1/72 USN/USMC Flying Fish

[Frank3k]

Against my better judgment, I got the Mikro-Mir Caproni B.72 Flying? Whatsit:



I decided to make it a USN or USMC vehicle, so first thing was to swap the inline engines with radials. I got some Eduard Quickboost B-17G Flying Fortress Engines (Wright Cyclone R-1820), outlined the wing cross section and CADed out a cowl and engine pod. I didn't go all out on the details, since the kit itself isn't very detailed.:



I printed a few copies, Here's one pod pressed together with the engine. There's some dust from sanding and some sections still need cleanup:



I also wanted to replace the anemic single machine gun with twin .50 or .303 guns. A search through my spares didn't reveal anything suitable in 1/72, so I looked online and found these free 1/35 twin .303 on Cults3D by Razz Dabat Designs

I rescaled them to 1/72 and the fragile results are outstanding. You can even see the open barrels:



I also opened up the cockpit area to allow room for a third crew member.

The two Wright engines should have allowed this vehicle to fly (albeit poorly) so I'm going to see what it looks like with end plates, similar to the William Horton wingless aircraft

Since US torpedoes weren't good for their intended task, I have to decide what armaments, missions and era to place this in.  Contenders are:

- USN/USMC WWII torpedo attacker
- Replace the torpedoes with a 37mm gun and make it a harassment/recon vehicle. A cross between the missions undertaken by the PT boats and B-25s in the Pacific.
- Pre-war Yellow wings, with torpedoes.

Let's see how far this goes before the Mikro-Mir curse hits.

[Dr. YoKai]

I like the pre-war torpedo...craft better idea than the gunship. I suspect it would have been relatively fast in a straight line, but I can't see this thing being too nimble at low level. Not sure what the Mikro Mir curse is, and since I will be starting on my DB 10 before long, I am a little curious, and a  little anxious...

The MGs and the replacement engines look great.

[raafif]

Very interesting project - I WILL be watching.

May put some floats & torpedos on my Northrop N9M Wing

[Frank3k]

Ray, I saw the N9M in person while it was being restored. It was a pretty small plane! It would look good in floats.

Craig - Mikro-Mir kits look great as 3D CAD images, but there's often a breakdown when it goes from CAD to plastic. They are still using short run injection tech which doesn't help with the details, fit and flash. In some kits, the parts just don't fit without heroic effort... and that's not always because of the molding. The instructions are often just suggestions, if not completely wrong.

[Kerick]

From my understanding the US Mk13 torpedo would work if dropped at a low speed. It was used on PT boats later in WWII. Dropped from higher speed aircraft required the “pickle barrel” wood shield over the nose and the wood stabilizer fins to work properly. Of course it never did match up with other nations torpedoes.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

@Frank.  Another weapon for your consideration might be some kind of naval mine for your craft so it could perform an maritime area denial mission. 

[apophenia]

Looking great so far, Frank! I'm with Doc Yo on the prewar torpedo bomber scheme.

And love your concept of applying 'Horton wingless' details to the Caproni B.72 base 

[Frank3k]

I'm strongly leaning towards a prewar USN plane.

I started to scratch-build the cockpit, including sourcing some instrument panels from my junk bins, when I remembered that I'd downloaded a free 1/72 Hawker Sea Fury cockpit from Muteman on Cults3D I separated the components in the file and printed the seat, instrument panel, control stick and rudder pedals.

Unfortunately, I didn't do a very good job on the supports - they were way too big -  and the very fine parts on the seats broke off while trying to remove them. No big deal; I wasn't going to use those details and the rest of the seat and other components printed well.  I'll have to trim the edges of the instrument panel to fit, though.

My Neanderthal fingers broke off one side of the reflex sight. It's amazing that the foot braces on the rudder pedals printed:



The resin behind the dials is thin enough that some light sanding should open them up. I can then either print dials or paint a piece of white plastic.

Here are the pilot and copilot stations:



I also started working on the floats and the torpedoes.  The flash around the parts is so bad that it's hard to tell what's flash and what's the actual edge of the float. I had to take them apart at least once. The torpedoes are also flashy. I can tell already that the struts between the floats and the wing will have to be replaced or reinforced with metal. The attachment point is 0.5mm deep or less.

