North American P-86B, or it could be a F2J-1 -- plus an XP-86

[The Big Gimper]

F2J-1. Found this via 72nd Scale Aircraft. Kit by Paul Boyer:



1/48 Version here. Kit by Don Fogal.

[Cliffy B]

Oh my!!!!! 

[Tophe]

Everything may be interesting but... is the Twin-Sabre project... "cancelled"?
(the title says "plus an XP-86", but it seems no news come about the twin, like if her parts are gone to build something else, alas...)
I would cry a little, but accept it of course, as the creator is allmighty with the life-and-death right on his own models...

[FAAMAN]

That IS to die for A beautiful pair of Whiffs!!!  An F-8 would've eaten it alive though

[GTX_Admin]

Sweet!

[kim margosein]

I did a P-86 some time back.  I used FJ-1 wings and tail with an F-86 fuselage.  I figured the fuselage was a bit taller for better pilot's view.

[kitnut617]

Everything may be interesting but... is the Twin-Sabre project... "cancelled"?
(the title says "plus an XP-86", but it seems no news come about the twin, like if her parts are gone to build something else, alas...)
I would cry a little, but accept it of course, as the creator is allmighty with the life-and-death right on his own models...

No Tophe, life got in the way --    been very busy with the new job (12-14 hrs a day)  I was looking at joining the WWIII GB but I just don't have the time I'm afraid   

[Tophe]

Wonderful news, that this model is not destroyed...
Of course, take your time, there is no hurry at all (I mean like evil :  if you die from over-work, the model will never be finished...).
The most important according to me is 1/ your health, 2/ your fun 3/ finishing the Twin-Sabre model/invention...

[kitnut617]

Although my job has seriously cut into model building time, the nature of the job allows me to do a lot of thinking of what I'll do to my models.

I got to thinking about this project quite a bit lately and pondered about if it could actually fly if it were built as I envision. So did some weight comparisons between the P-51H, F-82G and the FJ-1, mainly because these three have basically the same wing (albeit with different chord profiles)

                Empty            Max'     (in lbs)
P-51H       7040              11,500
F-82G       15,997           25,591
FJ-1          8,943             15,118

I've discovered by comparing my models, that the F-82 is more based on a P-51H than just using wings and rudders, the fuselages of the two (Merlin powered) practically match, with the F-82 rear fuselage being extended along the natural profile lines for five feet or so.

Also, although the F-82 uses two fuselages, it's wing area is only about 1 1/2 times that of a P-51H but the empty weight of the F-82 is way more than twice as heavy as a P-51H.

So with using basically the F-82 center wing for my P-86B, I would imagine that the empty weight for the P-86B would be around 18,000 lbs.  I'm thinking that it would take a lot of runway to get a fully loaded one off the ground, so I got to thinking what to do about it.  I didn't want to make the wing bigger like NA did to the F-82, so I decided to go with slats & flaps.

Sort of like this below.   Here you can see I've matched up some slats to the outer wings and I'm scratch building a slat for the center section.  It will also get some Fowler flaps which would be from inside of one aileron to the inside of the other. I'm also thinking that the ailerons would droop too.  I think with these wing modifications, it should get into the air quite quickly ----   

I also decided to extend the rear fuselages behind the wing after moving the wing back to it's original position. I've extended it 1/2" which is 3 scale feet.  This allows for a much bigger center fuel tanks in the fuselages, and also to counter the weight in the pod that sticks out in front of the wing.  It also allows room for the re-positioned wheel bays, I'm moving them from where they are in front of the front spar in the F-82 center wing section, to in front of the rear spar. I will also turn them around so the u/c leg hinge is near the rear spar.

[FAAMAN]

Great work Kitnut, I'll look forward to this being completed :)
Although a completely 'new' design you're right about the F-82 basically being a stretched P-51H, N.A. added 57" (1450mm) behind the cockpit, moved the wing moved aft and used XP-51F vertical tails.

[kitnut617]

Here's a pic of the P-51H/F-82 comparison, you have to ignore the lower cowling on the F-82 because it has the Allison installation.

[Tophe]

The designer of Mustangs and Twin-Mustang, in his autobiography, tells a different story: the twin-fuselage fighter was a North-American project with no relation at all to the Mustang, but the marketing wanted to sell it as a "Twin-Mustang" with no risk of failure, and Mustangs' parts were included like the canopy and low scoop. As far as I am concerned, I prefer believing the true designer than the marketing selling liers. I found on the Net a picture of the twin-fuselage 1st project: not looking like a P-51 at all, I have it on my computer but I don't have the Copyright to show it here (I don't know anymore the address to direct to it).

