Winged Pegasus

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Hi all,

Watched ‘The Longest Day’ on DVD again and got inspired to build my Horsa glider that’s been stashed away for eons… I’ve also got a Waco too.

The kit comes in a Mark I and II. I built the Mark I which has a shorter front body and basically was used for the Pegasus raid.

Box is old style Italeri…I don’t think it’s changed much.

Quickly put together without much fit problems…just some sanding here and there.

For the Mark I you have to cut a portion off indicated in the manual. The Mark I has a side door. For the Mark II the whole front section of the cockpit hinges open to the right.

The interior went on smoothly…lots of seats here in different sizes and are numbered.

Had to cut out the bottom of the cockpit to stuff soldering wire as weights as this bird has a big donkey.
Later I would need to find space to fit more weights under the floorboards of the fuselage.

The cockpit is quite detailed. Checking from my reference everything is where it should be. The seats even have seperate cushions with harness molded on.

Ah!.. the big donkey section. If you notice , it’s quite solid so for those who don’t want a ‘Horse…ah’ sitting on it’s you know what then be prepared to add lots of weights.

The wing comes in six sections. Make sure you add glue to the inner locating pins. This will make sure the mid-section of the wings don’t bulge.

Filler is needed here and has to be delicately sanded off.

Jumping into this build was just to break monotony with my other builds and the movie I watched just itched me into it. :lol:

Sprayed the cockpit and interior. The color looks too green here.

Painted the seats with basic khaki drab.

Noticed that I’ve added the weights under the floor boards and the ceiling.

Lots of sanding although the fit wasn’t that bad…putty will be added later.

Thank god the wing root fit wasn’t bad either.

Next I’ll put some pix up of the real gliders just prior to the eve of D-Day.

I’m a real D-Day buff. I’ll try to add D-Day stripes to any aircraft of that period if I build them :smiley: :smiley: .

Enjoy…C & C welcomed.

Cheers,

Richard

2

Looks great so far richard. Keep us posted as you progress.

Regards, Rick

3

I recall building this way back when it was a new kit. I finished it as a Mk2 and don’t remember adding nose weight and I didn’t have to use any filler either.

Mind you, I did get through quite a bit of tube cement back then!

Looking great so far, Richard.[Y]

4

Looking great so far. That is a seldom seen model that will definately be an interesting addition to the display shelf.

Darwin, O.F. [aln]

5

Looking great so far. That is a seldom seen model that will definately be an interesting addition to the display shelf.

Darwin, O.F. [aln]

6

Thanks Rick, Kit Builder and Darwin for the kind words, here I have some reference pictures of the brave men who flew into battle in these rickety things.

The gliderborne troops were as unique as the para guys. Everyone a hero to me. Below are some pictures showing these brave men just before Operation Overlord (D-Day)

Casualties were expected to be around 60 - 70% but were only 15 - 20%.
The idea was to deliver a large group of heavily equiped men in a concentrated area rather than have them scattered like the paratroopers on D-Day.

It proved right and many landings and objectives were secured for the main invasion from the sea.

More progress on the Horsa.

Did some detail painting of the cockpit…just enough and not too overboard. There’s going to lot’s of plexiglass so quite a lot of the cockpit can be seen.

If you really look closely you can see I added more weights at the front console.

At this point I had I used a paint brush as a pivot for the rear landing gear to gauge the right amount of lead to put in. I think I filled every compartment I could find.

This area needed lots of filler so that the canopy would align to the body structure. lots of sanding ahead. <_<

Next I also filled other areas with putty to hide hairline cracks, dimples and seams.

All sanded down and ready for first coat of paint.

The undercarriage mounting is unusual as there are no locating pins on the body…just raised detail as locations that were hard to find once sanded off.

I dread masking this bird cage canopy but it’s the first step 'cos I have to lay a coat of interior green before spraying a layer of black and pre-shading.
The black helps opaque the canopy frame.

Phew!! my Horsa doesn’t sit on its behind (donkey)…just enough weight at the front.

