The Sound and the Fury - The Ultimate Hawker prop fighter

[NARSES2]

"You're a braver man the I Gunga Din"   

Tremendous kit bashing and commentary on the progress Lee   

[The Wooksta!]

"Well, of course you hate it, Neil, it's not finished yet!"

I've had another look at that drawing Dave sent me.  There's a discrepancy between the length of the fuselage in the side view and top view.  From the tip of the spinner to the and of the rudder, it's 168mm on the top view, which agrees with my back of a fag packet scale conversion, so I think that's about right and is what I've gone off for the fuselage build.  But the top view is 171.5mm in length, a 3.5mm discrepancy.  So I checked the span.  P.1030 has a span of 42ft, 6 ft to the inch for 72nd = 7inches x 25 for mm gets 175mm.  The span on the top view is 178mm. 
Then I took a look at the chord.  From the main spar line to the trailing edge, it's 35mm.  Take out that 2-3mm discrepancy and you get 33mm which is the distance from that spar line to the trailing edge in 72nd.

So, nothing lines up properly, because of the discrepancy in the drawings. The P,1030 wing is exactly what I've always thought it was - a Tempest wing with the leading edge extended and the span increased slightly outboard. So everything I did yesterday was for absolutely fecking nothing...  And this means that the tailplanes are likely normal Sea Fury ones.  Thankfully, I didn't start cutting the longer ones down.

Time to find that spare Heller wing.  Or I do the unthinkable and try to undo everything I did yesterday.

See which method I employ in part two...

[PR19_Kit]

That difference in scale between side and plan views is remarkably common with all 'scale drawings' I find, and many are asymmetrical where the real things aren't as well.

Some 'artists' just aren't careful enough with their product. 

[kitbasher]

Yeah, I spotted the fuselage length issue myself.  In amongst the recent (19/20 Feb) emails is an overlay of the fuselage side view over the plan view.

My conversion calculator says 7" equals 177.8 mm.

Checked against 3 other calculators and got the same.

Formula is inches value multiplied by 25.4.

mm

[The Wooksta!]

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

So, if the top view span is correct, then is the chord? Because the side view matches the SH Sea Fury length from firewall to rudder post bang on (edit: I forgot about that bloody 2ft plug before the tail...Bloody, bloody, bloody!) and without that extra 2-3mm in the top view, a standard Tempest wing fits from the spar line to trailing edge. Making the wing wider, especially in a war situation when you want production to run smoothly, just feels counter intuitive and against the small increments that Hawker always went with.

So, I've spent a tedious afternoon trying to unpick what was done yesterday.

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I cut and snapped off the trailing section and carved out the plastic I'd used to fill it.  It'll get glued back together later but right now, I'm feeling very disheartened.

[kitbasher]

I've assumed the span and chord in the plan view is correct (but not the fuselage length), and the fuselage length in the side view to be correct.  Whichis what led me to believe the slightly inaccurate Revell Tempest wing was worth hacking up (see post at https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?msg=1107227).

There are span and chord differences with the Tempest wing, and for what it's worth I think you're on the right track with the surgery needed for the 178mm scale wing, Lee.

[Gondor]

I've assumed the span and chord in the plan view is correct (but not the fuselage length), and the fuselage length in the side view to be correct.  Whichis what led me to believe the slightly inaccurate Revell Tempest wing was worth hacking up (see post at https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?msg=1107227).

There are span and chord differences with the Tempest wing, and for what it's worth I think you're on the right track with the surgery needed for the 178mm scale wing, Lee.

If the fuselage length in a drawing that shows the plan view is wrong, it is likely that the chord of the wing in the same drawing is also wrong. If, however, the side on drawing is correct for its length, then the chord of the wing should also be correct. If this does not hold true, then the drawings are totaly screwd up.

Thanks to this build thread, I now have a PM Sea Fury and two SH kits bought.

[The Wooksta!]

"But I don't understand. How? Was she unconscious?"

I've assumed the span and chord in the plan view is correct (but not the fuselage length), and the fuselage length in the side view to be correct.  Whichis what led me to believe the slightly inaccurate Revell Tempest wing was worth hacking up (see post at https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?msg=1107227)

If the side view is correct - and the SH Sea Fury fitting bob on indicates it is - then the chord measurement on said side view should be too, and that doesn't agree with the plan view.  The same 2-3mm discrepancy is there too:

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A screenshot of one of the PDFs Dave sent a week or so back, which illustrate the discrepancy.  The additional black lines - the top one is the chord from the radiator leading edge to the flap trailing edge on the side view, the lower one is the same measurement on the plan view.  If the fuselage is correct, then the top one is right.  If the plan view is definitely wrong, which is making more sense to me for various reasons - not least Hawker had the jigs set for Tempest wings, why increase the chord when you don't need to and would need additional tooling in a wartime situation? And add in the incremental Hawker approach - then the tailplane shape is out too, the positioning doesn't agree on the drawing either.

So, because the side view appears to line up more, I'm going with that. After some more faffing about with bits, a standard Tempest wing seems to fit:

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An unmolested Heller wing, with the yellow tape marking the spar line.  As you can see, the trailing edge matches where the flap line is on the fuselage (aft of that is the fillet).

