Each year at the
Flying Legends airshow at Duxford in Cambridgeshire there are a couple of de
Havilland Dragon Rapides giving joyrides to the public before and after the
airshow. These wonderful aircraft represent a golden age in
commercial aviation - a period that unfortunately is not well served
in kit form. For de Havilland aircraft fans there is the
1:72 Dragon Rapide kit by Heller and 1:72 resin kits of the Dragon and Dragonfly
by Rug Rat Resins but the only 1:48 scale kit that I am aware of is the Aeroclub
mixed media kit of the Dragon Rapide. I recall reading somewhere that 1:72
is the Gentleman's scale, however that presumably refers to Gentlemen with
particularly good eyesight, which counts me out. I will stick with 1:48,
especially when it comes to rigging a bi-plane - of which this is my first
attempt.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
The Aeroclub kit
(sadly now out of production) is a mix of vac-formed, low pressure injection
moulded and white metal parts. The fuselage halves, seats, instrument
panel and cockpit glazing are provided in a single vac-formed sheet, with the
main wings, engine nacelles, mainwheels, tailplanes and rudder supplied in
injection moulded form. The left and right upper and lower wings are
provided as single moulded parts which makes clean-up very easy - no messing
around trying to get thin trailing edges! The cockpit controls,
props, tailwheel and outer wing struts are cast in white metal and Aeroclub
supply several sizes of aerofoil section plastic strutting (presumably
ex-Contrail) for you to fashion the remaining wing and tailplane struts.
The kit decal sheet provides markings for a silver and blue civilian
"Island Air Services" aircraft and an all-silver Royal Navy "Dominie".
The vac-formed parts were
separated from the backing sheet, sanded and cleaned up in the usual fashion.
The Aeroclub instructions illustrate a typical passenger seat complete with
triangulated framing but suggest a simplified plastic block support. I
decided to try and replicate the framing using soft steel wire and the Aeroclub
vacuum formed seats. Cushions and arm rest padding were made from the vac-form
backing sheet. The seats were super glued to the vac-formed floor and the
vac-formed front and rear bulkheads attached along with a plastic card cabin
roof to complete the interior. The roof hides the reinforcement that I
provided to the upper wing connections. The passenger cabin windows
are formed solid but slightly raised from the fuselage sides - I
drilled out the window corners and cut out the windows leaving about 0.5mm
of the raised element behind to form a "frame". The interior was
brush painted before fixing to the fuselage as were the inside and outside
of each fuselage half. The window frames were masked and painted silver
and then each window was individually glazed using the clear plastic sheet
supplied by Aeroclub. I used Micro Crystal Clear diluted with water to
secure the glazing. The interior was fitted to the left fuselage half and
then the halves were joined. After the glue had cured I sanded the seams
and brush applied several coats of Humbrol No.25 "Blue" to the
roof and base. A few coats of Johnson's Clear turned the matt finish to
gloss. Pre-painting and glazing the fuselage halves proved much easier
than attempting the process after assembly.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
The wings were prepared
separately, with the engine nacelles glued and filled and then the whole spray
paintedH alfords "Rover Metallic Silver". The nacelles were then masked
and painted Humbrol Blue, following which holes were drilled in each wing
for the rigging. I used photographs on Airliners.net
and in the Dragon Rapide article in the October 2001 issue of Scale Aircraft
Modelling as a reference for this, and only broke one drill bit doing this, which
is a record for me! The struts were cut to length and painted - where
practical I reinforced the strut to wing connection with short lengths of steel
rod (cut from sewing pins). The kit wing and tailplane to fuselage joints
are just butt fit so I reinforced them with lengths of steel wire passing right
through the fuselage and embedded about 10-12mm into each wing root.
The wings were super-glued to the fuselage, lower wings first, then the struts
and then the upper wings. The upper wing to fuselage joint was filled and
then the whole was left for a day to cure. The filled joints were then
sanded, more coats of paint and Johnson's Clear applied and then the model was
left for a further day.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
|
The
rigging process was surprisingly straightforward. I used lengths of
stretched sprue secured with superglue into the pre-drilled holes in the lower
wings and then (after the glue had cured) drawn through the holes in the upper
wing (which were full depth), drawn taught and secured with Tamiya tape.
The upper wing holes were filled with superglue and the model left to cure for
24 hours. The excess rigging was sliced away from the upper wing and the
wing sanded and brush painted with Humbrol Metalcote Aluminium, brushing across
the wings front to back. Props and scratch built control surface mass
balances were then added to complete the job.
To end I thought I
might share a couple of stories related to me by a friend of mine who inhabits a
GA forum called PPrune. These concern a somewhat unorthodox pilot who flew
Dragon Rapides on the services around the Scottish Highlands and
Islands. On one occasion the pilot dressed as a Scottish Laird, complete
with plus fours etc. and boarded with the passengers. Waiting with them
for the, as they thought, late pilot he began muttering and harrumphing and
then stated in a loud voice that he had read about flying in a magazine and that
it seemed quite straightforward and that as the pilot had not turned up he was
going to fly the aircraft. With that he marched up front, started
the aircraft and taxied off. The passengers, response is not recorded!
On another occasion the same pilot entered the aircraft, after the passengers
had boarded, sporting dark glasses and a white stick. He proceeded to make
his way to the cockpit using the white stick to guide him and disappeared behind
the front bulkhead. A
few seconds later a sign appeared from behind the bulkhead which read
"Blind Flying Today". Again the passengers' response is not
recorded!
Darius
|
|