Lockheed XFV-1

I'm rebuilding an Aurora XFV-1 that I got as a glue bomb. I want it to be in the manner of an Lindberg XFY-1 that a friend of mine built many years ago and is now in my collection, first picture below. I'm using the Ginter book as as reference, it is pretty good but there are not many photos of the cockpit area. I wish I could find a cutaway of the airplane but I haven't seen one and I've casually looked for many years.

The Lindberg XFY-1 built by James Steel.


I have a kit that has not been started, although all the parts are painted a nice silver, not by me of course. These kits are not easy to find but they don't bring the price of kits like the Ryan X-13 by Aurora.





Here's what the kit looked like when I got it:


I was able to break apart the kit without too much drama, and sanded off all the raised markings and rivets. I've seen steam boilers with less prominent rivets than this kit. I want to display it with the canopy open, and that required a vacuform canopy. The kit has the aft canopy section molded with the fuselage and the front section was glue damaged and coke bottle thick. The pilot as usual for the Aurora kits was a head stuck on top of the fuselage. The area above the cockpit was removed and a cockpit will be made up. I was going to use a resin set from a Corsair to add some interest, but it turns out a cockpit from the Monogram F-80 was a better choice, adding a Yahu instrument board I got for the resin Corsair set, the Yahu panel matches the shape of the XFV-1 panel.



There is of course no vacuform canopy on the market for this beast, but I happened to have this friend who is good at that sort of thing who needed some custom decals made up so a deal was struck and I sent him a master I made for the canopy which he improved considerably, and in good time sent him the decals he needed. I got back a really nice canopy and two extras.

I put in some thin plastic card to simulate intake ducts as the kit had open holes there, and fit a floor and back bulkhead in the cockpit area, The F-80 cockpit will be fit to that, I think this method is easier to get the proper locations for the seat and panel. I'll have to do some shimming to eliminate visible gaps around the F-80 side panels but it fit up without too much drama.







The new cockpit floor and bulkhead with the F-80 cockpit and Yahu panel test fit.





The duct under the fuselage is too wide throughout and too deep at the aft end, as well as the wrong shape where it intersects the exhaust duct. I cut it away and will add it back after the fuselage is joined. Aurora missed the exhaust duct entirely, so more material was cut away there and the upper side of the duct was shaped using brass sheet, I found that easier to shape than plastic. Once I had the shape I drape formed a sheet of styrene over it and fit that to the model.

View of the bottom with the exhaust duct fit and the oil cooler duct reshaped.

I'm sure the original builder was proud of what they were able to do with this. What a rehab job though!

Really nice restoration. Gary S. XLV MMXX

Very impressive, would be good if you could caption your pictures though .

Very nice John.
You did an excellent job on the rehab.
Frank

paddy said:

Very impressive, would be good if you could caption your pictures though .

Click to expand...

Paddy, i reformatted the post so it is more "coherent", thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks, Bob, Gary, and Frank.

Ahh thats great. I had thought the first picture was your finished job Now i see where you are going, many thanks.

Beautiful rehab work! I always love seeing old models being given new life!

Thanks, Duke.

More work done on the Salmon lately. I put gizmology into play because I can't find any good photos of what is going on in front of the instrument panel or behind the seat, althought the ones I do have make both places look very busy. There is no cover over the area in front of the instrument panel. I made a guess and went with dark gull grey for the overall color, and slapped on a bunch of pe placards and such. This kind of thing is really hard for me to do, just making guesses and going with it. Oh well, that's the way it is in the out west area of modeling!

Here it is after a dull coat to blend things together, and the work on the back shelf.


I made a resin block for the back of the instrument panel and did my best to drill holes in straight lines. The wire is .015 diameter to replicate instrument piping and wiring. I bent them in a logical pattern and later cut off the extra length. Instrument casings should be visible but I was too lazy and there is not that much room to work.


A photo with the wiring block installed and most of the resin dust removed.



Two of the casters were missing from the glue bomb so copies from resin are being made. Another reason to make more is to reset how they are positioned. The way Aurora cast them is outward in all positions, but in any motion I can see they should be somewhere between all in the same direction or in the same direction of rotation if the aircraft were being rotated, or some combination of the two. I am planning on drilling and pinning the casters to the remaining housings on the tail fins, as all of that part is still there.

Congratulations John for the great job!

Luiz.

The 50's was a neat time period for aircraft development! Would have loved to been there. the referb is looking great.

Looking good John.
Frank

I did a lot more work on the bottom of the Salmon, made a new bottom for the belly and added the duct back on under it. Other than that it's been occasional work on blending in the exhaust duct and scoop. I'm using Aves Epoxysculpt and Perfect Plastic Putty.






Just filling and sanding and a little assembly. Since the tail fins have to support the model I cut into the fins and the fuselage with a dremel saw blade and made brass biscuits to add strength. Obviously the original tabs are obliterated. The exhaust scoop was further shaped using Aves Epoxy Clay.








It doesn't look like I've done much but I have spent a lot of time on this one. It has been a bear getting the tailplanes back on in the right places because there was nothing left of the old tabs and slots. They aren't exactly right yet but many have been moved and reglued several times and it's close enough. Lots of filling and sanding, and a little more yet to go. Tonight I re-attached all the little castor wheels and housings, some of which are resin replacements for the lost originals. The model is sitting pretty square but I will have to fudge the height of some of the housings because the tailplanes are just a bit off. With the small footprint of the castors compared to the size of the model it doesn't take much. Aurora made all the fins the same, and that made it so the castoring wheels were in impossible directions, all pointing toward the center of the airplane. There is no way that could happen unless the airplane was jacked up and the wheels were positioned that way. With any movement they would go to something more like I have repositioned them, as if the airplane had been moved in one direction.

Looking good

That's one heck of a project you got going on! Keep up the nice work!

I laugh out loud when you say "Just a little filling and sanding" because I get it! Your finished models always raise the Bar to level of excellence and authenticity most of us can never hope to achieve!

USAF Colonel James D. Reynolds (ret.) wished for a Pogo model. 1/48 Lindberg was the obvious choice for a FAC that flew with the VNAF as an "Advisor". He didn't drive a Pogo, but heard one fly by. (He said) "Noisiest, Manliest MUTHERVUCKER in the Sky. I doesn't kill commies. It scares them to death!" His VNAF airplane was a T-28C Trojan. (Don't tell anybody he was a Condom driver.)
The Lindbergh 1/48 (?) Pogo was the model I first learned "Fill, Sand, Swear, Drink. repeat." on. Man alive, that was a long time ago!
Your ancient Quiktrip Lamar cup filled with lukewarm Old Style every time I saw him. His Green Chrysler Cordoba. His unruly shock of gray hair. He looked a little like a thin, plastered, weather-beaten Sam Elliott. He was a good friend and a cunning warrior. I hadn't thought of Jim in quite some time.
God Rest you, Colonel Jim.

Good anecdote, Rhino, sorry I didn't respond sooner. Still doing "a little" filling and sanding.