New Airfix Sea King

Jodie Peeler is back with an inbox evaluation of Airfix's fresh redo of the Sea King for its potential to be converted to a U.S. Navy SH-3. Note that this kit is different in detail and vastly superior to the original, relatively crude Sea Kings from Airfix. The first issue, the HC.4 Commando, featured the stub landing gear, while the sponson-equipped HAR.3 is the subject of the second release. This is the box art you'd be looking for:

Jodie writes:

My quick notion, having worked with it this afternoon: it's the best Sea King in 1:72 I've yet found, and converting it to an SH-3 is going to be easier with it than with any other kit. Airfix has given us a winner.

The kit itself is sharply molded and shows intelligent breakdown and satisfying molded detail. There is no representation of rivets, but panel lines are recessed and nicely defined. The parts are molded in a slightly soft gray plastic that cuts easily, and they are detailed enough inside and out to satisfy most builders. In quick test-fitting, the kit shows the hallmarks of the new-tool kits Airfix gives us these days: the parts go together beautifully and not much filler should be needed, if at all.

This kit is as far removed from the old Airfix Sea King as you can imagine. The HAR.3 has five gray parts trees and one clear parts tree. Certain parts with windows, such as the big starboard side door, are molded in clear plastic. The cockpit greenhouse is made up of three clear parts with appropriately delicate framing - a far cry from the big, clunky cockpit cab of the old kit.

The mushy intakes of the old kit are replaced by sharply rendered individual intake pieces and there's even an ice/spray shield.

Since the kit is based on a Sea King in modern configuration, it includes a lot of features that may need to be removed depending on your intentions. These features include a prominent doubler at the cabin/tail fuselage join, a long strake along the port fuselage aft, and several other raised features. As a Westland-built aircraft, it also includes the bulge on the port fuselage beneath the rotor head; unlike the Cyber-Hobby kit, this is molded in and will need to be ground off, filled, and a couple of panel lines rescribed. For an SH-3, you'll also need to fill in the observers' windows in the aft fuselage and the forward cabin window to port. On the other hand, in places where Cyber-Hobby molded several open mounting holes that need to be filled, Airfix has recesses on the inside of the fuselage where you can drill through as needed, which is much more thoughtful.

The well in the lower fuselage is molded with a cover in place, so that will need to be opened for an SH-3. Actually, the entire lower fuselage piece will need surgery to remove molded-in features and plug some mounting holes; fortunately, the plastic cuts easily, and most of these parts can be shaved right off with only a little finish sanding needed. None of the features of American SH-3s are included in the kit's components, or on the parts trees, so you'll have to scrounge up or scratchbuild the fairing beneath the cockpit and the ADF fairing on the tail. There are also no weapons shackles or mounting points, so you'll have to get creative there.

Like the Revell-Germany kit, the Airfix kit comes with composite rotor blades, which retain a constant chord until an abrupt taper at the root end.

It would not be difficult to modify them into metal blades through careful cutting and sanding, but if you want an easier route, replace them with blades from a Cyber-Hobby or Fujimi kit

 On the other hand, Airfix provides both five and six-blade tail rotors. You also get options for a folded tail and stowed main rotor blades, although the outboard blades may need a little adjustment to sit at the proper down and out angle when stowed. The rotor head is a little bare and will benefit from some detailing.

The interior is okay for the kit subject's purposes, but as the basis for an SH-3, it'll need help. You'll have to come up with your own equipment racks and sonar array. However, the sling seats are nice (slice a four-seat section off and you're all set for a recovery helicopter's guest seating) and the cabin floor is the most detailed I've yet seen. The "broom closet" is included for behind the cockpit. No internal cabin structure is represented, but there's actually a cabin ceiling piece!

The cockpit itself isn't elaborate, but the basics are correct (and unlike the Cyber-Hobby kit, the collectives are on the correct side in both pilot positions). The seats may need to be modified for an SH-3; during my build I will examine some options there.