I also printed out a template for the Horton endplates.

[taiidantomcat]

Completely unique design and I love your plans for it.

I really don't think you can go wrong with Yellow wings, but then again you can't really go wrong with pacific blue colors either... 

The good news is no matter what direction you go, its going to be great. 

[Frank3k]

Slowly making progress:

End plates on (with twin rudders). I used the original end caps as well. They were helpful in getting everything lined up:



I designed the engine pods based on the upper wing cross section. It wasn't a perfect fit once the two wing halves were glued together, so I used tome putty and thin styrene rod to fix the gap:



I have to decide if the pilot is the guy in front or the guy in the middle. The other guy would be the co-pilot. Both would have the ability to release the torpedoes. The tail gunner has a small seat for when he isn't actively shooting. The kit also has two span-wise split flaps at the rear. I'll probably split them in the middle to provide some roll control.



I'm thinking overall aluminum, with yellow outer sections out from the engines) and blue sides.

[Kerick]

I love the end plates and caps. Great combo.
Your paint scheme sounds good.

[GTX_Admin]

Looking forward to seeing how this works out

[Kerick]

Personally, I'd go with the pilot in the front seat and co-pilot in the back seat. That's just me.

[Frank3k]

Yeah, having the pilot in the front seat would give him slightly better visibility over the nose. The guy behind him would be higher, giving better target visibility.

So far - shockingly - this has been a pretty easy build for a Mikro-Mir kit.

[robunos]

Unfortunately, over than the first, boxtop image, all of your images have fallen foul of the 'Imgur Curse', at least for me . . . 

cheers,
Robin.

[Robomog]

Yep me too,  imgur has switched off the UK.
Anybody in the UK cannot see pictures hosted on imgur

Mog
>^-.-^<

[apophenia]

Loving this build, Frank! 

...Anybody in the UK cannot see pictures hosted on imgur...

Images are showing up just fine here in the Great White North 

[Acree]

Whichever seat he sits in, I don't envy the pilot trying to land (or fly in ground effect) with ZERO downward visibility and no peripheral vision either due to the endplates.  Maybe a floor window (a la F2A Buffalo or early Wildcat) would be a good idea?

[Story]

Whichever seat he sits in, I don't envy the pilot trying to land (or fly in ground effect) with ZERO downward visibility and no peripheral vision either due to the endplates.  Maybe a floor window (a la F2A Buffalo or early Wildcat) would be a good idea?

Not a bad idea at all, but from what folks trained to fly amphibians have told me they are trained to look to the sides to gauge their descent to a water landing.

Frank - should you scallop the fins around the 2/3rds point to give better visibility?

[robunos]

Yep me too,  imgur has switched off the UK.
Anybody in the UK cannot see pictures hosted on imgur

Mog
>^-.-^<

Here it is . . .
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gzxv5gy3qo

cheers,
Robin.

[Frank3k]

I think ericr will approve of my color combinations!

Pictures are on Flickr for now.

Finished the major painting and assembly. It still needs decals, the torpedoes and plenty of touchups. The handed props are from an ancient Frog P-38 kit. The elevators/tailplanes are from another ancient kit - the Lindberg 1/72 Hs-129. I just glued them in, so I'm using a highly technical method to hold them up while the glue hardens. I don't know where the prop spinners came from, but I may replace them. The props, spinners and cowlings are just tacked on right now and loose:



I added details to the Wright R-1820s, including an ignition ring.

I made the mods suggested by Story, since they make sense. Some of the Horton (not Horten) wingless aircraft had windows for this purpose. I used a hole punch... it being a naval aircraft and all:





I'm not going to bother to figure out the Navy's yellow wing squadron color scheme. I'll just add what I think looks good - after all, this is a whif.

The build - so far - has been pretty good for a Mikro-Mir kit. Very minor fit issues and a couple of sink marks, but unlike some of their worst kits (I'm looking at you, Lisichkin NIAI-1 "Fanera-2") easy to fix/overlook. It's possible that the Mikro-Mir gremlin is in the kit's inline engines, but I didn't use them.

