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British Prototypes in 1/72 scale
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from page 1....EAP
The British Experimental Aircraft Program was a program to develop a new generation fighter aircraft by British Aerospace in the UK. The EAP was the "pre-" design of the Eurofighter, in which experience obtained with the EAP was incorporated.
The 1/72 model is from Pegasus from the UK this being one of their first kits issued way back in 1990. It is a very rough, thick plastic injection moulded short run kit, which on hind sight is not recommended.
It needs fast amounts of refining and re-shaping with putty. The finer parts are unusable.
After a lot of work, I got to the end result but still it is not very good....
(NOTE: Freightdog released in 2010 a better short run kit)
The real EAP is preserved at the RAF Cosford museum.
Handley Page HP-115
and seen by me during a museum Tour in the U.K in the 1990s, probably at Cosford:
The Handley Page HP-115 was built to a British contract of the Ministry of Aviation of 1960 for aerodynamic research into a low aspect ratio (delta) wing. It was the first type of test aircraft to get experimental data on such a wing and information was used in various aircraft such as the Concorde. First flight was August 17, 1961. The Viper engine of the HP-115 was mounted in the tail. Construction was metal with fabric rudder and elevons. The leading edges could be changed for tests, to change the camber of the delta wing. The landing gear was fixed and not retractable.
The model is from "Project X" and is a vacuform with some metal parts for the seat and landing gear. I bought in around the year 2000.
The canopy is a transparant vacu and the vacuform model needs sanding to separate and get the few parts for the model. (please note that ANIGRAND also later had a 1/72 resin model).
The model is simple, but the difficult area is the rounded engine intake. I inserted a tube there to help get the shape right. Later on I settled for a red intake cover.
Some putty and sanding is needed.
I used the JANES pocket book #12 on experimental aircraft. On internet, walk arounds can also be found. The Handley Page HP115 plane is now seen at the Yeovilton Museum (UK)
After sanding, polish the model to remove scratches. It got a coat of gloss black with the airbrush and than a coat of ALCLAD Gloss aluminium. This was polished to get a nice sheen.
The cockpit was detailed with some bits and pieces and an instrument panel made.
It was painted with various grey tints and some black. Note that the cockpit is really very black overall
The transfers are "dry". First separate the cover film to get to the sticky surface and cut each decal out. Set the decal with the sticky surface on the appropriate model location and saturate/wet with water. The paper can be slided off and the decal is set on the model. It works fine, but take care to position each decal in the correct position directly as it can not be moved later on. I could not find the no.6 photo cross black marking, maybe I lost it in the process....
I also replaced the British roundels with others from XTRADECAL.
The walkway lines were applied with a fine permanent scriber/ ink marker. The gear was attached and the canopy needed some filling with Microscale Kristal Clear to close the gaps.
The end result is a nice tiny prototype model of the HP-115.
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A nice model in the prototype collection
French prototypes in the fifties and sixties, some of them seen here....
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Created this page July 20, 2001 / last updated September 22, 2020