rockpaperscissor
12-18-2018, 04:23 PM
My infatuation with vintage Rigby airplane models continues with this recolor of the Westland Lysander. The model was originally published in the "Sunday Funnies" on February 16, 1941.
For this one, I chose the livery of the 1th fighter squadron, Irish Air Corps. The IAC had a flight of six Lysanders before the outbreak of the war.
On my earlier reworked Rigby's I limited my efforts to coloring only, but the Lysander required some surgery to make it a bit closer to the real thing. The tail was all wrong, so the horizontal stabs were separated from the rudder, and slots were cut low down on the fuselage sides to receive them. The wing spars weren't included in the kit and rather than resorting to painted cardboard, coffee stirrers or balsa wood like a 1940s Rigby modeler, I used Photoshop to generate them. Canopies seems to be a recurring problem with these models, and the Lysander was no exception. As designed it was unusable. I had to cut off the forward section and then redraw a new one, which I rejoined to the center section of the canopy with an internal glue strip.
The Lysander was a good sized airplane with a 50 foot wingspan. Printed at 100%, the model has a 181mm wingspan which makes it 1/84 scale - pretty close to HO (1/87). The landing gear leaves a lot to be desired, but overall it's a pretty nice model, and I had a lot of fun building it.
I apologize for not adding my Rigby recolors to the download section of the forum yet. I have tried, several times, but when I attach the files and click on "upload", nothing happens. I don't really understand why. PDFs are an acceptable format, and the files are no where near the max size limit. Maybe I'll convert them to jpegs and try again.
On to the pics.
For this one, I chose the livery of the 1th fighter squadron, Irish Air Corps. The IAC had a flight of six Lysanders before the outbreak of the war.
On my earlier reworked Rigby's I limited my efforts to coloring only, but the Lysander required some surgery to make it a bit closer to the real thing. The tail was all wrong, so the horizontal stabs were separated from the rudder, and slots were cut low down on the fuselage sides to receive them. The wing spars weren't included in the kit and rather than resorting to painted cardboard, coffee stirrers or balsa wood like a 1940s Rigby modeler, I used Photoshop to generate them. Canopies seems to be a recurring problem with these models, and the Lysander was no exception. As designed it was unusable. I had to cut off the forward section and then redraw a new one, which I rejoined to the center section of the canopy with an internal glue strip.
The Lysander was a good sized airplane with a 50 foot wingspan. Printed at 100%, the model has a 181mm wingspan which makes it 1/84 scale - pretty close to HO (1/87). The landing gear leaves a lot to be desired, but overall it's a pretty nice model, and I had a lot of fun building it.
I apologize for not adding my Rigby recolors to the download section of the forum yet. I have tried, several times, but when I attach the files and click on "upload", nothing happens. I don't really understand why. PDFs are an acceptable format, and the files are no where near the max size limit. Maybe I'll convert them to jpegs and try again.
On to the pics.