1/72 Blackburn Buccaneer S.2C, No 809 Naval Air Squadron, HMS Ark Royal, January 1972.

Soldato
Joined
5 Feb 2006
Posts
5,169
So, received this yesterday and this is the first time a new kit has not gone straight into the stash. I started on this last and got the cockpit done and started on the internals and main airframe.

1/72 Blackburn Buccaneer S.2C

No 809 Naval Air Squadron, HMS Ark Royal, January 1972.

The Blackburn Buccaneer is a British carrier-borne attack aircraft designed in the 1950s for the Royal Navy (RN). Designed and initially produced by Blackburn Aircraft at Brough, it was later officially known as the Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer when Blackburn became a part of the Hawker Siddeley Group, but this name is rarely used.

The Buccaneer was originally designed in response to the Soviet Union's Sverdlov-class cruiser construction programme. Instead of building a new fleet of its own, the Royal Navy could use the Buccaneer to attack these ships by approaching at low altitudes below the ship's radar horizon. The Buccaneer could attack using a nuclear bomb, or conventional weapons. It was later intended to carry short-range anti-shipping missiles to improve its survivability against more modern ship-based anti-aircraft weapons.

The Buccaneer entered Royal Naval service in 1962. The initial production aircraft suffered a series of accidents due to insufficient engine power, which was quickly addressed in the Buccaneer S.2, equipped with more powerful Rolls-Royce Spey jet engines. The Buccaneer was also offered as an entrant into a new Royal Air Force (RAF) contest for a new attack aircraft. It was initially rejected in favour of the much more advanced supersonic BAC TSR-2, but the cost of the TSR-2 programme led to its cancellation, only to be followed by the cancellation of its selected replacement, the General Dynamics F-111K. The Buccaneer was finally purchased by the RAF, entering service in 1969.

The Royal Navy retired the last of its large aircraft carriers in 1978, moving their strike role to the British Aerospace Sea Harrier, and passing their Buccaneers to the RAF. After a crash in 1980 revealed metal fatigue problems, the RAF fleet was reduced to 60 aircraft, while the rest were scrapped. The ending of the Cold War led to a reduction in strength of the RAF, and the accelerated retirement of the remaining fleet, with the last Buccaneers in RAF service being retired in 1994; in favour of the Panavia Tornado. The South African Air Force (SAAF) also procured the type. Buccaneers saw combat action in the first Gulf War of 1991, and the South African Border War.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_Buccaneer

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Soldato
OP
Joined
5 Feb 2006
Posts
5,169
UPDATE ONE

Construction has moved forward with the cockpit glued together and then seams sanded. Also, if like me, you forget to put the front console in, it will go in if you remove the front ejection seat.

So far fit has been fine but I think I introduced my own problems when I fitted the tail section.

During test fitting, the only issue I noticed was a gap where the tail fin meets, so I put plenty of glue on when I fitted this and applied pressure to close the gap. I think what happened is the excess glue softened the sides and I ended up with a step that wasn't there when I test fitted.

I'm painting the intakes and exhausts first, masking and the painting the rest. I use UMP glossy primer and AK extreme polished aluminium on the intakes and gun metal on the exhausts.

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Soldato
OP
Joined
5 Feb 2006
Posts
5,169
UPDATE TWO

Been working away on this build so not taken many photos as I was enjoying the build process.

Although i did have one problem i have not encountered before.

Despite cleaning the model with IPA prior to painting as i usually do, i had several points where paint came away right down to the plastic. So several touch ups were required.

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