Author Topic: The FAA go American  (Read 40901 times)

Offline Volkodav

  • Counts rivits with his abacus...
  • Much older now...but procrastinating about it
Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #75 on: August 31, 2013, 10:50:33 PM »
I think we are starting to see why the RN FAA never operated the Grumman Panther, its just too hard and stressful to model!

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #76 on: August 31, 2013, 10:57:53 PM »
Cheers folks!

Just took the supports out from under the tailplanes.... and it promptly rocked onto it's backside. Yep, it's a tail-sitter, despite the nose cone being stuffed with 2mm steel balls.... ::)

Fortunately I've been here before (with a Messerscmitt P.1111), so the solution was at hand: I coated more steel balls in PVA then rolled them in through the footwells, so that they fell into the nose and stuck where they fell (hopefully). A dozen of them and it was firmly back on it's nosewheel.  :D

Ironically, if I hadn't had to take the canopy off, I couldn't have done this: funny how things work out isn't it?  ???
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #77 on: September 01, 2013, 06:20:56 PM »
Last night : put a coat of Klear over the under-wing and nose decla to protect them from the wethering process as suggested everywhere.

This morning : one of the underwing roundels, that was perfectly all right last night, has now bubbled under the Klear, and the fact that it's got the Klear on it means that I can't use Micro-Sol to flatten it out again.... :(

Quite frankly, I don't care any more: it's going to be finished today, come hell or high water (and no, the house can't flood; we're on a hill!).

On the upside, graphite weathering has made nice, subtle gun gas, rocket exhaust and jet exhaust marks, but it still won't stick to the underwing buzz number decals, even though they've got a layer of Klear over them... ??? Still, doesn't matter really: you'll barely be able to see that bit under the rockets.

Now going out for some clear red and green paint for the nav lights ('cos guess what I havn't got that I thought I'd got) and hopefully some Humbrol Clearfix, 'cos I like it better than PVA.
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #78 on: September 02, 2013, 07:58:15 PM »
American Big Cats in Britain
The FAA's Ferocious Felines



In June 1946, the new British Government formed a committee, lead by the respected economist Sir Charles Brokensha, to examine the future prospects for Britain and it's empire. The report, delivered some 18 months later, was possibly the most influential document of the post-war years, since it laid out a future that most politicians didn't want to hear, but did so with such meticulously logical reasoning, backed up by a wealth of evidence, that it's conclusions were inarguable. Britain was broke: it was going to lose it's empire, it was going to see it's role in the world diminished, and the sooner it started adapting to the new realities, the less painful the inevitable adjustments would be.


The report also made it clear that any policy to deal with this situation would fail if it was subject to the flip-flops and reversals of partisan politics so the first thing the Attlee government did was to hold secret talk with the Conservative party to gain agreement on the basic principles. The Conservatives relished the report even less than Labour, but it was Winston Churchill himself, perhaps more aware of Britain's precarious position than anyone, who swung the debate in the report's favour by portraying it's acceptance by the Conservatives in terms of making a sacrifice for the greater good of the country. Cross-party agreement having been reached, the Brokensha report was made public. It provoked howls of  indignation in the press, the Daily Telegraph re-christening it the “Broke and Scared” report, but with both major parties behind it, the controversy was weathered, and a host of committees and panels set up to apply the Brokensha principles to all areas of government policy, domestic and foreign, civilian and military.


The panels set up to apply the Brokensha principles to aviation and naval policy quickly arrived at some interlocking and far-reaching conclusions, one of which was that there was no point in Britain continuing to develop it's own naval aircraft. Britain's carrier force was likely to diminish rapidly in the near future to the point where it didn't represent a viable market for such aircraft, the Americans wouldn't buy British aircraft for domestic political reasons whatever their technical merit, and the rest of the world's requirements added up to less than the Royal Navy's. Limited research and development budgets, they argued, should be spent on areas of aviation where there were either real commercial prospects or a genuinely unique military requirement to meet. If the Royal Navy was going to stay in the carrier business, it would have to do so on the coat-tails of the US Navy.


This decision lead to yet more howls of protest, this time from an aircraft industry and unions concerned about technological leadership and jobs, but in fact, there was little loss of either. It quickly became apparent to planners that a number of American naval aircraft were already either using British engines or could be improved by them, and it proved possible to negotiate licence production agreements that meant that much of the resulting work and expenditure would remain in Britain, cushioning both the industry and the balance or payments. The obvious aircraft to pick as a jet fighter was the Rolls Royce Nene powered Grumman F9F Panther, and the government was careful to ensure that the Hawker Siddeley Aircraft conglomerate got the licence production deal in compensation for the cancellation of Hawker's own Nene-powered naval fighter, the P.1040, which was in many ways very similar to the American aircraft.


