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Tu-22 Blinder - 1/72 scale


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Man, those are some COLD looking pics!

Hi mrvark,

Yes! I have been in contact with the author BigSexy, this walkaround was a fascinating story. First of all it was near to impossible to get into the area of the once was institute. It was years of trying to get on the school airfield. At last a date was arranged. Hooray!!!!!!!! All was prepared for the visit and lots of adrenalin. The goal was not only the Tu-22 but also lots of other aircraft which escaped the demolition.

Now there is a fellow called Murphy and he had a lot to play in the night before the visit. Irkuts is in the “colder” part of Russia but still there was no snow, everything was clear and perfect for the visit all the way to the day before it. On the given night a snow storm hit the area delivering one month’s worth of fresh wet snow in a matter of hours. The ground was still warm so the knee deep snow was melting, but from the bottom up, so you had a wet/water layer at the bottom covered with thick snow. The wet snow stuck to one side and the top of the airframes (hiding lots of details) and to make things even better for a photo session a 30m/s wind was also blowing. So BigSexy was there standing in a watery snow with horizontal wind blowing and a “dream opportunity” to get photos of the very rare early Tu-22 from close up.

This is how COLD it was. A big THANK YOU should go out for his efforts!!!!

Best regards

Gabor

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It's 'AWL' coming together now. :rolleyes:

I decided to paint and mask the engine nacelles before attaching them to the rear fuselage - thinking that they would be easier to get at - which half-worked :bandhead2:/>/>

The fit of the twin engine nacelle isn't brilliant - there isn't much of a surface area on the fuselage to attach it to - and the curve on the bottom of the nacelle doesn't exactly match the fuselage shape.

Lots of fettling and scraping etc - but I finally got it attached - the only trouble is, there are gaps to fill and the joints are awkward to get at - especially at the rear end.

The wings fit OK-ish - but the joints still need filler.......

tu-22_54.jpg

.... more so on the undersides.....

tu-22_55.jpg

I'll now re-mask and re-spray the nacelles before doing the whole fuselage.

Ken

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Ken,

Have you seen these inlets and do you think they'd be a useful addition to the kit?

Hi mrvark,

Yes - I saw those - and they would be very useful.

The kit intakes (and exhausts) are in two halves - so there is a seam running down them.

Plus - it isn't very clear from Modelsvit's instructions where exactly they sit in relation to the outer nacelle front - I had to 'fettle' the kit intakes to try and hide the joint - not very successfully.

The only downside with those metal replacements is that they add weight at the tail end - but there is plently of room in the nose for counterweighting.

Ken

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A bit of progress - you have to do lots of interior assembly before the fuselage halves can be joined.....

The complete cockpit has to be assembled and painted - as does the weapons bay and nosewheel bay.....

These are the interior parts for the weapons bay (minus the delicate sway braces) - note the up/down sliding beam for the Kh-22 missile...

tu-22_18.jpg

The nose undercarriage parts - the instructions would have you assemble and fit the whole wheel bay - complete with the leg exposed and thus prone to damage......

tu-22_19.jpg

Note how short the axles are - I may replace with a longer one - I'm also working on a way to fit the nose leg at the end of the build.

In the meantime - the postman just delivered the Armory resin wheel set that I ordered......

tu-22_20.jpg

.... excellent service from Armory BTW - ordered on 18 November, delvered on 2 December. :thumbsup:/>/>/>

Here are the kit wheels.....

tu-22_21.jpg

.... perfectly adequate - but I just didn't fancy cementing all those wheel halves together.

Ken

Hi,

Can you provide the link to thr article? I just can't find it in the catalog.

Thanks

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After the hiatus of the Christmas hols - and being laid low with man-flu - I've made a bit of progress.....

I sprayed the white area with rattle cans of Halfords White Primer - with a top coat of Halfords Appliance White... then masked them off.... top...

tu-22_57.jpg

....and bottom....

tu-22_58.jpg

Then I applied a coat of grey primer - again from a rattle can - and polished it smooth ready for the silver.

First the outer window masks were applied....

tu-22_59.jpg

....... followed by the final coat of Halfords Aluminium.

Before removing the masking, I polished a few panels with SNJ powder for contrast - IMHO, the photos I have of Blinders don't show multiple contrasting panels - so I'm not overdoing it.

The masking was then removed to reveal........

tu-22_60.jpg

tu-22_61.jpg

That's it so far, ready for decaling and (maybe) a panel wash.

The silver hasd more contrast than the photos show - but it needs a bit more 'distressing' - but I'll tackle that later.

Ken

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi mrvark,

Yes - I saw those - and they would be very useful.

The kit intakes (and exhausts) are in two halves - so there is a seam running down them.

Plus - it isn't very clear from Modelsvit's instructions where exactly they sit in relation to the outer nacelle front - I had to 'fettle' the kit intakes to try and hide the joint - not very successfully.

The only downside with those metal replacements is that they add weight at the tail end - but there is plently of room in the nose for counterweighting.

Ken

I just got the Miniworld intakes from Models UA for the Modelsvit Tu-22. The intakes are really light, I think it is made up of aluminium, so should be no concern regarding the weight at the tail end.

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I replaced the rear gun turret with a scratch-built SPS-100 'Reseda' active jamming system.... made from plastic card and lots of Milliput.

I was concerned that this added weight at the extreme tail end would make it a tailsitter - but the main wheels are so far aft that there is no such problem.

So add the metal intakes with confidence :thumbsup:

Ken

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WOW, what a really unique looking plane. The old cold war soviet bombers were always very cool looking, but not many to chose from in the modeling world. Where can I get my hands on one of these?

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  • 3 months later...

I'm taking inspiration from Ken's build and have started on mine...........

Just looking through a few references, I see the DM 'blue-prints' show five fixed vanes on the front of each intake fan, whereas Modelsvit had molded six.

Does anyone have any clear evidence which number is correct ?

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Maybe hard to see from ground level om the real aircraft, but not at all difficult to see stuck high on the tail of the model, especially when using the beautiful MiniWorld aluminium intakes.

Surely there's nothing wrong with wanting to build an accurate model ?

Just asking if anyone knows where I might find a photo of the front fan of an RD-7M2 engine ......... ?

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