Airfix 1/72 TSR.2 build report

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

The Airfix 1/48 TSR.2 arrived in my main LHS yesterday - the very same day I finished building their original 1/72 version. Here’s how I got on:

When the Airfix 1/72 TSR.2 came out just under three years ago, I managed to secure three copies, two directly from Airfix and one from my LHS. Over th following months, I accumulated quite a lot of aftermarket, but not the motivation actually to start building one. You know how it is, that’s how you accumulate a stash.

However, last Autumn, having spent too much time doing review builds, I felt the need to do something different. Plus, there was an Airfix GB just starting over n Hyperscale. And so it was that on 21st November 2008, my first Airfix 1/72 TSR.2 was introduced to a modelling knife.

The model was to be finished in 1970s Near East Air Force camo of Light Stone and Dark Earth uppersurfaces with black undersurfaces, and a white heat-reflective patch around the cockpit., for which I had some Xtradecal decals. I had a Pavla resin cockpit, which came complete with seats. I also had some resin underwing pylons intended for the special, streamlined 1000lb iron bombs which were designed specially for the TSR.2. I intended to make copies of these from plastic strip. For main armament, I intended to use four GBU10 Paveway IIs from a Hasegawa weapons set. Beyond this, I wasn’t totally clear where thigs would end up, but that’s one of the good things about a what-if. To a certain extent, you can make it up as you go along.

Work started by assembling various sub-assemblies. While the plastic was easy to work, I found that it did not take gap-filling CA well - and boy, as I was to discover, were there a lot of gaps to be filled!

The Pavla cockpit includes a tub, two seats, instrument panels, control column and a coaming. I also added the kit’s rudder pedals. More than enough detail, I was to find, for what you can see, even with the canopies open.

To be continued…

2

In the early - mid 1970s, RAF fast jets mostly had their cockpits painted in a mid grey close to FS.36231, so I went with Humbrol’s version of this colour, Hu.140, with Citadel acrylics for detail work. The TSR.2’s cockpit windows were heavily tinted, reflecting their nuclear role. I sprayed the insides of the glazing with diluted Tamiya clear acrylics, yellow for the flat part of the windscreen, and Smoke elsewhere.

The exhaust trunking was assembled and sprayed Humbrol Metalcote Gunmetal, lightly burnished. This colour looks nothing like gunmetal, but is a pretty good match for the dark burned metal colour which can be seen if you look up the tailpipes of the Cosford machine. I sprayed the exhaust ‘pen nib’ in Alclad II pale burned metal.

Then it was time to fit the fuselage together. I’ll spare you the full horrors of the experience. Suffice it to say that the fuselage consists of no fewer than 17 separate components, and none of them fit. Huge gaps around the cockpit - I had to use scrap plastic shims to fill the worst of them. Test-fitting the wing to the fuselage promised even more, and similar, fun.

In fairness to Airfix, first reports of test-shot builds of the newly-released 1/48 version suggest that some lessons have been learned, and that the fit is significantly better. However, anyone building the 1/72 kit should buy shares in a filler, sanding stick and sandpaper company, if only to get shareholder discount!

Some three weeks into the build, I got to the stage where, in order to smooth the many gaping joins, I had to install the wings. These had been built as a sub-assembly and, again, much use of filler was needed around the flaps, ailerons and anhedral wingtips. The trailing edges also needed considerable thinning down - I don’t think they were 6" thick on the real thing!

Remembering the First Rule of Coarse Modelling - if you’re going to botch it, do it on the underside where it’ll be less likely to be seen - I decided to fill gaps on the underside of the wing-fuselage join, rather than sand down irregularities on the uppersurfaces.

Here, then, are the wing/ fuselage uppersurfaces, sanded coarsely as smooth as I could make them:

And here’s where they were paid for, in terms of underside seams and gaps:

To be continued…

3

Great looking progress Chris! Sounds like a devil of a kit, hope the 1/48 is indeed better. Can’t wait to get my hands on mine soon! [:P]

4

Chris, I did the 1/72 TSR.2 a while back, and yes a bit of fit problems were encountered. I did a lot of prying into position and tacking with super glue before filler to minimize weight gain and sanding.

I did not fill all the wing joints as according to my references the wing had a flexible attachment to the fuselage to reduce shock on the fuselage structure and crew in high speed low level flight.

I posted my build here:

http://www.yolo.net/~jeaton/mymodels/tsr2/1tsr2/1tsr2.htm

5

Fine build, John! It’s always good to know that it wasn’t just me!

Cheers,

Chris.

6

I finally got to the stage where I couldn’t see anywhere obvious which needed further filling and sanding, and turned my attention to the details. First among these were the under-fuselage pylons. There were three of these, a centreline one for a TILAD pod, and two more for self-defence Sidewinders. The centreline pylon came from a Fujimi A-4F, and I think the Sidewinder pylons are for the underwing drop tanks on a Hasegawa 1/72 F-104G. In any event, they fitted the Sidewinders just fine.

The main weapons loadout was four GBU-10 Paveway IIs, which came from Hasegawa’s 1/72 US Weapons Set VI. The TILAD pod came from an Airfix Harrier GR.7, and I think the Sidewinders came from an Italeri Sea Harrier.

I added an IFR probe, also from an Airfix Harrier GR.7, forward on the starboard side, and then, five days before Christmas 2008, the model was ready for the paint shop.

