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Hey folks

I am continuing my practise of building outside of my comfort zone. I had three such kits: 

1/144 Revell Challenger 604 (which I built as a Canadian Forces VIP transport jet)

1/144 Big Planes Kits (BPK) Canadair RJ 100 

1/72 BPK Challenger 604 (this kit)

 

I built the other two first, so I could make some mistakes on them and hopefully do a better job on this Challenger. I bought the small Revell kit ages ago, and saw the two BPK offerings a couple years ago. I have a personal connection to the Challenger 604. For two years, from 2000 to 2002, I instructed on the Challenger 604 in the full flight simulators at Bombardier's Business Jet Training Centre in Montreal, Quebec. It was a fantastic job. Long hours, but very rewarding. I did my initial training with a South Korean government pilot (whom I took out to a Korean restaurant of his choice, and loved the experience). I trained crews from multiple companies, including Maersk, the Royal Australian Air Force, big tobacco companies, and private businessmen's pilots.

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The business jet world is a small community, and I found it fascinating to move from the world of CF-18 fighters to the ultimate in civilian luxury travel. As part of the job, we often flew the real aircraft, and I loved the laid-back pace of cruising along at 39,000 feet at Mach 0.82 for 4 hours, sipping Diet Dr. Pepper (one of Bombardier's execs loved it, and insisted all the Executive Jets from the company stock that kind of pop), and chatting about life with the other pilot and the flight attendant. Very different from strapping into a Hornet on a snow-driven ramp at -30C, with a frozen oxygen mask and numb fingers inside my flying gloves. With the Challenger, in the winter, I did the walkaround in a warm coat and thick gloves, then went inside and closed the door, starting the APU to provide heat and electricity as I put my coat in the closet and sat in shirt sleeves in the cockpit. The flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I wanted a coffee, which she prepared exactly as I liked it while I continued the checks and FMS data entry (small outfit; everybody knew everybody else). 

 

This kit comes with Canadian Forces decals. I never flew this kind of jet in the military. The beauty of civilian flying is that this is accessible for a pilot with sufficient experience, while in the military the Transport Group guys reserved the few positions on the Challenger unit for rewards for Herc and 707 pilots (now Polaris and C-17 of course). 

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I had some decals custom-made by a guy I contacted on Facebook. The scheme was very simple. This aircraft was hangared in Montreal/Dorval (now Trudeau) airport, at Sky Service. At the time, it was registered in the US, and officially belonged to the Wichita (Learjet) division of Bombardier; it was later re-registered in Canada. I had an American ATPL (Airline transport pilot licence) to fly it, and to instruct at the training centre, which was an FAA-approved training unit. The registration was N-604DD (not a coincidence). Calling ATC, we were "Challenger 604 Delta Delta", which was good advertising.

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604CC was another of ours; it was in Connecticut and used for customer demos by the marketers.

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The aircraft was unique in that it used to belong to the Dutch Air Force (RNlAF), and was configured to seat 19 passengers. It was essentially a mini RJ; the seats were just like in an RJ. We used it to ferry engineers and executives between Bombardier plants around the world (Belfast, Wichita, Bradley, etc). One day, we took off from a tiny airstrip in Florida with 19 Bombardier Vice Presidents on board, plus their golf bags, going back to snowy Montreal after a weekend retreat.

 

The model does not come with this kind of seating configuration, so I will build it with the normal executive jet style interior, so it doesn't look empty through the windows.

This is the cockpit for painting reference. Photo I took inside a simulator.

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More on the kit itself in the next post.

ALF

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Look at the size difference between this kit and the 1/144 Revell Challenger! It has a different approach for the nose from the RJ 100 from BPK, which came with a full transparent nose section. This transparency will only be the upper part of the nose.

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The kit comes with lots of PE.

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It also has resin. Engine faces and tail pipes, with terrific detail.

It also has resin wheels.

