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
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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:
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.
As
with the CD’s above, I recommend that you purchase this book, it is the TSR.2
Bible!!
Various
articles from:-
Stewart
Click on
images below to see larger images
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