Hawker assigned production of the Panther to Gloster Aircraft, although many aircraft were actually made by their Armstrong Whitworth subsidiary. Adaption of the Panther to Fleet Air Arm standards proved relatively painless since it was already a naval aircraft, the biggest headache being the re-engineering of the wing-fold mechanism to “over-fold” so that the aircraft would fit in the RN carriers' 17'6” high hangars. British radios and armaments were provided for, and the Colt Mk.12 cannons were replaced by standard British Hispano Mk.Vs. British-built Grumman-Gloster Panther FGA.1s began delivery to the Fleet Air Arm in January 1950.


A more serious problem was finding carriers to fly the new jets from. The Colossus class light fleet carriers and their derivatives proved too short for safe and practical operations. Training was possible using Indomitable and Indefatigable, but these wartime carriers' hangars were too low to strike the aircraft below decks, and reconstruction had been ruled out following Brokensha. Only the two new Eagles, which had had their design modified during construction, would be both long enough to operate the Panthers and tall enough to hangar them, but although well advanced, due to resources having been diverted to them from the cancelled battleship Vanguard, they were both several years away from completion due to the post-war slow down. Events would soon change that, however.


When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, the only Royal Navy carrier able to respond was the Colossus class HMS Theseus with her complement of piston-engined Sea Furies and Fireflies. When this became known, the British press went without a blink from berating the government for it's “sell-out” purchase of the American Panthers to berating them for not being able to deploy them to a war zone. The government didn't need much prompting anyway: completion of Eagle and Ark Royal was given “super priority” status at the expense of the Centaur class carriers then in build, and after a hasty work up, Eagle deployed to Korea in March 1951, Ark Royal following in January 1952. Although the two ships were unable to maintain a continuous presence, requiring the deployment of Colossus class carriers to fill the gaps, they still made an extremely valuable contribution.


Ironically, despite having been bought as fighters, the Fleet Air Arm Panthers spent most of their time in Korea on ground attack duties which could and were carried out with equal facility by the piston-engined aircraft they'd replaced. The swept-wing MiG-15 had made it's shock appearance, and the general feeling was that any straight-winged jet was no match for it. However this didn't stop the Panther pilots from scoring thirteen kills during the war, one of which, a MiG-15 downed by captain Peter Tremayne of 738 Sqn in May 1951, was the Fleet Air Arm's first jet-on-jet victory.


The period after Korea saw more big changes for the Royal Navy's carriers. Although operations with Eagle and Ark Royal were successful, they also suffered from a high landing accident rate, and  it became clear that the new technology of angled decks was the way forward for jet operations. The Prospect of reconstructing the recently completed Eagles was regarded with some enthusiasm by many in the Royal Navy, but this wasn't shared by the Government, who, still applying Brokensha, decreed that the future for British carrier aviation lay in small ships. The purchase of the last two  Majestic class light carriers Hercules and Leviathan with an interim angled deck arrangement involving minimal reconstruction was authorised, followed by the completion of the stalled Centaurs to a new angled deck design.


The future was limited for the Panthers too. The appearance of the MiG-15 over Korea had caused all orders for the Panther to be immediately converted into orders for it's swept-wing Tay-powered successor, the F9F-6 Cougar, and these, as Cougar FGA.1s (also built by Gloster) began arriving from 1954. The Cougar's landing speed was even higher than the Panther's so these aircraft were restricted to the new angled deck carriers as they came into service, with the Panthers soldiering on on the straight-deck Eagle and Ark Royal until there were enough of the former to replace them. It was originally envisaged that this state of affairs would last until 1959, but in 1956 came the surprise decision to convert Eagle and Ark Royal to helicopter-carrying commando carriers for the Suez adventure, and so the Panther's FAA career as a fighter came to an abrupt end. It wasn't the complete end of the story though, for the FAA, feeling that it's Sea Vampire T.22s were less than representative of a modern jet, campaigned successfully for many of the Panther airframes to be re-built as two-seat trainers, these Panther T.3s giving sterling service until the last one was retired in 1980. It was by no means the end of Grumman's involvement with Gloster either, but that's another story...


The aircraft depicted by the model is a Panther FGA.1 flown by 738 Squadron FAA from HMS Eagle during the Korean War. FAA Panthers were fitted to fire up to sixteen British RP.3 rockets (the so-called “60lb” RP) rather than the six 5” HVARs of the original American aircraft. Although an individual RP.3 was less destructive than an HVAR, the increased combat persistence of the British warload was often greatly appreciated in close air support situations. Supply of munitions of all kinds was a problem for British forces during the war, and these rockets seem to be from a batch that were assembled from RN-held motors fitted with warheads taken from an RAF stockpile in Aden, hence the mismatch between the relatively pristine motors and the rusty warheads.





Model : Hasegawa 1/72nd Grumman F9F-2 Panther
Rockets : from two Frogspawn Sea Venoms
Paint : Brush-painted Humbrol enamels and coloured pencils
Decals : Xtradecal X72-136 "13 Sea Hawks"

« Last Edit: October 07, 2013, 07:21:42 AM by Weaver »
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #79 on: September 02, 2013, 08:22:30 PM »
Finally...he overcomes!  Great work.
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it.

