August's Patrouille de France Magister - FINI

[K5083]

I originally had another idea for this GB, but then thought of this. Some years ago I bought a Heller Patrouille de France combination kit with the Ouragan, Magister and Alpha Jet. Never built any of them but the time has come. I figure it can't get any more French-marked than the Patrouille colors. The Heller decals are still in fine shape.



We saw this kit built last month in the Classic Jets build, certainly better than I will do it, but I will see how close I can come to that standard.

August

[shangos70]

I have one of these but the decals are well out of register.

[K5083]

Day One for the GB. Must be cockpit day!

Smilzo's excellent recent build threads have reminded me that I used to do some of that stuff too, so I decided to get out the plastic sheet and sprue and doll up the Magister cockpit a little. Here it is in progress, with the main instrument panels mostly done, and bits being added to the side consoles. I would have taken a pic earlier in the process, but it was only at this point that I figured out to shoot with reading glasses in front of my iphone lens for close ups like this.



Here we are a little later with a coat of dark gray over everything.



The seats in the Magister were a copper metal color with tan or brown seat padding and blue harnesses, according to my research. Odd, but it adds some welcome color to the cockpit. Here the seats are installed, details within the cockpit picked out with various colors, and an ink wash over everything.



Before closing up the fuselage, the nosewheel strut has to be trapped between the halves, and nose weight installed. This would not appear to be too bad of a tail sitter which is just as well as there's not much room for ballast. Most of the items in the cockpit more or less represent the real items. The silver bars beside the left arm of the seats are the throttles. The red doodad at the front is the canopy release.





I also got the wings and tip tanks together, so it'll start to come together and look like a plane in time for some painting next weekend. Tomorrow's task will be to switch to the Monogram GB and do a similar cockpit treatment with my F-82.

August

[Jagewa]

Wow, cracking cokpitery work there, really liek the look of that.

Like the reading glasses idea with a smartphone trick.

Cheers
Jim

[Clashcityrocker]

Majestic work on the Magister cockpit August.

Nigel

[Molly-new]

Awesome cockpit work.

[JamesPerrin]

Great cockpit. Did these planes really not have ejector seats

[K5083]

Bang seats were tested in some late models. But remember this purports to be the first jet trainer ever (the Fokker S.13 also being a claimant). So thoroughly 40s technology. And quite a tiny aeroplane, if you've walked up to one it seems to come up to your knees. The ejector seats that were tested in them had to be specially developed for them.

August

[K5083]

Major assembly is just about done and canopy on. I just got the cool new clamp today. Went to a conference hosted by a law firm that was giving them out as swag. I can't imagine what a normal person would use them for, but they have just the right tension to clamp fuselages and stuff.

The canopy is quite thick and distorty, and my cockpit detail is all but invisible now. Oh well, at least you guys have seen it.



August

[despondman]

Great work on the cockpit.

[K5083]

The model got a squirt of black to color the insides of the canopy frames, and some body work to make it ready for painting. Family activities did not permit an airbrush session this weekend but it may start to see some real color over the course of the week.



August

[airjim]

I just got the cool new clamp today. Went to a conference hosted by a law firm that was giving them out as swag.

We had boxes and boxes of those at the old firm and I never once considered using them as a modeling clamp...

Jim

[K5083]

Well they're pretty useless for anything around the office, but my wife keeps stealing them off my model desk for clamping opened bags of snack foods.

August

[Old_Tonto]

Great work so far August. I was very impressed with the cockpit work you did.
Lets hope we can still see your doodad through that thick canopy.

[TobyC]

Fantastic as others have said. Great attention to detail.