Ouch!

I haven't been able to update this for a few weeks due to a trapped nerve in my upper back... it made doing pretty much anything very painful.  The nerve is now free and I am mostly back to normal.  My right arm still hurts quite a lot, but it's getting better... the muscles feel like they've had cramp for all that time.

Hopefully should be back to modelling in a few days.

WASP Arrowhead Fighter - Part 4

While I wait for the weekend to do some more work to the model, I thought I would upload some screen captures of the Arrowhead as it appeared in "Stingray".

This is a nice profile shot of the aircraft:

Under the rear-mounted wings is what appears to be a structure, such as air-intakes for the atomic rocket engine, but no.  What the modellers did was to glue the entire wing sub-assembly (wings and central fuselage with wheel wells/doors under the tail.

This is a nice shot showing the markings and the white/black diced band on the wings.  You can also see the yellow tip to the very dark grey 'missile' - in actual fact the belly-mounted fuel tank.  The cockpit canopy is missing because Troy Tempest (flying to save Phones, Marina and Lt Fisher trapped from a crippled Stingray) has just ejected.

An unfortunate shot here, as you can clearly see the hollow underside of the wing centre-section behind the tail, and the gaps where the wings don't meet the fuselage.  Had I gone the route of an accurate studio-scale model (using either large scale Aurora or Hawk models) I would have one very naff model!
You can also see that the diced band is only on one wing... the model was only finished on one side for filing.  Well, I suppose it saved time...

Here's Troy at the controls... as you can see the instrument shroud is dark blue-grey and there's this weird white thing on top... possibly a radar or gunsight.  The mesh texture on the rear panel is nice, and I can recreate that.  The seat is silver with blue cushions and head rest.  Nice.

Finally, the beast prior to take off... this just looks ungainly...

My model will be less like the actual prop, and more like what the real aircraft would have been like - so finished on both sides, no gaps in wing roots and certainly no exposed hollow sections of the model.

Next update should be the cockpit interior and the painted pilot/chair.

WASP Arrowhead Fighter - Part 3

Just a brief update today.

I decided to go with a normal Airfix pilot, but I'm going with a Revell Scorpion's ejector seat.  It doesn't look like a modern seat and has a wonderfully retro look to it.

So I'll make up the cockpit interior, paint it up and then paint up the pilot and seat.

Incidentally, I decided NOT to go with placing the air intakes under the tail.  I can't find a reference for their position, and they looked silly anyway.  I have the "Stingray" DVD box set on the way from Amazon, so I will pay close attention to any of these which grace the screen... Stand by on Pause Button!

While looking through my Stingray annuals, I came across this full-page illustration in the 1966 annual (for 1967)...

Interestingly it isn't called an Arrowhead fighter, it's called a Mercury, and has VTOL capability.
Er... how?
Anyway, nice to see that they featured in one of the annuals at least.

Fun with bits

Back in the 1960s the APF and Century 21 special effects teams under Derek Meddings would construct background (and even star) models from assorted model parts.  The most popular items for background dressing seem to have been the Airfix (now Dapol) OO/HO model railway structures.  

So, since I intend to photograph my models in appropriate settings I decided to start building some background models.

This is a non-descript building with a helipad on the roof.  I built it to 1/350 scale to match the Imai accurate Thunderbird 2 and the F-Toys TB1.  It will also be in the background of larger scale models, giving the impression of distance.

I built this from the flat sections in the Dapol girder bridge, a couple of supports and plasticard.  Detailing was in the form of some Gundam parts, a pair B-58 Hustler landing gear supports and a spare dish from the Round 2 1/1000 USS Enterprise.  Some plastic strip was also added.

It will be painted in various grey hues.

WASP Arrowhead Fighter - part 2

I have sanded all of the filler down and attached the wings and canards to the aircraft... now it's starting to look like something.  I still have some filling at the wing roots to do, and tidy up the canards but as far as the conversion goes that's it.

Some people build this model with the air intakes moved from the sides to under the tail... I'm not sure why.
In this photo from a TV21 cover you can see there IS something under the tail, but it's the centre section from the wing assembly.

Like the smaller Airfix kit the Aurora model had the wings attached to the centre piece.
I could have done this but I felt it was clumsy, and not really showing the plane off to it's best advantage.  So I will attach the intakes under the tail.

So here is the Arrowhead as she is at the moment:

Since I'm building an in-flight model I need a pilot... I will be using a later Airfix helicopter pilot with an old Frog pilot's head.  The seat is from my spares... I think it's from the Airfix Buccaneer.

I still need to build a basic tub and side consoles but that's a fairly painless job... after the filling and sanding on this relic that'll be a pleasure!

To be continued...