McDonnell FH Phantom 1/50 [2]

Well, you didn't have to wait very long for the final report on the Phantom. Because here it is.

Where were we? The wings. The wings had to be completed. And the rest. And I did. Here's the end result, click on 'read the rest of the story' to read the rest of the story.

The wing went on without any troubles. I'll show you rightaway. First the wheels. I used this wonderful tightly woven binders' cloth for the rubber parts of the wheels. For another project I had bought a square meter of the stuff. With small incisions in the cut-off strips that went around the cardboard circles, the curvature in the tires also was smooth. The hubs were added after that. I used metal wire for the struts.

Yes, wheels should have a flatter underside because of the load they take. I know...

But they look nice. Don't they? You can see I tried to make some more effort in the wingfolds with some bulkheads and reinforcements. All fully ficticious, it is just to suggest there is some stuff going on there.

With the tail wings added it actually starts to look like an airplane. I squirted a dose of white glue into the nose area where I had thrown in some fishing lead weights to act as a counterweight. 

You can see with my knife leaning at the plane's tail end, it definitely isn't a tail sitter. Time for adding the nose cap when it all has dried.

Landing gear doors. The metal struts of the main gear doors are made out of pins.

The added gun ports. This plane still was very subsonic, so it would not have been afraid of being shot by its own bullets. I suppose the shells were caught inside of the plane's nose.

I really like the shape of this plane. Gerard really translated the characteristic features of the Phantom very well.

So there is the plane. Time for some beauty shots.

Here you can see the wings actually should fold a little further up. Oh well. It looks nice like this, too.

Although it is not super detailed and the finish certainly isn't my best, I like the result. This is a quite unique model since I know of no other. It has some tricky parts (the wing roots) and some parts that could have been easier in construction (the engine exhausts) but it is by all means a joy to build. A charming plane! It now can rest on a shelf and gather dust.

Thanks to Gerard Methorst for sharing his designs. I'll soon dig up another of his creations. he has a lot, so I don't know yet which one I'll choose.

Up next: something a little more spacy. It's small, reusable and has a six-person capacity. Oh, and it has a black feather painted on its sides. Do you know what I am talking about?

See you soon,
--PK