.

Fair bit of work done quickly. Looks very good Lee, nice to see the Hornet in a different role, I've always seen it as a thoroughbred.

It's on the last few smidges of filler.  One more coat of primer and I can get some paint on it. Although the weather needs to warm up first.  I have a backlog of Mosquitoes that need paint too.

It's not the first time I've given the Hornet a different role.  I've done a Banff Strike Wing one (that's old, 2001) and I did a torpedo strike Sea Hornet in 2017 (although it had stalled at the primer stage in 2010).  I've plenty of Frog/Novo ones to whiff, the stash of Skybirds ones are likely to be real ones.

I remember the torpedo Hornet.

"Look, it must be my bedroom. All my clothes are here."

Calling it.  Time for paint proper.

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Plus the props, wheels and u/c doors are all ready to prime too.  Not looking forward to the props.

Quote from: Mossie on January 10, 2026, 04:09:04 AMI've always seen it as a thoroughbred.

As have I Mossie, lovely aeroplane

Looking good.
 

"Who can tell?"

Minor update time.  I'm finally happy enough with the upper surface colour to start masking it to spray the Sky and I'll do the u/c doors at the same time.  I've also grouted out the canopy rails - Skybirds designed the canopy to sit in the grooves to hold it in place.  It's not a perfect fit, not helped by my hamfistedness when carving out said channels.  I also scratched the paint, so I had to give it another coat.

The props are also primed.  Yellow tips tomorrow, mask and spray the black.