Where does it stack up with the other worthwhile Sea King kits in 1:72? Fujimi's kit is plentiful and offers many variants, but as a 35-year-old kit it is basic in many ways and doesn't seem to capture the Sea King's shape anywhere as well as the Airfix kit.

The issues with the Cyber-Hobby SH-3 kits have been documented elsewhere, including my build report from 2013 (see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2013/04/cyber-hobby-sh-3d-build-by-jodie-peeler.html). Having worked on them both, it's my belief that converting the new Airfix kit into an SH-3 is much easier than salvaging the Cyber-Hobby SH-3, which itself is more Westland than Sikorsky. Both kits need some of the same additions to become SH-3s, but the Airfix kit is much less trouble to convert, more user-friendly to build, and is around half the price of the Cyber-Hobby kit.

The Airfix kit compares most directly to the 2000-era Revell-Germany Sea King kits, which also depicted Westland-built aircraft with composite rotor blades. Revell's otherwise lovely Sea King is undone by its anemic sponsons (about 20% underscale). As with the new Airfix kit, you must also deal with removing molded-in features and scrounging up the bits that Sikorsky used but Westland didn't. In a choice between the two, the Airfix kit gets the nod for several reasons, notably its more in-scale sponsons.

Although Airfix could well surprise us with a dedicated SH-3/HSS-2 down the road, the breakdown of this kit indicates all Airfix Sea Kings will likely be Westland variants. That, however, is no real cause for concern to me because the basic kit looks terrific. It looks more like a Sea King than any other 1:72 kit I've seen, and given the ease of assembly that has become a hallmark of new Airfix kits, it should be an enjoyable build. I plan to document mine and share the results here.

Halcyon Days

USS Intrepid (CVA-11) Genoa, Italy November 1961

Robert L. Lawson Collection via Angelo Romano

I enjoy taking a close look at pictures of air groups like the one above, examining the details for items of interest. (Click on it to see a bigger version).

In this case, there were several. Starting at the bottom and working clockwise around the edge of the deck, the side number on the F8U-1E (note the radome for a visual-assist radar provided on this variant) in the foreground consists of two naughts, indicative of its assignment to the air group commander, Cdr J. L. Holbrook. His name and rank are painted on the fuselage side below the canopy sill. However, the airplane has the yellow trim color of the second squadron, in this case VF-33. Later on it became fashionable to have one CAG airplane in each squadron, assigned the side number X00 and trimmed with a "rainbow" of the colors in the air group.

One feature I hadn't noticed on the early F8U-1s was a yaw vane on the nose just ahead of the windscreen (protected by a red cover on these F8Us). It isn't present on later models. It was clearly a vane initially and seems to have changed to a probe before it disappeared.

An F8U-1P, side number 913, is parked next to CAG's airplane. Note that the tail fin is marked with a logo resembling a film strip. It has black stripes bounding a maroon center with white stars. I have yet to get a handle as to when the trim color for the 8th and 9th squadrons became maroon.

The VA-65 AD-6 Skyraiders at the stern of the ship are trimmed in international orange (not red as it sometimes appears to be on some illustrations) as assigned to the 4th squadron. However, I had thought that the AD squadrons were generally the 5th squadron, with the 3rd and 4th squadrons being light attack.

The third squadron, VA-66, appears to be trimmed in dark blue, whereas the standard color was light blue. Note that these appear to be factory fresh A4D-2Ns with dark gull gray anti-glare panels in front of the windscreen. By contrast, the fifth squadron, VA-76, is flying the older A4D-2s, which, having probably come from a Navy depot following overhaul, have black anti-glare panels. Their green trim appears to be both darker and faintly metallic compared to the light green standard, but it should be apparent by now that those were guidelines. The A4Ds from both squadrons still have the gray rudder rather than a white one, which was a subsequent change to the original gray/white scheme.

The F4D Skyrays in the center of the pack are the 1st squadron's, which was assigned red for a trim color. VF-162, however, has trimmed its Fords in black accented with gold stars. Note that the closest one has a refueling probe extending from its left external fuel tank, a kludge unique to the Skyray.

