1/48 Sanger Vacform BAC TSR.2

by Stewart Griffiths on July 16 2003

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This is my build description of Sanger’s dreadful 1:48th scale BAC TSR.2.  Well at least it was Sanger’s kit to start with, but by the time I had sorted most of it out, it could almost qualify for re-titling to scratch built! 

History: 

I will restrain myself and not stand on my soapbox to tell you the political misfortunes this plane went through before finally being cancelled.  But suffice to say that at the time, the BAC TSR.2 was the most technically advanced aircraft in the world and was years a head of its time.  It was, unfortunately, cancelled (after only one prototype had flown) and by an ill informed government, with an inadequate technical understanding of this aircraft and one set only on destroying Britain’s aircraft industry. 

Anyway, enough of all that, onto modeling!!…………

Building the kit: 

I have always had a love for this aircraft and I have always wanted to build a decent sized version of it.  However, funds were a little limited so I opted for Sanger’s kit over Dynavector's kit….  A mistake I would soon begin to realize. 

Having laid the parts out on the bench before me, I quickly decided that I wanted to display the aircraft with as much detail as possible.  This stemmed from the excitement of finally building one, the challenge of adding the detail and the need to hide, or distract from the kits unfortunate poor quality. 

Having cut out the upper and lower halves of the long fuselage, I decided to start constructing the weapons bay.  Armed with the pictures on the computer (Enygma Graphics superb TSR.2 CD’s) I faithfully reconstructed the bay area with plasticard and parts from the spares box.  The model is finished with the weapons bay open and empty, although both XR219 and XR220 had test equipment fitted in there on a removable pallet.  I will hopefully build this later on and perhaps depict it on a trolley next to the finished model.  After completing that, I turned to the landing gear bays.  The actual aircraft’s main landing gear bays are huge, but I didn’t want to show them “fully” open, so minimal detailing was added, simply because you can’t see in there once the main gear is in place.  The nose gear bays were made from squaring off the left/right main gear bays from a Tornado and gluing together, although the forward end of the nose wheel bay was scratch built. 

After that, the four (2 upper, 2 lower) airbrake housings were cut out and the basic shapes added.  I had to enlarge the lower airbrake housings at a later date as I felt that they were too small.  Their individual detailing came later on and after most painting was complete. 

The cockpit basics were added to the upper and lower fuselage halves prior to bonding the two parts together.  I had to use many tabs and stiffening webs to keep the shape of the fuselage and it made life quite difficult.  In hindsight, it might have been better to separate the forward fuselage and aft fuselage, as this would have made it easier to correct some of the initial build problems encountered.  Having done that, I began work on the intakes; I butchered the engine covers off an old 1:48th scale A-10, as they were roughly the right diameter, but it still required some major surgery.  The splitter plates and cone proved difficult to put in, I’m not sure why, it just did and I have never really felt totally satisfied with that area. 

The forward fuselage around the cockpits and nose cone was another feature point that bugged me.  I tried in vane to sort out the correct look for that area.  Despite some major plastic hacking, surgery and filler, I never really solved it, which is another reason why various detail parts were added in an attempt to disguise the shape.  That said my efforts were a damn site better than that of the kits original profile. 

The ejection seats were bought from Airwaves and are extremely good and superbly detailed.  The cockpit was scratch built, although I did use the cockpit tub from a 1:48th Tornado and various Reheat instrument bezels/switches, and parts from the spares box etc.  The canopies proved difficult to fit too, mainly as a result of the poor fuselage shape and my hacking.  As a result, I ended manufacturing my own Aft/Fwd canopy and windshield.  Sometimes, you just have to compromise.  I am still not happy with them and will (when time is on my side) remake these both canopies. 

The upper parts of the kit wings were used, but I used plasticard to manufacture the bottom half as well as the characteristic down-turned wingtips.  The flaps were manufactured from the wings of a 1:72nd Tornado.  Once the wings were glued to the fuselage, the filler came out……………. much filler in fact!  Days may have passed, or maybe even weeks of filling and sanding.  After this, I sprayed it all in auto primer, more to show up any bad areas than anything else.  It did of course, but surprisingly not as much as I had expected. 

The model was finally beginning to look like the real thing, so onto the landing gear.  The kit provides metal components for these, although I really couldn’t see any resemblance to a landing gear strut, let alone one from the TSR.2!!  So scratch building it was.  The nose gear was straightforward and reasonably easy to do.  The main landing gear however, was a little trickier.  Why I thought it would be easy to build them at scale, when they had problems with it in real life I don’t know.  It is a difficult set up to recreate and scratch-build and especially when the aircraft (Heavy at that) will have to sit on them.  At the 2002 IPMS Nationals in Telford, England, there were a number of TSR.2’s in various guises suffering from landing gear problems.  It was something that I didn’t wish to happen to mine.  To that end, I inserted various metal pins inside the plastic struts and bogey units to prevent this.  The main wheels came from a B-52, although a little smaller than I had hoped, they were the best I had and with some extra detail would look the part.  The nose wheels came from the main landing gear of a 1:48th scale Tornado and required only a little adjustment.  The landing gear, incidentally, wasn’t added until much later. 

Whilst at the show, I found a company selling Noblekraft products.  But more importantly, a resin TSR.2 Equipment Bay in 1:48th, I could hardly control my excitement.  After all, it saved me having to scratch build them……so I bought two, one for each side! (The Starboard side needed some layout adjustment inside, as it is different to the port bay)  Having put them in place, I decided in a moment of madness to open up a couple more panels.  These were the equipment bay in front of the weapons bay, but aft of the Nose Wheel bay and the port side gearbox access hatch to the rear of the aircraft.  I strangely enjoyed detailing these bays……. worrying really, I mean, it wasn’t like I hadn’t enough to do already!! 