First primer coat revealed surprisingly few seams which needed further attention, and so it was (quite) swiftly on to main painting. Dark Earth over Light Stone uppersurfaces, with a white heat-reflective patch above the cockpit, and Anti-Searchlight Black undersurfaces.

Check out the airbrakes - blu-tac’ed in position for painting. When you see Airfix TSR.2s at shows, they invariably have their airbrakes open. Now you know why!

To be continued…

7

Wow Chris that is really coming along nicely. Its nice to know that even tough kits can be built with a little oomph.

8

Thanks, Johnny!

Moving on to decaling. I had originally intended to use a No.16Sqn option from an Xtradecal ‘What if’ TSR.2 sheet. In the end I wanted to have some nose art, so I chose a ‘Johnny Walker’ image from a No.9 Sqn Tornado GR.1. This, together with squadron badges, came from a RoG Tornado GR.1, and in he end I only used the serials and roundels from the Xtradecal sheet.

Other decals came from a Tamiya 1/48 Mosquito sheet (tail codes) an Xtradecal Tornado stencil sheet (most of the stencils) generic black striping (wing walkways) and even the kit decals (some underside stencils, and the tailplane walkways (carefully overdrawn with a fine permanent black marker pen).

The kit decals themselves are pretty fine - thin, glossy, well-printed and in-register.

With the decals in place, I turned my attention to the undercarriage. Here, things were not so good. The main gear legs, in particular, had to be trimmed, twisted and, to be blunt, forced into position. Their angle needs to be ser carefully, so that the angle of the bogies is correct, so that all six wheels sit propely. I got it wrong first time round, with the wheels sticking out at an angle. A frined pointed out that the wheels should be perpendicular to the ground, and, with some judicious bending, I was able to correct this.

You may notice the main gear doors in the last picture. They’re shown opening outward from the inside. they should, in fact, open inwards from the outside. I’ve corrected this now. Can you spot the other ‘deliberate’ mistake? [:-^]

I then gave the whole model a light dusting of matt varnish, to take the edge off the gloss, and removed any remaining masking.

To bw continued…

9

Nice TSR2 chris [tup]

I’ve got a load of good pictures of the TSR2 which is at Cosford ! if you send me your email address via a PM i’ll glady send you them or i can post them on the end of your thread.

ian.

10

Excellent, Ian!

Maybe if you posted them at the end of the thread, that would be a better idea, because then everyone who’s watching this thread (and/ or has just acquired the 1/48 kit) could see them.

Cheers,

Chris.

11

Hi Chris,

Here you go mate take a dive at this lot, i took these a few weeks ago as i intend to build the 1/48th TSR2 aswell, some nice detail shots on them. [bow] …

12

A few more for ya…

Cheers !

13

why the hell did they bin it!!

14

Ooooooohhhhh NOOOOOOOO!!! the question that must not be asked…

15

Excellent piccies, Ian, and a valuable reference. Many thanks for them.

Final assembly. Some six weeks after first applying scalpel to plastic, I cemented the Paveway IIs in position, followed by the Sidewinders. Next I added the airbrakes and tailplanes. I only push-fitted the tailfin in position, so that I could remove it when taking pictures of the underside.

I lost one of the underside airbrake actuator rams to the carpet monster, so made replacements from brass rod and tubing. Moving forward, I installed the ejector seats.

The locating slots for the pilot’s canopy ae too far apart, though that may be partly my fault, since I had to fill a gap between the two fuselage halves here with scrap plastic. Since this photo was taken,

I’ve filled them, and touched up the paintwork.

The canopies fit where they touch. Again, since these photos were taken, I’ve trimmed and corrected the length of the lifting arms, and they look much better now. Must post some new piccies. To finish off, I added a pitot head from a hypodermic needle, and theser she was, done!

Here are some more piccies.

Well, there we are, Some modelling skills required, maybe, but it’s the only injection-moulded 1/72 TSR.2 we’re ever likely to get, and, now that a week or so has elapsed since I finished the build, I’m actually quite looking forward to the two others I have in the stash. At least one will be in Empire Test Pilots’ School scheme of red, white and blue…

As ever, comments and queries welcome.

Cheers,

Chris.

16

She looks amazing all dressed up with camo and bomb-load. I love the sleek lines of the TSR-2 - to think that this was designed as a Canberra replacement…

Does anyone know if there is any possibility that this kit may be re-released? I don’t think many of them made it down here to Australia… [sigh]

17

The TSR2 was developed during the COLD WAR as i super sonic bomber and as the cold war came to an end they scrapped it.

ian.

18

Not really. The TSR.2 was scrapped in the mid-1960s, a good 20 years before the end of the Cold War. The reasons behind the cancellation of the TSR.2 are many and complex, but most of them derive from the fact that, in the mid-1960s, the British economy was even more down the pan than normal. HMG had committed themselves to spending many tens of millions of £ (and a million pounds was a lot of money in the 1960s) on the Polaris missile programme,and there was no spare money for much else. Other expensive projects, of which the CVA-01 aircraft carrier and the TSR.2 were two, were cancelled to pay for it.

Cheers,

Chris.

19

Thanks for that bit of info chris, my reply was a reply given to me by someone at Cosford when i asked asked why the project was scrapped ! obviously they are wrong [#offtopic]

ian.

20

Nice one mate, like the decals, 9 Sqn my old unit as a commemoration a Tornado carried the “there’s always bloody something” strange seeing it on this [:D]