I had thought that the 1st squadron was generally assigned day fighters and the 2nd, all-weather fighters. However, this doesn't appear to be a rule. As it happens, in those halcyon days when new fighter types were being delivered to the fleet almost every year, an air group generally had three fighter squadrons assigned, although only two went out on a deployment. The one left behind was typically transitioning to a new type and not ready for prime time...

Exterior Lights

A couple of people have suggested that I do a post on exterior lights. As it happens, I've done bits and pieces on the subject so herewith a summary of what I know so far. At the moment, it's a work in progress. Comments, additions, and corrections are welcome.

Note that the colors refer to the tint of the clear plastic cover over the light bub, not the bulb itself.

An overview of lights on the wing in the 1950s:

Position/Navigation/Running Lights

These are the standard red (left wingtip), green (right wingtip), white (tail) lights. On some late 1940s and 1950s Navy airplanes, there is a separate orange tail light. This appears to be a holdover from a pre-World War II CAA (the forerunner of the FAA) requirement for separate orange and white tail lights that would flash alternately (white-orange-white- orange) to improve visibility at night. Those on the AD Skyraider were on both sides of the fin and viewable from the rear.

Anti-collision Lights

As a result of the midair collision of two civil airliners over the Grand Canyon in 1956, the CAA required anti-collision lights (rotating or flashing beacons) on aircraft for which type certificate applications were submitted after 1 April 1957. (Presumably, there was also a retrofit requirement.) My understanding is that the armed services were not obligated to comply, but they had midair collision concerns of their own so they were added. (When the Israelis got used A-4 Skyhawks, they were amused that they came with a red police-car gumball light.) Note that the anti-collision lights on the A3J Vigilante were retractable.

On aircraft with a long service life like the AD Skyraider, anti-collision lights were a retrofit. Blue-painted ones generally didn't have the anti-collision light on the top of the vertical fin while gray/white ones did.

On some air-refueling tankers the anti-collision light on the bottom of the fuselage was green instead of red to differentiate them at night from other airplanes in the vicinity.

Approach Lights

These were provided for the Landing Signal Officer's benefit in judging the orientation of an approaching aircraft at night. See:
http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2012/04/night-carrier-landings-in-beginning.html
http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2012/11/approach-lights-redux.html

Recognition Lights

These were added at some point in the early 1940s for IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) and signaling purposes. They consisted of three lights, red/green/amber (lenses, not bulbs), on the fuselage belly or under the right wing and a white light on the top of the fuselage (I'm not sure how standard the white light was).

The lights could be separately turned on and off and also used to flash a Morse code signal with a "key" switch.

Landing and Taxi Lights

Some aircraft were fitted with landing and/or taxi lights. The first F4U Corsairs had a retractable light under the left wing but it disappeared early on in production. (It was not, as some would have you believe, replaced by a light in the wing leading edge. That was the approach light and it had been there since the XF4U-1)

Formation Lights

At some point in the 1940s, formation lights were instituted for use at night. At least at first, these were blue lights "embedded" in the upper surface of the outboard wing panels along with one on the top of the fuselage, often described as a "section light". These are notable on the Vought F4U and Grumman F6F, TBF, and F8F. For the latter, see http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2013/02/f8f-formation-lights.html

In the 1950s, it appears that the night formation lighting for jets no longer included the blue lights embedded in the surface of the wings. Instead, the navigation lights were used in conjunction with white lights on the top and bottom of the fuselage. This is a USAF diagram for an F-84:

The formation lights were subsequently small amber rectangles on the side of the fuselage, sometimes along with a light on each wingtip separate from the position lights. The placement may have been more dictated by what location was convenient than by a standard. For example, the F4D had two lights on each side of the fuselage:

The F8U had two lights on the fuselage and also another formation light on the wingtip, but the latter was either red or green rather than amber:

The F3H, on the other hand, made do with one light on the side of the fuselage forward of the wing and one on the aft edge of the wing tip (according to the flight manual, it was amber but it's possible that it was red and green consistent with the position-light color).