My attention was now drawn towards the tail-planes.  I looked at the kit offerings and even went as far as cutting them out, but we still had a no-go for launch, it was going to be quicker to scratch build them than try to correct the ones I had.  So that’s what I did, although I have to confess to rummaging in the spares box to see if there was a pair of wings big enough to hack to shape!  The Tailfin used was in fact the original kit offering, but it did take some effort to shape it correctly.  I was very happy with the end result though. 

All the doors and similar items were made from plasticard and some bits from the spares box.  Various ports and antenna were either opened up or depicted using left over brass frets and plasticard.  All of the panel lines were scribed on.  I was going to say re-scribed, but the ones on the kit worked out to be about 3 inches scale width and very faint!! 

The jet pipes on the TSR.2 are very large and long, even at 1:48th scale.  Originally I was going to use sections of unused fuel tanks but I couldn’t find one of the correct diameter and length.  I had tried to make a pair of jet-pipes from plasticard, but the result wasn’t too good.  I ended up having the jet pipes turned out of aluminium tubing and look just the part now.  Although the jet-pipes are long and anything at the far end of them would not be seen, I still wanted something down there.  The only thing I could find to fit, were a pair of Tornado Afterburner Cans…………..so in they went!  You can’t see them, but they are there nonetheless. 

Click on images below to see larger images

Painting and Marking:  

When it comes to authentically painting the TSR.2, you really do have little choice.  All the prototype aircraft were painted in Anti-Flash white and if you want another “true” type colour scheme, then the primer paint scheme, as seen at the factory, is really the only other choice.  I used auto paint for the priming and also the colour, I had an appropriate white already and it was as good as any. 

For the marking of the aircraft, again you have little choice, although slightly more choices than the colour scheme!  At the time of cancellation there were only 2 prototypes fully complete, of which only one had flown – XR219.  I chose to depict my model as this aircraft for that reason, although it no longer survives, unlike the second prototype XR220 that now resides at the RAF Museum, Cosford.  For those who wish to depict XR220, don’t forget to add the camera bumps on the aircraft as XR219 never had these.  XR220 also had the revised landing gear intended to cure the problems encountered during XR219’s flight-testing. 

I was fortunate enough to acquire a set of decals from a Dynavector kit (you don’t get any with the Sanger kit or at least I didn’t!).  They were worth their weight in gold!  The decal options are for XR219 and XR220, although if you wish to depict TSR.2 XR222 at the Imperial War Museum - Duxford, then I guess you can easily do this by rearranging the serial numbers. 

So here we are, my TSR.2, complete with some problem areas, but still good enough for my liking, which at the end of the day, is all that matters.

General Notes: 

There are only two surviving examples of the TSR.2, XR220 at Cosford Air Museum and XR222 at the IWM at Duxford.  XR219 was the only TSR.2 to fly, yet it was put at the end of a firing range at Shoeburyness and used to test new projectile weapons and was literally shot to bits and what remained eventually scrapped.  There is also a forward cockpit section at Brooklands Museum and various artifacts about the country, but that is pretty much all that now survives of this technically advanced and brilliant aircraft. 

And finally….. 

As a footnote, I was very fortunate to be given (As a 30th birthday present) the Dynavector 1:48th TSR.2.  The kit is vacform again, but looks so much easier to build than the Sanger kit.  It comes with finely engraved panel lines and excellent metal parts for the landing gear, cockpit and various details.   As I have depicted the Sanger kit as XR219, then I guess it would be fitting to depict this kit as XR220.  There are also subtle differences between these two aircraft that make them “individual” and I am very much looking forward to building this kit.  However, this time, I intend to show the clean and beautiful lines of the TSR.2 and not quite so much detailing!

Kits and Components:

  • Sanger         Vacform        1:48th                      BAC TSR.2.                 1 off

  • Airwaves        Resin           1:48th              TSR.2 Ejection Seats          2 off.

  • Reheat        Etch Brass      1:48th              Instrument Bezels fret         1 off.

  • Reheat        Etch Brass       1:48th                Switches fret                     1 off.

  • Noblekraft      Resin             1:48th              TSR.2 Equipment Bays      2 off.

  • The Spares Box.

  • Although strictly coming under the Spares Box title, I thought it worthy of mention that I used extensive spares reclamation from a scrapped Italeri 1:48th Tornado F.3.  It provided many parts, albeit modified, for my TSR.2.  Some visible, some partially visible and others in the depths of the fuselage used for structural work.

 References:  

  • Enygma Graphics CD Pictorial History of the BAC TSR.2.

  • Enygma Graphics CD Pictorial Detailed History of the BAC TSR.2.

I strongly recommend (for anyone) that you purchase a copy of these CD’s.  The wealth of pictorial information contained within them is staggering and excellent reference for making an accurate TSR.2.  Even if you buy them just for reference, then you won’t be disappointed. 

  • TSR-2 Phoenix or Foley – Frank Barnett Jones

As with the CD’s above, I recommend that you purchase this book, it is the TSR.2 Bible!! 
  • Wings of Fame Vol.4

Various articles from:-

  • Aeroplane Monthly.

  • Aircraft Illustrated.

  • Air Enthusiast.

  • Air Pictorial.

  • Flypast.

  • Take Off No.11.

  • Damien Burkes excellent website www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk

  • Mr. Tony Hewitt for providing me with so much information.

 Stewart

Click on images below to see larger images

Photos and text © by Stewart Griffiths