C-121 conversion to the Super Constellation Super G

[scon10]

It is time, I think, to start a new thread on a civil airliner once more, the forum has seen enough military aircraft for the time being. .
Some time ago Ken west made a beautiful model available on E-card for a very reasonable price of the Lockheed C-121 Super Constellation, operated by the USAF, see pic 1 for a picture of the coverpainting by Billy Leliveld. I decided to make this model in scale 1 :67 and in the colours of KLM as a Super Constellation Super G. This type has the long radar nose and wing tip tanks to get non-stop trans-atlantic range in 1956 ( if there was not a too strong headwind). Ken West's model has a very accurate radar nose, but unfortunately no tip tanks. However, I had previously designed with the help of Siatky's cone developer programme these tip tanks, and I was reasonably pleased with the result, so I decided I could use them. So, having aquired Ken West's model, the next step will be the painting of the fuselage with KLM markings.

[Swampfox]

I look forward to your recolor of this beauty in commercial markings. Is there a KLM marked Connie out there somewhere? Any chance of one in good ' ol TWA markings, or is that too generic to even consider?

I'm watching,
Swampfox

[Don Boose]

Forum member Diderick A. den Bakker offers the Papertrade 1/50 Lockheed L-049 Connie in KLM colors at his Zeist Bouwplaten site: - Zeist Bouwplaten - Import, verkoop, ontwerp en productie van papieren schaalmodellen, maquettes en bouwplaten (cardmodels), Modelbouw, Rietveld cutoutmodels

Click on Luchtvaart/Aviation at the bottom of hte page.

No TWA versions that I know of, although I, too, would love to see one.

Don

[Papercaptain]

And there are two 1/50 versions of the Lockheed Super Connie in Lufthansa livery available: first one is a Schreiber-Bogen # 70989, length 70 cm, span 90 cm; the other is a Wilhelmshavener Modell # 1502 of the 1049-G with wingtip tanks, span 74 cm. And then there's a rare bird from Wilhelmshaven # 1502A, the red and white prototype 1049 with "Super Constellation" on its fuselage - a reprint of the 1956 or so early version, scale is 1/50 too.
Kind regards -
Papercaptain

[scon10]

Somewhere on this forum I listed in Februari 2010 a full list of known (to me, that is) paper models of the Constellation/Super Constellation.
Ah! I found it, search for "Lockheed C-121 Constellation". The list reads as follows:

quote:
The models that I am aware of, are (in random order):
1 -Otto Maier D- Starliner 1649 Lufthansa, scale 1:100 (1960's)
2 -Schreiber's Technische Bogen D- 1049G Lufthansa, scale 75, (1950's ?)
3 -Schreiber's Technische Bogen D- 1049G KLM, sc 75 same design as 2 (1950's?)
4 -Schreiber Bogen D- Starliner 1649 Lufthansa, sc 50 (1960's?)
5 -Wilhelmshavener D- 1049G Lufthansa, sc 50 (1950's?)
6 -Wilhelmshavener D- 1049G Lockheed colour, sc 50 (1950's? reprinted 2005)
7 -EMSCO NL- 1049C KLM, sc 66 2/3 (1954)
8 -Veritas NL- 1049G KLM, sc 65 (1956)
9 -"Uberall Dabei" book on flight published in Germany 1955 D- 1049C TWA sc 125 (1955) same design as nr 5 and 6
10 -Papertrade NL- 749 KLM sc 50 (1998)

11 -Kenlwest USA- 1049 c or G USAF, sc 50? (2010)
unquote.

The Kenlwest scale is now 1 : 72, not 50.

Anyway, the recolouring is not very difficult, if you have a photopaint programme, I have Paint Shop Pro, with the capability to use layers, and if you have an example of the colours you want. I used the decals that were published some years ago for the Heller Super Constllation scale 1:72 see pic 1.

What I did was take the a fuselage segment and "project" the corresponding part of the airline marking for that part of the fuselage as a layer . See pic 2, where I have used the windows of the original model as reference. I put a layer and aligned it exactly along the windows of the original. For clarity in pic 1, I deleted the top part of the marking (on the right half of the fuselage) and made the center lower part transparant to show you how I positioned the marking over the windows.

In this way, I cut the decal in all the seperate parts as the parts of the fuselage of the original model called for and hopefully, every marking is aligned correctly.

At this stage, I decided to use the silver paper that another thread in this forum mentioned (I think on the subject of the F-84 fighter jet) and which looked very good on an airplane model. I ordered a pack of sheets at the U.S. suplier. However, the roof of the Super Constellation is white, and my Canon printer does not have white ink, so I used the technique that I described earlier in the thread on the DeHavilland DH-106 Comet by Lex.
In this technique, I used the top half of the fuselage as printed on white paper with the KLM markings in the correct colour, and the bottom half of the fuselage printed on silver paper using only black markings. Therefore, to save printer ink, I whitened the gray area below the window line. I rearranged the fuselage parts to economize on paper and ended up with pic 3, which shows the mid fuselage ready for printing.
In the next step, I'll show you how I prepared the lower half of the fuselage parts.

[scon10]

Some more pictures of progress.

Pic 1 shows all printed sheets laid out. In scale 1 : 67, span will be around 55 cm (22").
In pic 2 the mid section is ready for assembly, and in pic 3 the segment is almost done.

[willygoat]

This is going to be gooooood. I like it so far.

[scon10]

I have worked my way to the nose of the Super Constellation, which was a fairly regular job. The recolouring seem to fit quite nicely so the overall effect starts to look as a KLM aircraft.
Pic 1 shows the front fuselage at this stage. The silver paper from Inktjet Station is after all a good silvery colour. It looks a bit spotty, but assembled in the fuselage I rather like the effect.
In pic 2, I am working on the cockpit. This is the only model I know of, that has a correct cockpit shape. The original Constellation cockpit was contoured in a streamline from the nose to the roof of the front fuselage, very good from an aeronautical point of view, but it resulted in a cramped headroom for the pilots. So, when Lockheed began designing the stretch, they recontoured the cockpit and raised the cockpit roof slightly. That is visible as little "bubble-like" cockpit roof, and Ken West has captured that very convincingly. I will not glue the cockpit in place untill I have the whole nose ready, so that I can check and see if the cockpit fits correctly.

Meanwhile, I decided to built the aircraft with gear down, so that I can use the nice wheel wells that are included. Pic 3 shows the instructions and the parts for the nose gear wheel well.

[sgoti]

You have a beautiful model so far!

[scon10]

In the meantime I have built the nose gear wheel well. It is a well detailed box, to be inserted inside the front fuselage, see pic 1. It was fun to see the shape of the very typical nose gear come back in the box filled with all sorts of little parts.

As I built the fuselage from the mid section to the front, I noticed that I should have waited with installing part 3e, which I called nr 4, onto the rest of the fuselage. I had anticipated to shove the assembled box from the front backwards into the completed front fuselage, but that turned out to be difficult. That is because the wheel well is higher at the rear end, and the opening in the front bulkhea is therefore lower. So I had to cut out that front bulkhead and enlarge the opening in order to push the well box in. No big deal, because I glued the box to the underside of the fuselage skin, not to the bulkheads, see pic 2. So if you're planning to build this model think about this.