For some reason, these small amber lights were not used on the F4H Phantom. Instead, they had "join-up" lights on the wing tip trailing edge that were the same color as the position lights and flush white "fuselage" lights, one on top of the fuselage and one on the bottom of the engine intake forward of the wing. When the F-4Js were modified to the F-4S configuration, the so-called "slime" lights were added; these were larger and more numerous than the amber lights and appeared to be yellow when not lit in daylight and a glow-stick green when lit at night, like those on this F-18.

Refueling Stores

Buddy tanks had lights to signal the receiving pilot. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2015/06/things-under-wings-inflight-refueling.html

Early U.S. Navy Ejection Seat

Up until the late 1950s, each airplane company building carrier-based jets for the U.S. Navy was  responsible for providing the ejection seat in accordance with a Navy-furnished specification. (See http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/02/transition-to-martin-baker-ejection.html)

The specification reflected some of the features developed by Martin-Baker, the most notable being the use of a face curtain for the final step of ejecting. (There originally was a preparatory step, which in part served as a safety to assure the pilot seating on the seat that it would not fire accidentally.)

The Navy tested the contractor seats by ejecting them from the rear compartment of a Douglas JD.

This is an early Douglas seat with a separate seat bucket inside the seat frame.

This is a Grumman seat photographed by the Navy test unit in July 1949. Note the large headrest and "figure-8" face curtain handle.

While taking a closer look at pictures of the F9F-3, I was surprised to see that the ejection seats in ones taken in 1949 appeared to have a different headrest than later Panthers: the bottom of the cushion was notably lower. The shoulder harness attachment to the seat also appeared to be lower as a result. While the headrest was not the same as in the picture above, it was similar in terms of the size of the cushion behind the pilot's head.

The F9F-3s used to carrier qualify pilots on Boxer in 1949 definitely appear to have the larger headrest. I can't be sure about the ones that deployed with the air group on Valley Forge. For more on the F9F-3, see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2012/01/f9f-3-panther.html

Obscureco F11F Detail Set

The Grumman F11F was a gorgeous carrier-based day fighter. Like it's propeller-driven equivalent, the F8F Bearcat, the timing was wrong. The F8F couldn't compete with jets (except in rate of climb contests) and the F11F wasn't as fast as the Vought F8U or have the endurance (for a more complete F11F story, see chapter 13 in http://www.amazon.com/dp/1580071104).

Once upon a time, Hasegawa produced a 1/72 scale F11F kit. Paul Boyer did it justice as he has so many other kits, only in this case was presented with one with a relatively low degree of difficulty.

The kit is a little deficient on cockpit interior and wheel well detail. Obscureco has responded to that with one of their excellent detail sets. The parts are very thin and well detailed.

1. Instrument shroud
2. Cockpit tub
3. Ejection seat
4. Rear Cockpit bulkhead
5. Cockpit detail, fuselage under sliding canopy
6. Sliding canopy shear web structure
7. Instrument panel
8. Nose wheel well
9. Left cockpit sidewall
10. Right cockpit sidewall
11. Ejection seat headrest
12. Control column
13. Left main gear well rear wall
14. Right main gear well rear wall
15. Left main gear center wall
16. Right main gear center wall
17. Left main gear front bulkhead
18. Right main gear front bulkhead

I haven't had a chance to dry fit it yet. Generally, cockpit detail sets run up against the fact that the thickness of the plastic forming the side of the kit fuselage is much thicker from a scale standpoint than the skin of the actual aircraft (also see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2012/09/fitting-in.html). One hint in this case is the kit instruction to "Sand the sidewalls as thin as possible". They are already pretty thin.

The kit does not provide the prominent antenna under the aft part of the canopy on some F11Fs (or maybe the part provided is not a good representation; in any event it should be curved and not flat).

However, this particular antenna wasn't present in many F11Fs.

I am dubious about the accuracy of parts 13 and 14. A good part of the main landing gear wheel well was taken up by structure that resembles a can lying on its side. I don't think this is accurately represented by the large flat parts provided.