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When I started this build, I had lost the instructions. I threw them in the recycling bin with the instructions to the smaller Challenger and RJ kits. Luckily, I found them, because the interior parts are a little bit complex. Not sure how much of this will actually show when it is closed up. The kit comes with an option to have the door open so you can see inside, but I will leave the fuselage closed up, mainly because the interior configuration is not correct for this aircraft.

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More soon. Thanks for stopping by!

ALF

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Great story ALF. I've got the same kit and intend to build mine in Luftwaffe markings. One thing I noticed is that the attachment points inside the fuselage to hold the cabin floor are pretty much nonexistent. I'm hoping that the bulkheads will hold the floor in place at the right height. 

 

Keep up the progress on yours and I'll try to get mine on the bench again!

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If anyone does decide to open the door you need to do some adjustment with the interior as out of the box one of the interior walls extends over the door opening and you need to shorten some parts to get the wall to line up in front of the door. Ask me how I know. The interior fits pretty well otherwise. Just thought I'd put that out there for others that have the kit because the open door option does give a lot of cool detail and the adjustment wasn't too hard although I have no idea if what I did is accurate but it fits. My interior was primed for painting but the kit got packed away when I went to hospital with a medical problem. Been home for a while now so will have to pull this out again. Just got back from 2 weeks in Copenhagen visiting our daughter who works at the university there so I feel the need to pull out some kits or perhaps look at the two I picked up there :thumbsup:

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On 14/10/2017 at 9:15 AM, Kingoalie said:

Great story ALF. I've got the same kit and intend to build mine in Luftwaffe markings. One thing I noticed is that the attachment points inside the fuselage to hold the cabin floor are pretty much nonexistent. I'm hoping that the bulkheads will hold the floor in place at the right height. 

 

Keep up the progress on yours and I'll try to get mine on the bench again!

The floor seems to be OK. As is the case with the 1/144 RJ, the interior is very hard to line up, given that there are minimal cues, and this interior leaves room for error (see RCAF Fan's post below).

ALF

On 14/10/2017 at 6:16 PM, RCAFFAN said:

If anyone does decide to open the door you need to do some adjustment with the interior as out of the box one of the interior walls extends over the door opening and you need to shorten some parts to get the wall to line up in front of the door. Ask me how I know. The interior fits pretty well otherwise. Just thought I'd put that out there for others that have the kit because the open door option does give a lot of cool detail and the adjustment wasn't too hard although I have no idea if what I did is accurate but it fits. My interior was primed for painting but the kit got packed away when I went to hospital with a medical problem. Been home for a while now so will have to pull this out again. Just got back from 2 weeks in Copenhagen visiting our daughter who works at the university there so I feel the need to pull out some kits or perhaps look at the two I picked up there :thumbsup:

I was happy to have the excuse for not leaving the door open, but this was one of those rare cases where I was a little sad to hide that nice interior detail. Little of it will show through the side windows or even the front.

Welcome back!

ALF

 

Lesson learned from the 1/144 RJ. The bulkhead at the back of the floor sits on top of the floor, and does not go on the back of it. I built things up from the back on this. First, the rear bulkhead with its TV and closed lavatory door. I added the side panel, and before it dried, I set the little side table and long couch in place, to get the angle right on the vertical bulkhead. 

Then I added the remainder of the furniture and the bulkheads in the front (just aft of the galley).

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I didn't spend too much time on this; it will all be quite hard to see. Painting done on the interior parts, to give some colour when seen from outside.

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More progress soon.

ALF

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally, I tackled the cockpit.

I did the displays in the OFF position by drawing with permanent markers.

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Well, you know all that fun detail inside the fuselage? Now that it's closed up, it's completely invisible! As I thought. :doh:

ALF

 

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Slowly putting the fuselage together. These kits have nice detail, but there are absolutely NO locator pins. Great care must be taken to ensure the large parts are properly aligned.

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Got the wings on. They are nice and thin at the trailing edges (which I understand is a problem with this scale of large aircraft kits; apparently the trailing edges are often way too thick in scale). The gaps at the wing roots are not too bad either.

