1/144 AEW Wedgetail Conversion

[Ianshaw]

Hi Everyone.

I guess most of you know by now what my favourite subject is! For the past five years off and on I’ve been building models of AEW aircraft and so far have built up a fairly impressive 1/72nd collection of built models in my display cabinet. The snag is I have some pretty big AEW models in the stash left to build and I mean “biggies”. The Airfix E-3D and a Nimwacs, not to mention an AEW Shackleton a WillyFudd and several Hawkeyes including the Kinetic beauty. Although I drift off now and again to build a WW2 US Navy carrier aircraft (my other passion) I still come back to AEW uglies. The problem is where to I put em and how can I display them all together?

I was sifting through the stash the other day, admiring resin bits and A/M decal sheets (this sounds dead purvey) and realised that I have several 1/144 kits to build. The nicest being the Revell Hawkeye, a couple of Revell E-3’s, Trumpeter A-50 and a Revell Boeing 737 that I bought in Germany a few years ago in a fit of optimism thinking it would be easy to convert into a B737 AEW Wedgetail that the Aussies are developing. Then I had a brainwave, wouldn’t it be cool to build the History of AEW in 1/144 and display them all flying on one stand. I’ve not seen the like at Telford so this could be a first!

So in a burst of enthusiasm I ordered a Welsh Models 1/144 Gannet AEW3 vacuform and in the meantime did some web surfing to see if anyone else had done a Wedgetail, only to discover that a guy in Oz Gary Wickham had started one a while ago but never actually finished the build and a chap in Turkey called Acikgoz had started a Peace Eagle AEW (which is Turkey’s version of the Wedgetail) on an ARC modellers forum, a year ago and posted the finished photo of the model yesterday! I’ve appealed on the research forum on Promodeller to see if anyone knows the actual colour grey that these aircraft are painted but no luck on that so far. Thanks to Colin Shipton-Knight the UK IPMS Decal Bank manager for providing me with a selection of RAAF decals to use.

I have no scale plans of the Wedgetail and unfortunately no-one who has built the Welsh Models 1/72 vrsion has seen my appeal yet for a scan of the plans for that model, so it was print as many photos off the PC as I dare, whoops there goes another ink cartridge, and get out the dividers and ruler. So I’ve done the best I can and drawn some pics of the Radar Aerial and the tail strakes to use as size guides. I followed some of the tips that the other 2 guys posted in their builds to speed things along a bit. So on Sunday I started cutting plastic and took photos as I went, so here goes …..

The Revell Boeing 737-800 that is the base kit for this conversion.



The sprue shot! However I’ve already cut the bits I need off and put the undercarriage in the spares box already.



You can see here that I’ve used Dymo tape as a guide for the cutting and have already worked out the sizes that need to be removed, 7 windows and 26mm from the forward fuselage and 5 windows and 18mm from the rear fuselage.



As you can see in this shot I have the source photos handy and a sheet of build notes just to keep me on the right track.



The point of no return, I tried using my Olfa P Cutter first but gave up and got the razor saw out in the end as it was a lot quicker.



Voila the shortened fuselage,



Here I have sanded the joints square and Tamiya glued all the sections together.



The inside was strengthened around the joins and the blanked windows worked out and backed with scrap plastic card.



This is where I made the first mistake deciding to use superglue as a crack filler on the joins, but it is a bitch to sand down as the plastic is a lot softer then I ended up with humps over the joins, which then had to be filled with Squadron filler putty, a long a laborious process. Then I masked of the areas where the windows needed to be filled to save the surrounding detail.



Next the construction of the Radar mast support which was built up from layers of scrap plastic card ensuring that it was hollow so that the two intakes at the front of the support could be created.



Then next the Radar itself was created by gluing two pieces of plastic rod together then sticking a strip of thin plastic card to the top and bottom surface.



A lot of sanding and polishing, continually checking the photos later, the completed article. Note how the Radar head is angled down towards the front.







I couldn’t resist mounting it on the top of the fuselage to check for size and sit, note that I have removed a fillet at the base of the leading edge of the vertical fin. The actual aircraft has been modified in the same way to accommodate the radar aerial. The top and sides of the aerial and mast have been scribed to add a bit of detail.





Then I rested the fuselage on the wings just to get an idea of size, it’s a big bigger than that 1/144 Gannet ! Next I will be tackling joining the fuselage and replacing the tail fillet. Please feel free to comment guys.

[COLIN SHIPTON-KNIGHT]

Ian,

Bravo....

No plans, just photos and enthusiasm, takes me back a lifetime to the days of Shackleton's and Balsa......!

Go for it, I look forward to the rest....

Colin

[Ianshaw]

Well after taking part in two Group Builds and building several other 1/144 scale AEW models, its time to get back on with the Wedgetail. I would like to mention and thank here, Ray Sapala from Australia who saw my sister post to this one on Britmodeller and sent me a PM offering his help. Not only did he send the Aussie company, Hawkeye resin conversion parts and scale plans to build a Wedgetail but also a couple of months later sent me the Hawkeye decal sheet.

















Thanks again Ray for your generosity and help I am very grateful, this is my favourite aspect of our modelling hobby, that someone literally from the other side of the world offers their help and advice free of charge. I have done the same for other modellers in the States the UK and France, its all good karma. You might want to check out Ray's B737 RAAF transport on Britmodeller and Hyperscale it is a beauty.

Well back to the build, I went down the shed and cracked on last night, firstly joining the fuselage halves without any issues, remembering to put a plastic card blanking plate under the gap just in front of the fin.

Then I super glued the resin fillet onto the leading edge of the fin and filled the fuselage joints top and bottom.



Next the wings went on, I wasn’t too happy with the upper wing rot join to the fuselage as there is a little step that the top half of the wing is supposed to click over. Yet if I did this it put a ridiculously steep angle on dihedral on the wings, so I butted up against the step and will file it down when all is dry and set.

The tail planes were then glued on, they are an excellent fit. Al the belly joints were then filled and the wings taped to let them set at the correct dihedral.

I'll let it all set for a couple of days before I start rubbing down.

Cheers for now thanks for looking,

[Ianshaw]

A very productive 24 hours, the wing tips have gone on, this involved cuting off the vertical cow horn of the kit tips, sanding them flat and then supergluing the resin sensors to the ends. Then the underbelly aerial pad, nose sensors and the 2 tail sensor resin parts were glued in place.



The top hat radar mast was then added and a thin fillet of plastic card added along it's base where it meets the top of the fuselage as per the real aircraft. Then the ventral strakes were manufactured from very thin plastic card and put in place. I then did a bit of pre-shading and wheel painting. The cockpit canopy was glued into place with Gator glue and the whole lot left to dry.



The next job will be the engines and mounting the nacelles.

Ian

[Ianshaw]

The airframe is all together now and the engines are both mounted. The first coat of Hannants enamel Boeing Gray has now gone on. The engine intakes were painted with Alclad 2 chrome, I'm really pleaded how they have come out.







About a third of the aerials are now on, a very fiddly process in this scale.

Regards

Ian