Fullscratched fighter

[Marc]

I know, I know, yet another wip...
This is a project I've had in mind for a long time, fueled by several sources of inspiration (Yukikaze, Ace Combat, latest fighters generations, etc). It's a semi-futuristic fighter jet I've been (very slowly) working on for about a month.
I did a crappy scribble of the basic shape I've been thinking of:
http://img97.imageshack.us/i/photo2au.jpg/

I'm not sure of the scale, I'm trying to keep the size reasonable so it should be somewhere in between 1/48 and 1/72.
I've given a lot of thoughts the way to apprehend the construction of a jet...but it didn't do much good
So I just drew the pattern of the fuselage on a plastic sheet and decided to start from there:
http://img264.imageshack.us/i/photo1dqv.jpg/
It's around 25cm long.

Then I built the thrusters, not too roundish, YF-23 style:
http://img340.imageshack.us/i/photo3ck.jpg/
Though the shape will be rounder afterwards.

I glued the thrusters to the fuselage, now I just have to build the rest of the plane
http://img691.imageshack.us/i/photo5b.jpg/
http://img683.imageshack.us/i/photo6m.jpg/
http://img340.imageshack.us/i/photo4vs.jpg/

That's it for now, I'm not sure how far I'll go but I more motivated by this than the other projects I have going on.

[FichtenFoo]

Looks interesting so far. Want to see it fleshed out more.

[bayu]

Oo, I always admire scratch projects. Looks kinda SR-71 from the nose & sides. Thanks for juicing up my neurons again to get into building a sci-fi plane again, Eze. 

[Pggasta]

Well, very good job!
I'm waiting for updates!!!!

[PetarB]

Looks kinda SR-71 from the nose & sides.

Looks more like the bastard child of an Avro Vulcan and the Supersylph Yukikaze to me!
Anyway, looking forwards to this one, I love futuristic atmospheric craft. And scratchbuild? You beauty!
I think you will like my next finished model...

[Marc]

I think you will like my next finished model...

Hmm, tell me more about this...

[Marc]

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/5790/67518528.jpg
http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/1259/46019941.jpg
I made the wings out of 2mm plastic sheet. I'm not sure if it's thick enough but that can always be fixed.
I used landing gears from a 1/48 Rafale kit though they might be too big, especially the wheels of the ones under the wings, since it looks like the scale should be around 1/72. Might try to get my hands on smaller ones.

[Funaka]

Yeah, those wheels look big. They would only make since if the plane was meant to operate from rough surfaces, like the large gear on the SEPECAT Jaguar:

http://www.spyflight.co.uk/jaguar.htm

Of course, the Yukikaze can just roll backwards off a carrier deck, and then take off vertically. What can YOUR plane do??? 

Where's the AMX-84?

[clee-cm]

Great job so far, and I mean so far...  Yeah, so what happened to the AMX-84?

[Marc]

Thanks, I should be able to get some smaller wheels and gears.
I gave the AMX to a friend who will get it casted.

[ZLuca]

Looks freat, love wings shape!
For this project will fit perfectly punch tool!
z

[Marc]

So I made some progress, I glued the wings on, started the underbelly structure.
I tried to stickytack the landing gears on to see how it looked. The wheels are maybe on the big side but it looks fine to me.
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/6492/82971192.jpg
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/3433/71380736.jpg
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/8725/30359545.jpg
I know it's a bit 2D so far, not too easy to figure out the proportions but I'm getting there.
Next is figuring out how to install the landing gears. I'm thinking of making boxes out of plastic card then building up the shape from this

[Marc]

Small progress on the landing gear housing:


http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/6996/29331778.jpg

Pretty straightforward building. No detailing yet.

[MRF]

No doubt, I am the last person here, that should write it, but the heck...

I want to see more :).

[Marc]

I made some progress on the front landing gear bay so I started to define the shape of the plane's nose. I shaped the profile with some plastic plate:
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/6706/bphoto1.jpg
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/8624/bphoto2.jpg
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/9035/bphoto3.jpg
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/9412/bphoto4.jpg
http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/7275/bphoto5.jpg
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/2168/bphoto6.jpg
You can see on the last pic that I started to form the shape, starting from the back of the nose. I'll use pla pate to shape the bulk (in order to have nice plane surfaces/save some epoxy) and Magic Sculp for other areas. It won't be 100% squarish though, I feel it'd look too simple.
The top of the nose should have more curves, so I'll use more Magic Sculp.

[ZLuca]

 
z

[Marc]

Slow progress is sloooow.
I built the shape of the nose out of epoxy. Getting something symmetric is tricky, especially since the nose itself is not 100% symmetrical in relation to the middle line. Oh well.
If I were to do it again I would have used more marks to form the shape in advance (like MRF does for example).
http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/1783/c13rl.jpg
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/7268/c12mx.jpg
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/6350/c11o.jpg
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/4957/17394377.jpg
Still have a lot of refining to do, and I'll have to blend the shape in.
Oh and I'm going to cut the shape of the cockpit/COFFIN system directly out of the nose. That should be interesting (nerve-wracking).

[MRF]

It's always nice to see some shapes coming out from simple, styrene frame...
Looking forward to see more :).

Are you going to build some transparent cockpit, or try something like ADF-01, from Ace Combat game ?

[Marc]

I'm going for a solid cockpit, like the Coffin system from AC though it would be the housing for the drone's computer, not an actual cockpit.

[clee-cm]

Great job so far Ezechiel, A coffin cockpit is not something that you see everyday.

I hope that we can all see a completed model... 

Keep up the great work!