Hunting After Dark, 2011-2012 Night Fighter Group Build

First dry fit of the sub assemblies on ship 1

Nose gear doors in place

I've put off the dreaded Canopy fit issues long enough so here goes. Strips of styrene added and more will be needed.

The very front port side also has a very nasty gap and to make it even more fun its not even across the join.

Cut and filed to shape

The rest can now be fixed with a small bead of Green putty

I'de given up waiting for my interior upgrade to arrive it was tracked to the local post office and then vanished. So right after glueing the fuse halve together it turns up today  along with the decals that I ordered. To add insult to injury the decals are for some 1/32 scale jet! Oh well I perservere on and this is how far I've gotten.








The Pilot and crew are a mixed bag from different kits so they had to be tweaked a bit
Before

after

the rest of the Crew

Nicely done.  :)

Some interior painting completed

Pilots seat detail scratched in support and release lever

Hate having to work around fixed gear early in the build process so I notched one side of the gear mounting point ,this will allow me to instal the gear after glueing the boom halves. Less chance of damage and easier to finish !

Since one build will be gear up fitted the doors closed on a set of booms,pretty nice fit actually,required very little sanding to get a snug fit. I also went ahead and removed the seams and blemishes,filled with some thinned Green putty and finished with 1000 wet .

Thanks again NFN I'll post up a pic of the decal sheet when it arrives!

Just to clearify on the zinc chromate.  Green was in the front wheel well, yellow was in the side wheel wells.

If memory serves correctly, Any place the crew resided, (cockpit, and R/O compartment) was Zinc Chromate Green, the Wheel wells were Zinc Chromate yellow.  Give me a list of the decals you have and I'll look the up in my references and tell you which ones shared the same airfield if any.  As for pics on the thread, I know that you also frequent ww2aircraft.net.  You will find all my pictures and what I did posted in the group build area, common wealth/ nightfigher build.  It's listed under Nocturnal Nemesis.  The pictures are visible when you are signed in.  Following the directions, your first part of the build after fitting is the chairs.  Fishing/aquarium plant weights and epoxy stick will weight down the nose.  As you build the plane, just keep in mind that not all the weight needs to be in the nose.  As long as the weight is in front of the rear wheels, it will work.  That means directly behind the wall behind the gunners seat and just behind the engine bulkheads are open for weight.  Weight can also be added between the cockpit floor and the gun bay beneath.  I'll find some pictures to send now.

NFN thats great info already thanks! I'm not sure yet about  which particular aircraft but have a decal sheet with multiple options on the way. I 'm really hoping to find a B and A that would've shared the same airfield. A pic of the interior would be great to start. I'm also curious as to what color the insides of the gear bays,eng cowls,radar area ect. in the nose would've been and were they the same on both A&B? I was aware of the Turret being deleted and also that it was later redesigned to address the buffeting problem,was there a major outward appearrance between the 2 designs?Thanks again for the help and sadly you're pics are no longer up on the thread. Cheers Trey

Which planes in particular do you want to do?

Yes, the A in Olive Drab did serve in the Pacific along side the B's. I have a couple of books I read that talk about the history of the P-61.  It also has a list of serial numbers and what the mods were associated with them.  I also was given a cd with Black Widow information from Airframes (Terry).  The Black Widow interiors were Zinc Chromate Green, both front and back areas.  A lot of the "A"s had their turret removed because of buffeting but there were some that kept them for the fire power forward.  I have tons of photos I've found over the years of P-61 on the internet.  Just let me know what area you want to start on and I'll see what I have.  One area you will not see but in only one picture is just behind the pilot's seat.  There is a push lever to the back right that connect to some cable and allowed the pilot to tilt his chair back while in flight so that he could parachute out if he had to.  Hope this helps.

Thanks NFN I saw that web site while searching for pics,great restore project! No I've got the old non painted Eduard interior upgrade and just some replacement cowls. Do you know if the A version in olive drab with the turret served in the Pacific alongside the B? I have very limited reference on hand just a few pics from some google searches,very little interior color shots. I'm geussing from what I've seen the interiors were mainly green zinc in color not the yellow zinc shown on the restore project?

P-61B's all came in shiney black.  For a great reference for the RO compartment, go to MAAM.org.  The Mid Atlantic Air Museum is currently restoring a P-61B and there are tons of what a P-61B looks like.  For the plane on the ground, the cowling flaps would be open.  For the plane in the air, the flaps would be closed.  If you are doing the Eduard photo etched exterior, be careful because part of what they did is wrong for this plane.  The kits themselves are molded after the P-61A.  What other references do you have?

NFN I'm going to do B's with turrets. I've got some aftermarket goodies coming to remedy the engine cowls and props. I want to do a dio wth one on the ground and the other doing a low level fly by. Do you know if there were olive drab B's with a turret. Would be neat to do one of each color . I'm also curious about the interior colors any input would be great Thanks Trey

Thanks Trey.  Before you continue, which version of planes are you going to do, an A model or B?  I have a lot or reference material for both.  This kit has the cowl flaps open on one side and closed on the other.  Will you be switching cowlings between the planes?  How detailed do you want to get?  I'll get you the information you need.  

Cheers..

NFN Thanks I watched the great job you did on yours and I'll take any help I can get! The office you're doing is looking great,the seat harness looks real sharp!

decided to trim out the inlets on the wings

doing it 4 times got a little old but I geuss I'de need to get used to that real fast with this build


Some screen added behind the inlet vanes

The set of wings ready for some finish sanding.

