The British answer to the SR-71....

[scautomoton]

Now I know I've told some of you that I was going to pull a couple from the stash for my next builds, and in a way, I sort of have. You see, I bought a 1/72 3d printed Avro 730 from some chap off The Book of Face, and, well, its garbage. I threw it in the bin because I knew I could do a much better job. So, in a roundabout sort of way, I am knocking The Stash down here. If you squint really hard, stick your fingers in your ears and shout la-la-la-la-la really loud then my logic works.

Anyhoo. Avro 730. Yes. Now, the kit was of the latter proposal to RB.156T. So the chunkier fuselage and mid-wing nacelles with 4 engines each. As well as the obvious S&M and Fantastic Plastic offerings in 1/144, I have seen one done recently on BM Forums in 1/72 (in NMF too, top effort). So I decided to go for the initial submission to R.156T, without the bomber capability.

Now, in order to try to rattle through this and genuinelly start a couple of real kits I decided to keep it simple. In flight, wheels up, periscope not extended, and no posed flaps. The only nod to detailing will be a Lightning pitot. Oh all right I did do the 6 engines too. And a stand, since my pack of Airfix ones are way too small. So I drew up a snazzy pointed thing with a gracefully curved arm (darling) and a channel that the low fuselage just rests in (for easy transport).



In general it wasn't too painful to draw, with the exception of the area around the front canards where there needed to be a flat mounting surface at the exact same point where the double bubble cross-section translates to the circular section of the nose cone. A couple of tedious evening were spent across multiple attempts to get it cock-on, and it'll do. Namely because its at the point of diminishing returns, and also because you can't really see the errors that are left.

Now, total length is just shy of 700mm, or a little under 28" for those of another persuasion.

Thus far, I have printed, glued, filled, rescribed some errors, primed, rescribed more errors, re-primed, sanded, and given it a panel line pre-wash. Engine nacelles are painted internally, assembled, and then all of the aforementioned steps also undertaken. Maybe with more filling and re-scribing of the joins.



Next step is to go and buy some gloss white paint since I don't have enough left, and what I have is starting to yellow. Handily, I have oodles of low viz decals, and I've identified some serial number gaps I can use (depending what letters and numbers I actually have). I also need to polish the life out of the stand so I can paint it chrome.

What I don't know yet is which squadron could possibly have operated these in ~1960-63. I have a set of AirDecal Anti-Flash Victor decals which covers Squadrons 10, 15, 55, 57, 100 and 139. So I'll do a bit of digging into them and see which is most feasible.

[buzzbomb]

Slick,

Clear influences on design with this for other projects, or the other way around.

[Andrew Gorman]

That IS a snazzy pointed thing. And large too.

[perttime]

Oh... another weird and wonderful British might-have-been   

[Dizzyfugu]

OMG, that's HUGE! 

[McColm]

Looking good, which reminds me to finish off the 1/72 BAC Sledge.

[kitbasher]

Makes Fireball XL5 look positively Victorian!

[Weaver]

Nice one!

Now the thing I've always really, REALLY fancied is the English Electric P.10 (the one with ramjet wings).

[scautomoton]

Nice one!

Now the thing I've always really, REALLY fancied is the English Electric P.10 (the one with ramjet wings).

Tis on my list....

[zenrat]

Noice.   

[killnoizer]

Very good 

[63cpe]

Oh, thats a handsome bird there sir. I like that!

Might copy your idea..

David aka 63CPE