Note that the above is one of many, many Don Hinton F11F walkaround pictures that can be found here: http://www.philsaeronauticalstuff.com/f11f/f11f.html

However, the compete F11F he photographed (as opposed to the cockpit section preceding that series) has a black instrument panel. I'm pretty sure that it should be dark gull gray with black instruments like the cockpit section.

Although it's not currently on the Obscureco website (http://www.obscureco.com/products.html), it can be ordered as OBS72026 for $17 plus shipping as shown on the Purchasing Line on the website.

One build note I made on the kit once upon a time was changes necessary to make the main landing gear fit correctly in the well and together:

For a couple of the blog posts I've devoted to the Tiger, see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2010/11/f11f-tiger.html and http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/10/f11f-tiger.html

 

Lockheed P-80A Carrier Trials Mea Culpa

Well this is embarrassing. Once upon a time, I wrote about the Lockheed P-80A carrier trial aboard FDR with this illustration.

I posted the page here along with additional information and photographs: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/11/lockheed-p-80a-carrier-trials.html

Yesterday, while providing information to a friend who was writing a book on Landing Signal Officers, I had the opportunity to review the picture I used to establish the presence of the barrier guard in front of the windscreen:

There appears to be a mast in front of the windscreen.

This is another from the same event:

It's a crop from a fairly high resolution scan of an 8x10 picture. There is clearly no mast on the airplane and I suspect that there never was.  What looks like a mast on the first picture is likely something on the superstructure of the island. It is also much taller than it needs to be for the purpose and there doesn't appear to be any supporting structure, particularly desirable for such a tall, thin guard.

Not proof, but it is not present in any of the other pictures taken of this airplane during shore-based testing.

I had concluded that it was a barrier guard (or strictly speaking, a Davis barrier* activator) necessary in the event of a collapsed nose gear) because I was expecting to see one. A scabbed-on guard had been added to the McDonnell FH-1 for its carrier trials accomplished three months earlier and was standard equipment on Navy carrier-based jets until the advent of the angled deck.

My guess is that the P-80 trials were accomplished without a barrier activator by the simple expedient of keeping the deck clear, sort of an early version of the angled deck. But, see Gerald Asher's comment below.

*For a gouge on the difference between the standard barrier, the Davis barrier, and the barricade, see http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2010/10/barriers-and-barricades-one-more-time.html

Grumman F9F Nose Cone Variations

Roy Stafford called my attention to an F9F nose cone change that I hadn't noticed. As often happens, the subsequent research generated enough illustrations for a post.

The original F9F Panther nose cone had a small inlet on each side.

Early during the Korean War, there were incidents of F9F nose cones blowing off following strafing runs. It was unexpected, since the Navy had experienced nothing untoward when evaluating the Panther's 20mm guns. And Grumman didn't either when the Navy asked it to evaluate the problem, right up until the last flight of the planned test program. On that one, Corky Meyer serendipitously got the residual gun-gas conditions just right and blew his nose off, rather far away from Grumman and out over the water, as it happened.

The result was the addition of a vent in the aft end of the nose cone.

The modification was rushed out to the fleet, which accounts for the zinc-chromate primed hood over the new vent in the photo of an F9F-2 above.

This configuration was carried forward to the F9F-5.

Note that the Panther in the above picture is fitted with the barricade deflector in front of the two inboard 20mm cannons.

This is neither an antenna or a handle used to pull the nose cone open as some have speculated. It was added in conjunction with the addition of the barricade forward of the existing barriers on carriers during the Korean War. It kept the inboard barrels from being snagged by the barricade straps during an engagement, which would likely have resulted in the airplane being slewed into the island or the catwalk. (For more on the barricade versus the barrier, see http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2010/10/barriers-and-barricades-one-more-time.html)

The Cougars had a different gun-gas vent. The small inlet and hooded vent were replaced by two open vents, one above the other. (The fairing on the underside of the nose covers an antenna introduced on the F9F-8 and retrofitted to some F9Fs).

The final change was the addition of an in-flight refueling probe.