Test fit of the wings to the pods and it looks like some filling will be needed for sure


Booms are not looking too hateful

I'm going to need a fix for the seam going right through the mesh area. I'm thinking of cutting them out and replacing the area with some metal mesh

This area is going to need some tweaking as well

Ok, finally found a smidgin of time to add a few photos.  The Russian night fighter is taking time but I will finish it.  I found out that I may be getting a present shortly of the Black Widow from Great Wall models.  :)

The fit on this kit isn't great but I will have it fixed up.  More has been done, just don't have the photos yet.

Trey, if you need some guidance with these, let me know.  I've built a few of these kits and have learned some secrets that may help.

Greg can you put me down for 2 P-61 Black Widows next please? They are the Revellogram offerings in 1/48 scale

I've built this kit before long ago as a youngster back in the 70's . I'de forgotten how aweful the kits were but its coming back real fast! Poor fit ,yep plenty of that. Flash  you want,yep a fair amout. Heat sinks? Ejector pin marks,Oh yea lots! In fact its got them a plenty and in some really bad places. Hideous rivets and raised panel lines ,oh you've opened the right box!

I've started just basically cleaning things up and straightening out the warps in the office floors. Also getting rid of the 'made in china' engraving on the bottom of the stab. The partial ejector pin marks on the fuselage seams are a nice touch,they are now filed smooth and the fit is decent now.

Greg thanks ,the GT is one of my favorites do you have a work in progress thread by chance?

Casper that thing is huge

NFN thanks!

Very good Trey, and thanks for including the photo of the actual plane.  :)

Would like to see this nighthawk too...   Nice kit Casper.  :)

I hope to have something more up this weekend.  Job has been keeping me busier than a care to be combined with a honey do list.  Still I did complete some items.  I hope this thread continues on through next year.  Thinking of building another widow as well as a French night fighter, Potez 631.

Picked up my Nighthawk from my LHS today...

Box is enormous of course cos inside it's hiding.....LOLMG..........

One of the biggest fuselages I've seen. Here it is next two my 1/32 Phantom II.

Great kit (despite the lack of harnesses supplied for the seat, lucky Tamiya kindly supplied spares with their F-116CJ kit) great details and a lot of pieces. Not to mention rubber tyres, metal landing gear and PE intake covers which look awesome.

I'm gonna build this one OOB, the cockpit is possibly one of the best I've seen from Trumpeter and may only need minimal scratch.

Cheers

Casper, a 32nd scale nighthawk?  I'd love to see that!

Trey, great job on the Night Lightning!  Academy gives you more to work with than the old Revell it seems, but not much more!  Regardless, it came out great.  That auto clear made it look wet.  I need to try that stuff for my automotive builds.  Speaking of:  working on a SimilR Matech Ford GT from Lemans 2010 has been taking most of my time.  If you are into cars, it is a really neat kit.  A little rough around the edges, sort of like a limited run airplane, but a subject I am amazed to see in plastic. 

Here is a conglomerative pic of the state of my current NF builds:

In the back is the old Airfix B-57.  It is and has been approaching final assembly.  Everytime I pick it up, I find more seam flaws etc though.

Clockwise is an Italeri F-16D "Night Falcon".  True Details seats.

Then the beginnings of a Monogram F-4D.  Casper did "Terrible Tyke" in 32nd, so here's mine for 72nd!  The markings are for a few years different, so it will be equipped somewhat different.  No loran towel rack, different load-out, but still a black bellied "Night Owl".

Last, is my conversion of a Fujimi A-6A to a A-6B Mod 1 "Iron Hand" Intruder.  After re-reading "Flight of the Intruder" last year, I have been wanting to build an "Iron Hand".  I still need to add handles and curtain to "bang seats" though.  The seats are from Super Bug.

My self imposed goal is to have all four of these across the finish line by October 31st, 2012.  Wish me luck.

Cheers,

Greg

ps- I will update the front page this weekend, and I need to come up with a "double ace" badge too.

Hey Greg, can I enter another one? I have bitten the bullet (or an AIM9) and gotten the new Trumpter F-1174A Nighthawk in 1/32. It's also cross over from the Gulf War GB.

Cheers

Thanks NFN!

I'm calling this one finished,not a terrible kit but nothing to rave about either. My biggest complaint would be the gear bays and doors.Very poor fit and lack of positive location for the doors. I did scratch in a last minute landing light on the nose gear and decided to leave off the rockets and just have the bare rails. The variations in the black do'nt show well in the pics but it is there. Warts and all I'm actually pretty pleased with it,  cheers Trey

Well done Trey :)

I've varied the sheen in the dullcote and streaked the finish,also used some pastel for the exhaust staining then dullcoted over it.

Canopy masked and some final tweaks and its ready for some preshading

For the preshade a thinned blue followed by a really thinned red. This is really more of a tint job than preshading

Next I decided to experiment with a blue powdered pearl added over the blue/red 'preshade'. I'm hoping after a thinned application of black it will give some background deviation and prevent a monochromatic finish.

Thinned black

After wet sanding with 1500

I then went with a Urethane automotive clear thinned 20% with reducer and a few drops of black

Greg I've got a 1/48 Academy P38M Night Lightning to add next please.

The office is ready to instal,not a very detailed affair but much wo'nt be seen once its entombed in the fuse anyway

The booms are ready to mate up to the pod, the gear bay design does'nt fit well and leaves a super thick wall. I've sanded it down some but its still way thick. Also took the time to open the air scoops up and thin down the leading edges

Helo thanks!

Greg it was well worth the wait she is a beaut! I love the weathering,excellent build!

Hey Greg!

Don't feel bad about the models thing.  I have about 6 in process.  (5 started this year) and am not really close to finishing hardly any of them.  I am going to get a couple finished or at least close to, this weekend.  Unfortunately they are not even scale models.  The good thing is that I am 6 models in process this last year, the 22 years before that, Zip, Zero, Nada.

Definitely doing better, just not quite all the way there yet.