[Old Wombat]

Well, Frank, I can't say I'm disappointed with where this is at, & where it's going - Because I'm not!     

That's a very technical tail-levelling device - I may need you to send the plans, so I can build my own, 

[raafif]

Pics saved to build my own   Great Flap-Jack additions

[apophenia]

Fantastic build, Frank! And, yes, ericr would definitely approve of your scheme 

Love your hole-punch port holes as solutions to sideways visibility issues 

[Kerick]

This is whiffing is all about!
Looks awesome! People will be taking second looks and third looks at this one!

[Dr. YoKai]

Yeah, that came out beautiful.

[Story]

Went looking for pre-WW2 squadron insignias, found only the roundrel (top, bottom and sides)
https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/1e/50/8d/1e508d437811962d3b77dc1f558139fa.jpg

[Frank3k]

I think I'm done with this one. The roundels are just a copy of the USN roundels I found on Wikipedia.

The kit torpedoes were far too long for a Mark 14, so I chopped 34mm from each (poorly) and glued the pieces back. If you squint, they look like a MK. 14, especially under a wing:



Here's a fuzzy front view. Both the pilot and torpedo man/bombardier have sights - but they're invisible in all the pictures:



You can almost see the pilot's sight (front seat). Also shown is the advanced horizon indicator. It would take an aircraft engineer to describe the technical workings of the apparatus, and I'm not one. I just printed the decals and put some clear glue behind the holes.
2510 is the year/month I finished the build and TB72 is Torpedo-Bomber 72, just to show some connection to the Caproni B.72 :



I'm not clear as to how the crew gets to their stations. I assume a ladder from the rear? I split the two long flaps at the rear into two, before I added the winglets.



The backstory is that the USN was looking for a fast alternative/adjunct to the new PT boats being produced. In operation, they would act as fast scouts, finding and attacking enemy vessels and indicating targets for the slower PT boats and destroyers. They could fly in ground effect mode, and could launch their two torpedoes either from the air (from less than 100 feet altitude) or from the surface.

Tests in the waters near the Channel Islands (off the coast of California) revealed problems with the Flying Fish concept. While on the surface, the prototype showed severe chine/hull slap at high speeds, even in relatively calm waters. This made it difficult to release the torpedoes accurately. Flying in ground effect, a few feet off the water resolved the problem, but flying greatly reduced the range of the craft. Combinations of surface and flying approaches to targets were tried, but none were satisfactory, especially compared to the PT boats which were slower but better armed and more maneuverable.

The handful of prototypes were used to patrol the entrance routes to the Panama Canal, both in the Pacific and Caribbean oceans and faded into obscurity after the war.

I like the colors - they remind me of some of the covers from the Sci Fi pulps of the era.

[Kerick]

So very plausible!
Great job on this!

[Old Wombat]

Yeah, I like this one! Great colour scheme! 

"Implausibly plausible", is how I'd describe it - especially as the Italians apparently looked at, albeit briefly, designing/developing them. 


From our friend Drachinifel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czsE6cu7Dak

[raafif]

Yours is much better than real-world Frank.

[Frank3k]

Thanks, guys - This was an enjoyable build, with no major issues. Painting came out well, too - I only had to remove the primer and repaint once.

Ray - I'd never seen that! Might look good with turbofan engines, too.

[Robomog]

That really looks good, great build , fantastic colour scheme 

Mog
>^-.-^<

[GTX_Admin]

 

[apophenia]

... I'd never seen that! Might look good with turbofan engines, too.

Shades of the VFW 614    Gorgeous build on your TB72, Frank 

[Story]

The handful of prototypes were used to patrol the entrance routes to the Panama Canal, both in the Pacific and Caribbean oceans and faded into obscurity after the war.

Brilliantly believable. If LIFE's photographer didn't capture them, they never existed.

I like the colors - they remind me of some of the covers from the Sci Fi pulps of the era.

Or epic reality.

[Frank3k]

The Mariner did look good with yellow wings!

[taiidantomcat]

Fantastic model. as someone said already this is everything that makes Whifs so much fun 

[Kerick]

That craft looks so 1930s I wish it had been real! Great imagineering!