Managed a bit of masking and coating the interior green for the canopy.

See what I mean about the #%&@*&?? birdcage frame that had to be masked

Sprayed a coat of white to the areas getting the invasion stripes.

More masking and here you can see I purposely did freehand cutting of the mask to simulate the hand painting of the invasion stripes.

More close ups of the mask.

The coat fo interior green.

This weekend is for spraying the pre-shading with black.

Cheers,

Richard

7

[Y] up the Ox and Bucks!

One of the best sequences of that movie! Keep the pics coming!

8

Yup Stikpusher, also one of my favorite scenes. The other is Rudder’s Rangers scaling Point Du Ho.

Cheers,

Richard

9

Heres a shot of the bridge on D+3. Note the two Horsas in the background.

File:Pegasus Bridge 1944.jpg

10

Yes, the famous picture of the famous bridge renamed Pegasus. Someone mentioned that the landing was one of the best piece of airmanship in the war. The troops were landed less than 100 yards from the target and the action was over in 15 minutes I think.

The hard part was holding the bridge till the main re-inforcements arrived by mid-afternoon. I’ve read Stephen Ambrose’s Pegasus Bridge and it really gives a good account of the Ox & Bucks in Normandy.

Thanks for sharing the pix Stikpusher.

Cheers,

Richard

11

Well here’s more reporting on my progress…pre-shading in black. This is one of the good times to practise your airbrush skills.

The canopy also gets a coat of black to give the frame solidity.

Another angle…I followed all the major panels.

Oops! missed a step here…I had already started masking for the next camo pattern.

I used Blu-tack rolled into thin snakes and placed them following the instruction leaflets diagram on the camoflage.

Close-up of the Blu-tack…the rest was covered with typewriting paper.

Coat of the green was sprayed on.

After I removed the masking…

…couldn’t resist removing the masking for the invasion stripes…

…it was worth it…look at the contrast…I’ll have to remask to spray the black for the rest of the bottom of the aircraft.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Richard

12

Hi All,

Finally got started on the rest of the Horsa.

I had some problems with the masking lifting off paint from the stripes. Remind me not to spray commercial white paint from the can. Paint doesn’t stick very well and the over spray creates a non stick surface.

Got round the problem and here’s the result.

The wheels are not painted yet neither have the decals been added.

Any body know how to save decals from disintegrating when detaching from the carrier film. I’m thinking of coating a layer of Future. Will this work?

Next is to tackle the decals before the wash. I’d like to stencil the grafittie later on.

Thanks for looking. C&C welcomed.

Cheers,

Richard

13

Hi Everyone, sorry for the delay as I was busy with work, World Cup and other posts. We shall continue then…

…Well here’s the finished Horsa. I have added it to my list of finished builds of '08

The decals were a challenge but after coating it with future they didn’t shatter…thanks a fellow modeler for the tip.

This plane(glider) was plagued with many obstacles and a simple oob build took a bit longer. The kit itself is pretty good only my choice of paint and the decal softener which created havoc with white patches with the future coat causing the delay in the build progress.

Just a small addition to the progress. I added the tether ropes to the doors. In the earlier pictures, the main access door wasn’t attached with glue yet. Now it is with the ropes.

The ropes were made from picture hanging wire so it’s nice and strong.

The back entrance door also is attached. Notice that it doesn’t touch the ground and is suspended with rope.

I had to choose the right time to add graffiti and practise writing small words with a brush on scrap paper first. And when I got better I added to the glider door panels just like what the Glider borne troops did to their favourite mounts.

Finally last pictures of the finished glider.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Richard

14

Very nice job on the Horsa. We all should be required to build a Horsa or Hadrian just to honor t5he guys who rode into combat in them.

15

Nicely done. Thanks for sharing.

Regards, Rick

16

Thanks Guys,

John - I agree with the tribute to those brave men. You’ve got quite a large collection of planes yourself.

Rick - Glad to share my builds anytime.

Cheers,

Richard