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The lower fuselage part behind the wing is a bit of a pain. It needs to be trimmed a bit, according to the instructions, but it will require quite a bit of filler. Luckily it will not show much at all.

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There are some really nice resin detail parts for the engines. Here I am slowly sawing off the compressor face.

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Like I said, really nice, fine detail.

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The intakes ahead of the compressors are thin resin. Very easy to chop off the block (with an Exacto), but hard to get straight to match nicely with the compressor face part.

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I checked a few times to make sure I got the orientation correct on the cowls. Using the pylon, I figured out which way was forward (to the right, in this picture).

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I then glued the intake in place (there is a little slot to line it up properly), the compressor face, and the cowling together. I will leave out the hot section until the very end. It gets painted a very shiny natural metal, so I will slide it in at the end of the build.

This is the back end. I dry-fit to ensure that the hot sections would stick out about the same amount on both sides, and they do slide easily in and out.

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I am now working on the tail section, and will glue the engines in place. I still don't know if it will be a tail sitter, so I will leave the nose off until everything else is assembled to see if it need weight in the nose cone.

Thanks for stopping by, folks!

ALF

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On 30/10/2017 at 9:49 PM, AX 365 said:

Very nice buddy.  Great progress.  Sorry that your work on the interior is now invisible.  Murphy's Law, you know.

I try very hard not to blame you... but sometimes I have no other choice! I have to admit that this time I knew full well that the interior would be invisible. At this rate, you'll be done your Hornet well before I do this one.

ALF

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On 10/11/2017 at 7:02 PM, Roundrobin said:

Your Challenger is Coming along real good. Love the interior details.

Thanks! Too bad they are now officially invisible.

 

Sorry for the slow progress, folks. Been quite busy with work and other things lately, plus this little kit is a bit challenging. It IS a Challenger, you know (see how I did that?).

Seriously, I love and hate this kit. For a patient, skilled modeller, it has great potential. I find it a bit tough to get just right, though.

 

I am busy assembling the rest of the fuselage and wings. I am going to leave the nose section off for now, in case it turns out to be a tail-sitter. Here you can see the winglets are installed. It's hard to ensure the angle is right; there are no guiding pins, so I just did it by eye.

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Here are the little locating holes (actually, more like little depressions) for the engine pylons.

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If you follow the instructions, the engine pylons have little pins that stick out quite a long way, that would enter holes in the fuselage. The problem is that there are no holes per se; there are simply little depressions. After much dry-fitting, I chopped most of the pins out of the pylons, until they were just long enough to catch slightly in the depressions to ensure proper angle of fit. During all of this chopping and dry fitting, I managed to mix up which pylon went on which side, so I had to examine pics of Challengers to ensure the angle was right (i.e. ensure the pylons were not on the wrong side).

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Turned out pretty well. The focus in this pic is the horizontal stabilizers. The little pins that are supposed to fit into the holes in the tail were too large a diameter, so I had to chop them as well.

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Now, the cockpit area. A quick look at where we are overall:

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Things were not encouraging. After much dry-fitting, I started to realize what the problem was.

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More in the next post. Thanks for following along!

ALF

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Suspense is now ending. What was the problem with the cockpit transparency section fit? Simple. It was the main instrument panel (MIP) preventing the cover from closing properly.

The MIP was too high (or the cockpit floor was sitting too high in the fuselage). I decided to solve the problem by reducing the height of the MIP, given that it is mostly hidden by the glare shield. Using Tamiya Extra-Thin glue is great; applying a bit more even days later, you can let it sink in and worry the little parts apart. Here it is separated from the centre panel.

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To make sure I was right, I did more dry-fitting with the nose cap without the MIP in place. Not quite right, but much better.

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I ended up chopping out some more of the cockpit opening, until the transparent part fit much better. Not perfect, but OK.

