IAR-81C - WW2 Romanian Fighter

This is a kit I bought a while back, wanting to do it, bit of a tribute build. My grandad was a pilot in WW2, flew recon airplanes. The recon squadrons operated from airfields where fighter squadrons were also present, including the IAR-80 and later IAR-81 (basically same thing with improved engines and few modifications under the hood.
I have used for inspiration many sources I found on the net, including a website dedicated to building a flying 1:1 replica (aeronautical engineers from Romania who are passionate about this airplane and its' history). Another great source of inspiration was / still is a model built by our own Chuckw (can find it in the archived masters part of the forum). His was a 1/48 model, but the skill and artistic presentation are second to none.
Will keep this short and sweet.


Azur 1/32 IAR-81C boxart - something to do with a huge aerial battle against USAAF P-38s over Romania in June 1944.

This is a limited series - plastic, clear plastic and some PE parts. Details on the fuselage are nice. I want to show this in as much detail as possible so I will remove a lot of panels and expose the area in the nose showing the two fuel tanks, cables, rods, wiring and all sorts. Plus, the engine. Panels removed, exposing the 14cyl-two rows radial engine.



Cockpit comes first and it is a weird one to build, instructions in the kit are not all that descriptive so I had to spend a lot of time researching stuff.



Floor - stick with added wiring, some levers too.

Instrument panel - nice and crisp details, but the decals come on a sheet which would be impossible to make look realistic if stuck on the panel directly, so I decided to cut the dials one by one to preserve that appearance.


Piece of brass tube, filed the interior to make a sharp edge, then use it to cut the dials off the sheet, one by one. Lucky me, the diameter was a match.



Next - opening panels ...



Lots of work.

More updates soon.

Thanks for watching,
Laurence

Neet-o! What kind of airplane did your Grampa fly?

Rhino said:

Neet-o! What kind of airplane did your Grampa fly?

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IAR-39 plane

This cool build slipped my mind. Thanks for reminding me!

Nice looking cockpit!

Turning out nice so far Lawrence.
Chuck's builds were always an inspiration. His characters were fun to see. Too bad he got all angry over something.

Nice progress Lawrence! Looks fantastic!

Chuk's build was pretty amazing! I think he has slowed down in recent years.

Heavens Eagle said:

Turning out nice so far Lawrence.
Chuck's builds were always an inspiration. His characters were fun to see. Too bad he got all angry over something.

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He is an artist and a crazy talented modeler. The presentation of his builds was second to none. Not sure what happened, would have been great to have him around here showcasing his skill.

Right, more stuff done.


Once I get this one off my desk ...

The side panels I removed open up the area where the two fuel tanks are, plus a lot of gizmos, all part of various systems - fuel, oil, hydraulic, pneumatic, lots of wires, oxygen bottle, very busy space.

I have to scratch all that - here's a scan I found on the net, taken from a book called Romanian Hunter.



The lower image shows the upper fuel tank, the one above shows the larger one - appears as two separate tanks but it's only one. All those things need to be scratched - so there ... brass sheet and some Evergreen plastic.



Then covered with some sort of an Aluminium sticky tape I found a car spare parts shop. Once cut to size, I rolled a rivet maker thingy to make the "bumps" called rivets in the real world.



Then the finished tank ... brackets added to the side and two pieces of PE taken from the Bismarck set of leftovers.



It will fit in here, somehow ..



I have to scratch the second tank first and work out all the other pieces that will go in there.

While doing all this, I paid some attention to the engine - this is a bit of a challenge. Comes in two sets of 7 cylinders, this is one of them. Clearly doesn't fit in the space it's meant to, if you just want to do an OOB build. Look at how thick the cowling is.



More about the engine a bit later.

Thanks for watching and for the kind words.

Laurence

Fuel tank is looking pretty swell! Nice bit of scratch work

Wow, sweet job!

Everything i love about builds. Well done.

See y'all, it's shapes and shaping with a touch of measuring thrown in!
Brilliant bit of modelmaking that!
Let me guess, Czechmasters makes a resin replacement 1/32 cowling that isn't armored. It's 2 weeks away and costs as much as the kit did?

Rhino said:

See y'all, it's shapes and shaping with a touch of measuring thrown in!
Brilliant bit of modelmaking that!
Let me guess, Czechmasters makes a resin replacement 1/32 cowling that isn't armored. It's 2 weeks away and costs as much as the kit did?

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Thank you, a lot of measuring and even more researching the darn thing.
The replacement I found was for the engine, a Polish business. Not bad, but a lot of money and I just didn't think it would be the best option.

Laurence

Right, bit more of an update here ...



Lower tanks go in there, had to scratch them both.



This is how they fit in ...



Aluminium tape to be wrapped around these and it will look better.

The engine ... a totally different proposition. The parts don't look that bad, but the two halves of each of the seven cyl. rings are dreadfully misaligned. The push rods are ok if you manage to clean them up nicely. Missing bits - spark plugs (2 x 14 cyl = 28 in total), leads to the plugs from the two ignition rings (front one part of the kit). So, had to do a lot of research. Best reference I found was a site where a Romanian artist posted 8 images of his own work, a reproduction of the real thing. Here is only one small portion of it.



So drilling, brass tube (0.7mm x 0.5mm interior), copper wire (0.5mm). I used flattened lead wire (0.3mm) to tie the spark plug leads to the push rods.



Bit blurry, apologies for this.



Still a lot to do, exhaust and all, but most of it is done.

Thanks for watching,

Laurence

I have several books (Romanian, of course) on the IAR fighters but you seem to have it all. Love the work. Thanks for inspiring me to look at my Double D dancer.

Sharkmouth said:

I have several books (Romanian, of course) on the IAR fighters but you seem to have it all. Love the work. Thanks for inspiring me to look at my Double D dancer.

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Thanks Saul, appreciate that. I don't own any books on the IAR, it's only materials I have been able to find on the net.

Cheers,
Laurence

An ambitious project, Laurence. Enjoying your posts!