So, about a month ago I’m looking at my Gerry Anderson shelf, particularly at the conspicuously bare spot I had reserved for something to make the collection complete – the White Falcon from New Captain Scarlet. In a fit of madness, I put aside my ongoing battle with the Airfix Harrier squadron and decided to scratch-build a White Falcon.
I had some reasonable plans from the internet, which I blew up to a good 1/72 scale, plus a little Corgi diecast Falcon to aid in constructing it. I considered many kits for the basis around which to build it – Rafale, Grippen, Typhoon, even thought seriously of cutting up a super-rare Monogram F-19, which seemed to have the right kind of intakes. In the end, however, I sacrificed an F-16XL kit.
To start with, I had to slit the rear fuselage, cut out some darts, and crush it in a vice to get the back half of the plane flat. This was fine for the upper fuselage, but the crushing of the lower fuselage pulled the lower half of the wings in, so they didn’t fit the upper wings, to I had to split them from the body, spread them out again, and putty up the gap, and…well, you can tell I didn’t really have a plan as such!
I’ve included some photos of it pre-painting, to give you an idea of what a dogs-breakfast of putty, spare bits and plastic card it really is!
IMG_0904 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
IMG_0905 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
IMG_0908 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
The canopy is from a Typhoon, the distinctive hump-back from some carefully moulded droptanks. The hardest bit was the nose, which is a very unique shape and was assembled out of a strange little droptank, part of a Mirage nose, and lots of putty and sanding. Then I sprayed it with Mr Surfacer (and sanded it, and sprayed it with Mr Surfacer, and sanded it, etc, etc) then sprayed it black…..
IMG_0913 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
….then white….
IMG_0914 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
…and – TA DA! Here is the result! I don’t usually do shiny planes – much prefer dullcote – but the gloss just looked right here:
IMG_0940 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
IMG_0955 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
IMG_0949 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
IMG_0946 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
IMG_0943 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
IMG_0942 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
IMG_0941 by
puddingisacat, on Flickr
So how did I do?
Thus completes a major work! If you would like to see the full collection in my little pan-Gerry-Anderson-Universe backstory, it is here:
http://galloglaigh.blogspot.com.au/
