Smoothing a Stuka

[upnorth]

Hello all:

For those who have visited my "Stealing the Stuka" thread in the stories forum or my "Stuka Musings" thread in the ideas and inspiration forum, you'll know that one of my long term goals has been to smooth out a Stuka and yet still keep the Stuka lineage clearly visible.

I tried it several years ago, but it didn't work out so well. Now, I'm ready to try again. Yesterday, I bought an Academy 1/72 Stuka. I chose the Academy kit as the nose is molded separately from the fuselage, this will make modifications to the nose much easier when it comes to representing a different engine installation.

Today I did a little dry fitting and found that what I thought would be one of the bigger challenges, locating a suitable canopy, is going to be dead easy. The canopy of a Fouga Magister is just a bit longer than a Stuka's, but spot on for width and crew spacing. It's also good for a 50s or 60s look:

On the initial trial fit, the piece that sits just ahead of the cockpit created a not so good mounting angle:


But, with that part removed, the sit is much better and it shouldn't take too much work to build the area up to mate with the windscreen:


In this pic, you can see how well the Magister canopy covers the width and length of the Stuka Cockpit. I really couldn't have asked for better:


The Academy Stuka also has quite a nice cockpit that should be very easy to modify to look like something from the 50s or 60s.

Later today, I'm going to try to find some 1/72 drawings of aircraft powered by the Rolls Royce Dart or Turbomeca Aztazou to get some idea of how much nose reshaping might be required.

I don't promise a quick build, it will take as long as it needs to to be right.

All comments are quite welcome.

[Doom!]

I love watching these kinds of builds!  :)

[upnorth]

Thanks.

I found a usable 1/72 drawing of a Fokker 27 today, so I'll have an idea of how much space to give a Dart engine in the Stuka nose.

[kitnut617]

You could try to get hold of a Heritage Aviation 1/72 Cavalier Mustang conversion.

[sequoiaranger]

>The canopy of a Fouga Magister is just a bit longer than a Stuka's, but spot on for width and crew spacing.<

The new canopy looks good.

I have done many "switches" involving canopies and cockpits, and I can tell you from experience that rather than "build up" the Stuka sides to try to meet the Magister canopy, the better way is to saw off the Magister cockpit area a few millimeters below, in front of, and in back of the Magister canopy, and match THAT entire chunk to a similarly-sawed Stuka cockpit area. That way the join is NOT the canopy, any "PSR" is away from the transparency, and the fuselage part where the canopy will go is MADE to fit the canopy!

[Brian da Basher]

I really like this idea and I think it's going to be one very sleek Stuka!

Mr Ranger seems to have sound advice. I've trashed many a nice canopy myself before I learned to keep putty as far away from clear parts as possible.

This one's going to be a lot of fun to watch!

Brian da Basher

[upnorth]

Don't worry about the canopy guys. The injected one you see in these photos is only being used for test fitting and reference purposes. I have a vac formed canopy set aside for this one.

I can muck up the injection canopy to my heart's content while figuring out ways to mate the canopy and fuselage.

As for the Heritage resin Dart Mustang nose, I am keeping it in mind. However, I hope the Stuka nose can contain a Dart itself so I don't have to stray too far from Stuka lines. I'll be comparing the nose to the drawings I found and hopefully will find a way to make it work.

Thanks for the support so far guys.

[kitnut617]

As for the Heritage resin Dart Mustang nose, I am keeping it in mind. However, I hope the Stuka nose can contain a Dart itself so I don't have to stray too far from Stuka lines. I'll be comparing the nose to the drawings I found and hopefully will find a way to make it work.

Working on my turbo-prop Sunderland, I'm pretty sure the Dart engine itself will fit right where a Merlin or Jumo would be.  However there's the exhaust pipe to think about and the weight difference too.  The reasons you see all those RW Dart conversions with the engines waaay out in front.

[GTX_Admin]

RR Dart vs Jumo 211:

Length:  ~2466mm-2546mm vs ~1768mm - therefore you would probably need to think about a longer nose
Diameter/width/height:  ~963mm-965mm vs ~804mm/1050mm - therefore you will probably need to think about a wider nose
Dry Weight: ~515.3kg-577.4kg vs ~585kg - the weight helps you though the balancing will be important

IMHO, the simple way if you want to use a RR Dart would be to follow Robert's suggestion of a Heritage Aviation 1/72 Cavalier Mustang conversion. 

Alternatively, if you wanted to use a Turbomeca Astazou, you could probably fit it in the Stuka's existing nose lines since it is a much smaller (though also much less powerful) engine.  Or you could chop up a 1/72 Airfix FMA IA 58 Pucará...

Regards,

Greg

[upnorth]

Thanks for the info, I've been looking a lot at that sort of thing the past few days.

The key is that I would like the design to transition from piston to turboprop power as soon as possible after WWII. As the Astazou wasn't introduced until the late 50s, it's a bit later than I'd like.

In my "Stealing the Stuka" story, the alternate stuka uses the Hispano-Suiza 12Y as a power plant in the pre war and war time periods. I didn't want the aircraft to be too dependent for too long on pre WWII engine technology in the post war period.

Very recently, I've been taking a hard look at the Armstrong-Siddely Mamba as an engine option. It was contemporary to the Dart and it's dimensions seem to be more favorable to fitting in the Jumo's place:

Length: 2217 mm
Diameter: 737 mm
dry weight: 354 kg

From what I could find on the power output of the Mamba vs. Dart, the Mamba was less powerful but still powerful enough to give a serious boost in performance to the aircraft:

Dart:
1815 ehp
1354 Kw

Mamba:
1500 ehp
1100 Kw

The Mamba will still require a lengthened nose, but width won't be an issue.

The more I think about it, the more I'm warming to the Mamba. I've often heard it said that the Mamba was a good engine that simply never got a good application.

Being as how I'm sending the Stuka down a road it never went on, perhaps I could use the opportunities the WHIFF provides to give a good engine a more prominent life.

[sequoiaranger]

Now I am seeing an APPROPRIATE reason to use the fuselage-long "snake" emblem as seen on some Stukas!!