Offline Old Wombat

  • "We'll see when I've finished whether I'm showing off or simply embarrassing myself."
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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #80 on: September 02, 2013, 10:37:58 PM »
Good job! Looks good in RN FAA colours, too. 8)

:)

Guy
"This is the Captain. We have a little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and, ah, explode."

Offline kitnut617

  • Measures the actual aircraft before modelling it...we have the photographic evidence.
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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #81 on: September 02, 2013, 11:11:54 PM »
That really does look very nice Harold   :) :) :) :)  well done!

Offline The Big Gimper

  • Any model will look better in RCAF, SEAC or FAA markings
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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #82 on: September 03, 2013, 02:18:20 AM »
That really does look very nice Harold   :) :) :) :)  well done!

Take a picture in black and white. Find one of the HMS Eagle.  Merge the two together with Photoshop. Post on it ARC and watch the JMNs go crazy.  >:D
Work in progress ::

I am giving up listing them. They all end up on the shelf of procrastination anyways.

User and abuser of Bothans...

Offline finsrin

  • The Dr Frankenstein of the modelling world...when not hiding from SBA
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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #83 on: September 03, 2013, 03:07:16 AM »
Last weekend we were discussing "challenges" of this build.  As Greg said -> Finally...he overcomes!  Great work.
Locations of colors looks RW.  Rocket exhaust marks under wing are right on.  Will remember that for future builds.
Excellent write up about historical context of its FAA service.
Cool Panther  8)

Offline raafif

  • Is formally accused of doing nasty things to DC-3s...and officially our first whiffing zombie
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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #84 on: September 03, 2013, 06:22:14 AM »
Looks great !  Naturally the RNAS Panther Mk.I would have been built as a tail-dragger anyway ... later having to revert to tricycle u/c as the decks got boiled :icon_nif:

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #85 on: September 03, 2013, 07:07:54 AM »
Congratulations Harold!  You did very well considering the trial by fire you were subjected to in order to get this project finished. 
"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #86 on: September 03, 2013, 08:50:22 AM »
Cheers folks!

As usual, photography flatters: it's not nearly so nice close-up, with all sorts of paint glitches, some of which showed up at the last minute in the last coat of Klear (still not sure what's gone on there, to be honest...).

I've also spotted a couple of things:

1. I did a load of gun gas marks with powdered graphite (similar to the rocket marks) but they've gone! Must have rubbed off with handing: another penalty of that last coat of Klear. Might re-instate then with Tamiya Smoke.

2. I intended to nick a couple of ejection seat warning triangles from some other kit and add them: the USN Panthers didn't have them (had remarkably few warning stencils, actually) but contemporary Sea Hawks did.

This is the first time I've used Klear (Future) as a general clear coat (as opposed to just on canopies) and given it's mythical reputation, I have to say I'm a bit dissapointed. In particular, the second coat, applied after the decals, came out oddly streaky in places and generally did weird and unwelcome little things. I suspect that people who rave about it are mostly airbrushing it in much thinner layers.
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Volkodav

  • Counts rivits with his abacus...
  • Much older now...but procrastinating about it
Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #87 on: September 03, 2013, 07:07:18 PM »
Superb, and loved the back story too!

So where there any exports to navies operating modernised Majestics for example? (Australia and Canada) Hint hint

I am salivating over the inferred Tiger, Avon RA14 combo?

Offline LemonJello

  • MARPAT Master
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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #88 on: September 03, 2013, 08:18:04 PM »
That is gorgeous.  The color scheme beats the pants off the overall blue that my Panther wears.  Well done!

Offline Claymore

  • It's all done with smoke and mirrors!
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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #89 on: September 07, 2013, 01:03:42 AM »
Absolutely beautiful work.  A great idea and superbly delivered.  :)
Pass the razor saw, there is work to be done!

Offline taiidantomcat

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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #90 on: September 09, 2013, 10:46:25 AM »
That is a peach  :-*
"They know you can do anything, So the question is, what don't you do?"

-David Fincher

Offline Buzzbomb

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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #91 on: September 10, 2013, 08:41:28 AM »
Great to see this finished. Terrific job

In so many ways it looks right.. and wrong at the same time.

Interesting how the tail shape in someways resembles the Gannet  :))

Offline ysi_maniac

  • I will die understanding not this world
Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #92 on: September 12, 2013, 03:17:13 AM »
Great model! :-*

Offline Dr. YoKai

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Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #93 on: September 17, 2013, 12:50:59 AM »
Great to see this finished. Terrific job

In so many ways it looks right.. and wrong at the same time.

Interesting how the tail shape in someways resembles the Gannet  :))

 Thumbs up to all of the above, and - egads - it DOES look like a Gannet tail...
 

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #94 on: October 07, 2013, 07:20:56 AM »
Thanks very much for the comments and votes everyone - very much appreciated.  :)
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline M.A.D

  • Also likes a bit of arse...
  • Wrote a great story about a Christmas Air Battle
Re: The FAA go American
« Reply #95 on: May 09, 2017, 06:36:32 PM »
Wow, that's cool!!!

Sorry I missed this Weaver  :-[

M.A.D