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Personally I think it's a very interesting aircraft. As far as I know it was the first custom designed carrier based aircraft? Obviously British and nice and odd looking with it's 'broken' back. Also supposedly a real pilots aircraft.

jRatz has done a good brief in box preview in his thread with sprue etc. pictures of the Inpact version.

As he points out the main difference is the decals. The Lindberg ones are way too pale. When I got my kit from ebay it included the Aeroclub decals. Unfortunately, while they're the right colour the red centres are too large and out of register. More on them in a later post.

Here's where I was up to before this weekend & I'll post some pictures of what I've done after that later today (hopefully). I got fair bit done yesterday & hopefully it'll be another productive day today. (normal life willing)

Engine:

Kit cylinders & crankcase. Push rods, intakes & ignition wires added. Exhausts will be added just before I mate the engine to the fuselage as there's a separate, differently shaped exhaust I have to fashion for each of the 14 cylinders.

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Interior

I based this all on the one cutaway drawing that I have. Since I did it all and installed it i've found out that the seat is wrong, i should have stuck with the kit one rather than building a new one. Also, both ammunition feeds come up to the same height. Actually one should be higher as the guns aren't 'handed' so actually the (starboard I think) feed comes through the fuselage above the gun & wraps around. Ah well, maybe next time.

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Mike Grant instrument decals are very very cool.

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Unfortunately, as you can see on the last shot I forgot to thin the cockpit side walls down :cheers:

Cabane struts were way over scale so I've replaced them with pins after fairing in the big mounting panel & drilling holes straight through the wings to line everything up. Also, following the fairing in i had to rescribe the forward fuselage. That came out a bit heavy but live and learn :lol:

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That's all for now. Painting & decalling next before the ugly side of biplane construction top wing & rigging. Also still need to do the undercarriage, guns (will have to be scracthbuilt mainly), those ##!@#! exhausts and whatever other bits spring to life.

Edited by billb
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That is the same one I have, Sir.

It is nice to have a look at how you have made it out in full dimension.

Someone did a restoration of a Flycatcher not too long ago, and there are probably some decent photographs floating about. I have some Ian Stair drawings with marking information, but that is about all.

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"oldman",

Unfortunately the restoration aircraft has the wrong engine. Published photos, in old Aeroplane Monthlys, aren't great for detail - one instrument panel and part of the cockpit wall.

"billb",

Great work, I'm going to have to kick my effort up a notch !!

John

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back again. Got a bit distracted but I've also managed to get some things done:

Aluminium finish is Talon Acrylics from Hawkeye. Great paint. SNJ powder used for the cowling (also from Hawkeye)

Decals were a mess. The Aeroclub decals I had were the right colour but the red centres of all the roundels were out of register & far too large. Also these decals are very thick. The kit decals had completely the wrong shade of blue.

The markings on the kit are therefore: Blue circles from the Aeroclub kits with the centres cut out using a compass cutter. Red centres from an Airfix F.22 Seafire kit and cut from the removed centres of the Aeroclub decals and white backings from a Tamiya Spitfire I kit. All touched up with oil paint. Quite surprisingly all this actually sucked down into the kit recesses really well using Micro set/ sol & Gunze Mr Softener. I still probably should have just painted the lot (these are probably wrong anyway).

The cut off pins for the cabane struts worked better than expected and are a snug pop in fit. I'll have to be careful however not to scratch the cowling when I put the top wing on.

Guns use the kit bodies, Trumpeter Wellington barrels (from the unused dustbin turret) and some scrap rod, sheet etc.

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Now i've just got to hope they all attach properly!

I won;t be posting any updates for the next =month or two.

We're selling our current house & buying a property ~50 minutes out of town. As my hobby room was probably the messiest room in the house the only way to make it look decent for sale was pack everything up & shut down production.

If everything goes to plan I should be well & truly moved, unpacked and finished the Flycatcher in time for the April deadline.

As I can't build myself for a while please give me a regular fix of watching other peoples builds come together!

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  • 4 months later...

OK, sale & purchase all went well, I've finally been able to unpack my hobby room & get things started again. I've managed to do a small amount of work (no photos yet, hopefully tonight).

If all goes to plan i'll have enough time (10 days to go) to finish it off before the end date.

Also, got to say there's been some lovely work posted in the last few months here!

jRatz - any chance of there being 2 Flycatchers before close?

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  • 8 months later...

Hi Billb,

Just reading your 1:48 Flycatcher build as I am just starting the Lindberg 1:48 Hawker Fury I. Your build is great, I love the detail you managed to achieve in the cockpit, simple but looking good!

What I was particularly interesting for me is how you prepared the wings and tail surfaces? The bare model has a horrible out of scale 'fabric effect' which I want to get rid off but leaving the ribs as they are very good for this scale.

Anyone reading this It would be great to hear your hints and methods also.

Edited by phat trev
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