So now I've got to try and get the Airfix wing back together.  I paid good money for that from rapidly dwindling resources, I am NOT wasting it.

Thanks to this build thread, I now have a PM Sea Fury and two SH kits bought.

I shall assume that you want a casting of the engine when I get round to it around Wednesday?  I'm already doing one for Kitbasher.

The SH Fury kit to use for this one is the two seater, on the grounds that it comes with the single seat fuselage, cockpit internals and tailplanes that are unnecessary, so you get the basis of a 1030 free with a two seat sea Fury.  That's where many of the bits for this have been sourced.

[kerick]

Ah now, accurate drawings are the bane of the whiffer!
Perfect is the enemy of good.

[Gondor]

I shall assume that you want a casting of the engine when I get round to it around Wednesday?  I'm already doing one for Kitbasher.

That is very kind of you and yes please. No rush for me to get the part though.

The SH Fury kit to use for this one is the two seater, on the grounds that it comes with the single seat fuselage, cockpit internals and tailplanes that are unnecessary, so you get the basis of a 1030 free with a two seat sea Fury.  That's where many of the bits for this have been sourced.

I am planning on using the PM fuselage for my P.1030. I have a Smer Tempest for the wings already allocated to be part of a P.1030

[PR19_Kit]

You'll be sticking pins in a model of Chris Farara I guess? 

[Gondor]

You'll be sticking pins in a model of Chris Farara I guess? 

A bit pointless, he died in 2024.

[The Wooksta!]

"Neil, is it really necessary to nail the plates to the table?"

Having spent far too seriously long enough by half cleaning up the disaster that was yesterday, the wings have been glued back together.  I'll make a start on the filler work tomorrow, although I did get the leading edge extension on the port wing, this being removed from a Cat.E Academy Tempest wing.

[The Wooksta!]

"I thought so. Look, what are we really doing here? Really?"

Now to make a start on the epic restoration of the wing.

I'd neglected to take the photos after I'd rejoined it or after the first coat of superglue filler went on.  Look, I was very disheartened by the whole debacle and I really couldn't be bothered.  Today is a bit different.  Dave sent some good wishes, which cheered me up a bit.  So I added a second coat of superglue into the joins and liberally dusted with baking soda.  The cheap superglue I'm using cam with a handy thin applicator so I was able to get it right in the joins, so it's nowhere near as messy and my earlier efforts.  I was happy enough with this to invest in some more from Poundland earlier.

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Port wing all tidied up and I've done the sg/bs filler work on the leading edge extension.  You can see the crusty mess on the starboard which is yet to come off.

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Close ups of the port wing.  It's a bit of a mess, but certainly better than it was earlier.

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Underneath, obvs.  I think I'd started cleaning up the starboard wing here.  It certainly looks better.

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Underside of the starboard wing.  Still crusty and at some point the tin plastic core tip has broken off.  However, that's safely to hand and will be refitted later.

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And as it stood about an hour ago.  I've since cleaned up the leading edge for the starboard wing, left over from that Cat.E Tempest wing, although it was glued a tad too well outboard, so I couldn't salvage as much, so I'll build it up with scrap card and the sg/bs combination, which I'll do when I start filling the back of it.

If I was to do this again... Well, I'd ignore that plan view, because although the span is correct, nothing else is.  Others may have different views, which is fine for them, but this is MY model and I'm just going with what feels right to me, and that's the side view, with it's slightly modified Tempest wing.  Anyway...

If I was to do it again, I'd still use the Airfix wing but I'd cut the whole leading edge off along the spar line and put the plug in there, because it's easier than cutting up a second kit for just the leading edge and then attaching it over the top, filling and sanding.. Although if I was to cut one up, I'd be tempted to mould and cast it, using the pouring lug as an attachment point.  So I need some cheap Heller kits, but I knew that anyway.

[The Wooksta!]

"But it says here, Michael look, "Ensure machine is clean, and free from dust"!"

Time to start work on that starboard leading edge.  As with the port, it has a leading edge scavenged from a dead Tempest wing, but it didn't come off cleanly and I lost the tip, which that needs rebuilding.  So I've taken a slightly different approach here, rather than just liberally smear with superglue and dump baking soda on it.  I've built up the gap roughly with thin plastic card, as well as using strips of plastic card behind the extension to live things out.  I'd also reattached the lost think card tip and used offcuts of the strips to lock it in place.

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Top, crusty and ugly.
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And below isn't pretty either.

However, after some work with my favourite heavy duty sanding stick..

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We're getting there.  Still not too pretty, but it's coming on.  A coat of primer to find all the dimples, divots, potholes and craters, but before I get some primer on, I want to make a start on the radiators, so time to deploy the scrap plastic and the ruler.

So, I'm still not entirely happy with the wing, but much happier with it than I was this time yesterday.

I've also done some minor surgery to the fuselage to ensure it sits better over the wing, plus a sink hole on the rudder has been fixed, so that's one bit that I don't have to do any more work on, other than give it a coat of primer, until I go to final assembly.