I then reglued the glare shield and MIP into the transparent section, to make very sure the glare shield was in the right spot. Given the almost total lack of guiding pins or other clues in the plastic, making sure such things fit in the right spots is a bit hard. I had trimmed some of the MIP down before this pic; I ended up chopping it even thinner after more dry-fitting.

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Finally short enough not to prevent the nose from closing up.

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More dry-fitting. I have spent a LOT of time on this part.

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Remember the concern about tail-sitting? It does. I installed the main and nose gear, and it sat OK. The problem became evident, though, after I popped the resin tail pipes into place. It promptly sat on its tail, even with the cockpit transparency sitting in place.

I then glued a weight into the cockpit area, using CA glue and a fishing weight.

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Then I confirmed that the model did not sit on its tail by setting those heavy resin parts in place.

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More soon!

ALF

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The nose section also required some trimming of the rear cockpit wall, so it didn't prevent it from seating properly at the back. After (no exaggeration) two weeks of part-time fiddling, I glued it all in place.

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Putty, more putty, let it dry.

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More putty, some sculpting. Better.

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I also installed the transparent strips along the fuselage. I managed to get them inversed; I did not pay close attention to the little panel line scribed in each, and mine are on opposite sides. Not a huge deal; the fit is excellent and I am not a stickler for panel lines.

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Now ready for masking of transparencies. Time to watch the rest of the hockey game. This IS a Canada 150 GB, after all. Thanks for stopping by.

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ALF

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The little cut-outs for the windscreens and windows (cockpit front and side), as well as the cabin windows, are perfectly sized. The transparencies on the fuselage sides fit much better on the 1/72 Challenger than they do on the 1/144 RJ.

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I sprayed one coat of Tamiya light grey primer, followed by multiple thin coats of Tamiya white primer. A few imperfections visible. White on a transport-type aircraft is VERY unforgiving. Like a pair of lycra tights on an elephant. :thumbsup:

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You can see how I got one of the transparencies inversed (panel line in wrong place) on one side in this. I used a metallic silver pen for the leading edges of the cowls, wings, and stabilizers. I also used it around the main and emergency doors, as well as the cockpit transparencies.

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I attached the actuators for the flaps afterward... maybe because I kind of forgot them? Oh well. I also started with some PE; in this case you can see them at the APU exhaust port under the right-hand engine.

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As I continue work on this, I proudly show off my newest Challenger model. I cannot claim any credit for creating it; it is a company-produced 1/55 scale display model sent by a friend. It is pertinent in this GB because in exchange I will be making a 1/32 CF-18 demo jet in the Battle of Britain scheme for him. I love this big one; it is heavy, glossy, and looks really nice. Not as detailed as what we are used to building on ARC, but still a stunning desktop model.

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More soon.

ALF

 

 

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After the painting, there was not much left to do. I assembled the wheels. I used a mix of the resin wheels, plus some of the plastic ones. I had to chop some of the locating pins off; the little holes were tiny on the plastic wheels, and absent on the resin ones.

After getting it to stand on its wheels, I outlined the exits with the silver pen, and did the leading edges of the wings, etc.

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Then, time for the custom decals a friend made for me.

Pretty much only the blue stripes and N604DD.

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I then added some of the kit decals for the lines on top of the engine pylons, as well as the anti-skid walkway for the emergency exit on the right side. Strangely, I never saw the markings on the pylons when I instructed on these aircraft. Could have something to do with how high up they are, plus the fact we never flew in formation. I did fly some times in formation with Challengers, simulating a supersonic missile attacking ships off the East Coast in my CF-18. The Challengers simulated the launch aircraft, and we flew in close formation with them prior to "launch." I never did get up high on them to see these markings, and it was usually 3 or 4 am and quite dark, often in cloud.

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Calling it done!

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Thanks for following along. I am happy to have this on my shelf, forever reminding me of when I flew this comfortable little jet.

ALF

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10 hours ago, Rick McPherson said:

Have one of these on order and 412 SQN  White with red decals from JBOT Decals.

 

Then chances are my friend Monty flew it.  He was with 412 Sqn before leaving the Air Force.

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