[kitnut617]

I've seen some photos of the earlier proposals Tophe, and you're right, they are nothing like a P-51. However, what turned out to be the F-82 used a lot of P-51H in it, photos and drawings show the connection. Remember, it was quicker to go that route too ---  The only difference between the P-51H and the F-82 fuselage is how the tail end was extended.  Reference books I have say that the wings and rudder from the P-51H were used on the XP-82, but as you can see in the photo above, a lot more was used.  There's a pretty good photo of the mock-up in P-51 in Action book.

There's a number of photos on the internet that are of the XP-82, like this one below (of interest, note the direction the propellers turn)

[Tophe]

The early proposal (I found it again!) is at http://xp-82twinmustangproject.blogspot.be/2011_10_01_archive.html

[kitnut617]

Been working on the P-86B, slowly though -----

Got my wing slats and flaps sorted and found I had an F-94 cockpit tub (True Details) spare so I've used it for the cockpits as they're in the right time line.  I've also modified where the main wheel bays will be too. I've moved them to between the two wing spars from the front edge and also spun them around as then they're more like the FJ-1 wheel bay orientation.

[kitnut617]

The main gear will be mounted at the outside side of each fuselage so I had to cut an opening in the bottoms for the bays. Then I had to angle half of the bay downwards from the underside of the wing to the bottom of the fuselage, I'll modify the bay walls to suit the fuselage section later. Half of the area where the wheel rests in the bay will be inside the fuselage and the wheel itself would slant upwards when retracted. I think there's enough depth to the wing to house half of the wheel without resorting to wing bulges on the top-side but I might revisit that later.

[kitnut617]

For the outer wings I used F-86 slats, which fitted quite well after I just trimmed off the fuselage end of each one, removing just enough of the swept wing profile so I had a square end.  The center slat was scratch made from a bit of aluminum strut section, the flaps were cut out from the bottom half of each wing and then made into an airfoil in section. They'll be something like a Boeing Fowler flap.

Like this below, top pic is the center section, bottom pic the outer wing

[kitnut617]

I'm getting there ---

[kitnut617]

Oh! before I forget, the very nice Falcon clear-vac FJ-1 canopies do not fit the Siga FJ-1, heck even the kit canopies don't fit the kit   

[Frank3k]

Don't know how I missed this thread, but This Is Of Interest To Me. What are you putting in the center wing section for payload? Is that a radar or a giant fuel tank?

[Tophe]

Wonderful! The Twin-Sabre is going to be alive!

[kitnut617]

Don't know how I missed this thread, but This Is Of Interest To Me. What are you putting in the center wing section for payload? Is that a radar or a giant fuel tank?

It will be the radar pod, the idea is that this was a stop-gap jet night-fighter and a natural progression from the F-82, sort of like a Jet Twin Mustang.

Because I'm going with full span leading edge slats, there's no internal weapons in the wing, all the guns will be in the fuselage noses.
I'm going with four cannon (20mm) and four .5's. The cannon will be in the center wing side of the fuselages and the .5's in the outer wing sides.  The project has progressed to be an All Weather Fighter and the additional weapons I'm going with is a pair of Hughes AIM-4B's, these will be mounted just outboard of the fuselages below the wing on pylons and then there will be a large drop tank just outboard of those. I'll then have an option of attaching wing-tip tanks which I'll make so they just slip on. I've left open the option of another pair of AIM-4's under the wing center section between the pod and the fuselages.  I think I'll just put some pylons there without the missiles on them.

Any empty space in the wing will have fuel tanks and of course the extra three feet I added into the rear fuselage will be for an extra long fuselage fuel tank.  I think it will have plenty of fuel  -----     I've left off half of one side of the radar pod because that will be where I put the nose weight once I work out how much it will need.

[kitnut617]

Had a look last night if the second pair of AIM-4's would go under the wing center section --- aannd  --- no!    there's no room there. Have to give that a re-think --

[Frank3k]

You could put the AIM-4s on the wing tips, or add wingtip missile/fuel pods like the F-89. Or maybe a version of the F-94 - either the rocket pods in the nose or under the wings.

[apophenia]

Some serious styrene editing going on there! Looking great Kit'  :)