Czech Models 1/48 XP-56

[jeaton01]

This one has been trying to get a place on the bench for maybe 10 years or more and finally made it.  Resin interior with decent fit so far.  So far I have just cleaned up all the resin parts from the pour blocks using mostly a band saw and belt sander (and respirator).  Some zinc chromate green has been sprayed  and some detail painting awaits.  Here is the parts!

 

  

 

[dupes]

Bandsaw! That's some serious hardware.

This will be very interesting.

[buddho]

This will be fun to watch.

[keavdog]

Interesting subject. I've never seen that one John. And she's a gull wing to boot!

[handiabled]

This should be good! Bookmarked

[TJ]

I'll be watching this John, I've got the Czech Model F2R Dark Shark in the stash.  Be good to see what I'm in for

[406 Silverado]

What a cool little aircraft that I didn't even know existed John. With two 20mm cannon and 4 .50's that thing packed a mean punch and had a pretty good top speed at that. Will be watching this one......

[lyle]

Such a unique subject! More lease.

[jmarc]

IIIIIIIIIII'm here , I'm here !

[kyledehart5]

Fascinating. I shall also watch.

[jeaton01]

May 17, 2024 7:07:28 GMT -5 406 Silverado said:

What a cool little aircraft that I didn't even know existed John. With two 20mm cannon and 4 .50's that thing packed a mean punch and had a pretty good top speed at that. Will be watching this one......

Joe, if it had worked, it might have been, but it never carried any armament and had stability problems that might have required shotguns instead of cannons to hit anything.  But it looks cool! And was undoubtedly the inspiration for that weird German airplane in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I had to do a little guessing and lots of trial fitting to get the interior in, but it is in there and fit well finally.  I glued the wings on and taped the fuselage together to determine if nose weight would be needed but it looks like it will not need ballast, probably because it had the engine mounted well aft.  Some scraping and filing improved the fit of the wings to the fuselage as the moldings on the fuselage were a bit oversize for the wings in the vertical.  It was a pretty quick fix because of the big curves there.  As you can see I taped off the joins and applied some Tamiya putty to clean up things.  The vacuform canopy fit well after the usual fit three times and trim once.  I used a small low power dremel type tool from Harbor Freight with a large carborundum disk to do the final adjustments.  Sounds scary but works really well as long as you keep the speed on one.

 

 

[handiabled]

Looks like you got the wing root issue squared away in quick fashion. It's looking great so far

[Medicman71]

Very cool and interesting build.

[tcoat]

May 21, 2024 0:18:01 GMT -5 jeaton01 said:

May 17, 2024 7:07:28 GMT -5 406 Silverado said:

What a cool little aircraft that I didn't even know existed John. With two 20mm cannon and 4 .50's that thing packed a mean punch and had a pretty good top speed at that. Will be watching this one......

Joe, if it had worked, it might have been, but it never carried any armament and had stability problems that might have required shotguns instead of cannons to hit anything.  But it looks cool! And was undoubtedly the inspiration for that weird German airplane in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It probably provided the inspiration for the gull wings of the Raiders plane. The majority of the movie aircraft was the Horten H series which actually had a couple of flying prototypes but not in the timeline of Raiders of course 

[tcoat]

.

[jeaton01]

Yep, there was also some Horten in there!

I made some masks from scaled photos of the vac canopy and painted it all interior green.  After that I added some aluminum tubing in the depressions meant to indicate the exhaust stubs. I cut them off at an angle and filed them flush with the fuselage skin. They were hollowed out some but I couldn't get too aggressive as the aluminum tubing doesn't stick to CA that well unless it is roughed up first. I knew that but forgot this time.

 

 

[jeaton01]

Working up the propellers this morning. 3/32 brass tubing and 1/16 music wire for the bearings and shafts. The kit did call for the shaft but not the bearings but things run truer and smoother with the brass bearings. All the prop blades are individual and there is no fixture for alignment so that was all Mk 1 eyeball. I know I have the blade faces correct and pitched for opposite rotation but I could have the rotation backwards on both. Who will know?

[jmarc]

NNNNNNNNNNeat !

[jeaton01]

Wait, there's more!!

[TJ]

Wind driven contra-rotating props. Nice

[jeaton01]

Got the video to play today. See post above.

[406 Silverado]

This continues to be a good build John. I said it at the beginning of the build but I'll say it again.....what a COOL subject!!! Very good choice!!!

[jeaton01]

Going to stop where I am, though I would have liked to have worked on the panel lines a bit more. The fragility of the landing gear made that too difficult for me and my shaky hands. Apparently the maker really wanted a scale size landing gear and that resulted in very weak struts, made worse by the flexibility of the limited run soft plastic. They will hold the finished model up but won't tolerate any kind of side loads. The design of the gear is very complex. Like the Grumman Bearcat there is a sort of trapese mechanism such that the top of the strut is moved outboard as it retracts. 

It was interesting to install the antenna post on the vacuform canopy, it was a resin part and I used a drop of five minute epoxy. The antenna wire is Uschi Fine, with just enough tension to stay straight, also attached to the fin with a drop of 5 minute epoxy. I may continue the use of epoxy with antenna wires, it worked very well.

The last photos are with a Collect-Air Curtiss XP-55. So far as I know there is no Vultee XP-54 in 1/48, so this may be as far as I can go in 1/48 with this series of out there experimental WW II fighters.

The instructions have  a few gotchas, they say to install the main gear struts with the axles outboard, but pictures and logic say otherwise.  They also show you to put the lower wing insignia on the left wing, but we all know better than that (but I still checked photos!).

[lyle]

Beautifully done, John.

[stikpusher]

 very nice finish John! 

[handiabled]

Very well done and unique subject to build. I always like the spinning props on your finished birds

[Medicman71]

Very nice!!

[jeaton01]

Thanks for the comments! Sometimes I wish the USAAF had used a more elaborate camouflage, but at least they were kind enough to choose an upper color that no one can agree on.

[keavdog]

Navy followed suit with gloss sea blue era followed by gloss white/gull gray era.

[buddho]

Beautiful finish on this one. Love Collectaire kits...only built an A 12 Avenger for a lawsuit case