Commercial F-27 Fokker Friendship in MSA livery

rtfoe

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Hi,
This is one of those builds that I have always wanted to do having travelled in these often from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh during my boarding school days. The sound of the whine of the engines and the fact that if seated midway I could see the actuating of the landing gear and the moment it touches the runway. I knew I had to build a dio for this as well so part of this post will continue to the diorama section.

The airline
Malaysia–Singapore Airlines (MSA) was the flag carrier of Malaysia and Singapore. It came into being in 1966 as a result of a joint ownership of the airline by the governments of the two countries. The airline ceased operations after 6 years in 1972 when both governments decided to set up their own national airlines, Malaysian Airline System (now named Malaysia Airlines) and Singapore Airlines.

The plane (Referrenced from Wikipedia)
The Fokker F27 Friendship is a turboprop airliner developed and manufactured by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. It has the distinction of being the most numerous post-war aircraft to have been manufactured in the Netherlands; the F27 was also one of the most successful European airliners of its era.
The F27 was developed during the early 1950s with the expressed intent of producing a capable successor to the earlier piston engine-powered airliners that had become commonplace on the market, such as the successful Douglas DC-3. A key innovation of the F27 was the adoption of the Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop engine, which produced substantially less vibration and noise which provided improved conditions for passengers; another major comfort feature was cabin pressurisation. Innovative manufacturing techniques were also employed in the aircraft's construction.
On 24 November 1955, the F27 performed its maiden flight; on 19 November 1958, the type was introduced to revenue service. Shortly after its introduction, the F27 was recognised as being a commercial success. Under a licensing arrangement reached between Fokker and the U.S. aircraft manufacturer Fairchild, the F27 was manufactured in the United States by the latter; Fairchild went on to independently develop a stretched version of the airliner, which was designated as the Fairchild FH-227. During the 1980s, Fokker developed a modernised successor to the F27, the Fokker 50, which eventually replaced it in production.

The kit
A 1/72 scaled Fokker F27-MK 400 Friendship by ESCI. I've had this kit for a number of years and it had the right nose rather than the snubbed one of the Airfix kit. The tail section slope unfortunately is slightly high...the Airfix version being better shaped.

fok0004.jpg

This is one of the rare occassions that I have taken shots of the sprues. Overall molding is crisp, flashless, engraved panel lines(which saved me scribing time) and it gives you a full interior including the baggage compartment and webbing.

fok0002.jpg fok0003.jpg

fok0005.jpg

Construction coming up next...

Cheers,
Richard
 

rtfoe

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Continuation of the friendly Fokker...

As I was going to build this kit with MSA markings I had some planning to do, basically painting the strip along the windows before adding the clear parts. I didn't want spray to stain the interior so I temporarily masked over from the inside. I have coloured the seats, floor, webbing and cockpit.

fok0006.jpg fok0007.jpg

This appeared to be a real tail sitter so a large amount of ballast lead bearings was super glued to any space forward of the cockpit bulkhead. It didn't help that I was going to pose the baggage compartment door open so I couldn't add weights there.

fok0008.jpg

More to come later...

Cheers,
Richard
 

Jakko

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I’m waiting with baited breath to find out how you removed that masking tape after painting :smiling3:
 

rtfoe

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I’m waiting with baited breath to find out how you removed that masking tape after painting :smiling3:
Easy...I remove it after I spray the strip along the windows. I only need to prevent paint from coming in on one side as the seats are only stuck on one side. Once the strip is painted I remove the tape then glue the clear windows on and mask the strip.

But before doing that I did a little more interior additions to the baggage compartment where I tucked in a corner wrapped weights in tissue to simulate mail bags and added balsa boxes and stowage.

fok00012.jpg fok00011.jpg

At the same time I added flooring to the rear entrance and created lips to both the cargo doors and rear entrance doorways.

fok00013.jpg fok00014.jpg

I spent time to add detail to the access doors then found out that these doors opened inwards

fok0009.jpg fok00010.jpg

Cheers,
Richard
 

JR

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Richard.
Hi, I do hope you will include a miniature version of your self seated. That would be great.
I shall grab a seat looks as if it will be another of your WOW builds.
John.
 

Jakko

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Easy...I remove it after I spray the strip along the windows. I only need to prevent paint from coming in on one side as the seats are only stuck on one side. Once the strip is painted I remove the tape then glue the clear windows on and mask the strip.
I was thinking you would put the fuselage together, paint it all, and then remove the tape — hence being puzzled over how you’d do that :smiling3:
 

rtfoe

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Thanks John, evidently when people draw or sculpt they subconciously do themselves unless they are strict in capturing the vision they have before them. :smiling2: So every figure you would be seeing could be me...even the flight hostess. Boy, would she look ugly. :tears-of-joy:

Jakko, for a moment there I thought you had lost it :smiling2: This is a very old build...one of those to fill in the gaps between my dioramas. Also it gave me some experience in drawing up my own decals and printing them on a colour photostat machine.

Cheers,
Richard
 

JR

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Richard I expect to see the version of you in your helmet , we won't go into the Stewardess part. :surprised::smiling2:
 

rtfoe

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You guys can be real funny...

Just to show you the markings that I was going for...I drew up the tail markings following a tracing I made for a 737 then skewed it and retraced for the F-27. Took me a while to match the font Airline name. For the flags I simply traced and reduced to scale.

fok00015.jpg
Below as mentioned I pre-sprayed the yellow for the stripe before attaching the windows. This would later be masked again to paint the white over and then the white re-masked for the underside gray.

fok00016.jpg

I roughly tacked the wings to the fuselage to check for joints. I would detach them for easy painting at the wing roots.

fok00017.jpg

Putty and sanding of the fuselage was done around the wing hump, just behind the cockpit and the nose.

fok00018.jpg

Cheers,
Richard
 

JR

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RichardI like how you are able copy and then reduce, to me a nightmare. I spent hrs trying to reduce a simple map !
 

Jim R

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Hi Richard
A very interesting and successful plane with personal memories from your childhood. Off to your usual neat, considered start
Jim
 

rtfoe

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Thanks Ralph, John and Jim,

John, basically I would click free transform, put the cursor to the corner hold right click, hold shift key and drag to whatever size I want. Ofcourse you could click edit and choose scale and then type the percentage once you've calculated the scale you want. I would enlarge the image and then re-adjust the scale from there. Sometimes the screen rulers are used for measurements.

Jim, I was quite a small lad in my early teens and the stewardess would tag me with a young passenger tag and hold my hand to the plane. I got to sit with the flight stewardesses as well. Sometimes being small has its priviledges. :tongue-out3: It's a good thing I was focused on the undercarriage...the planes undercarriage.

Cheers,
Richard
 

rtfoe

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I have detached the wings and nacelle tips for easy excess to the fuselage masking. I used three strips of tape for each side og the strip lining. The top and bottom tapes were measured, aligned and fitted over the curves. The third tape was used to mask over the remaining exposed area.

fok00019.jpg fok00020.jpg

Aircraft gray was sprayed for the undersides of the fuselage top and bottom of the wings and over the taped lining to nuetralise the earlier yellow overspray...

fok00021.jpg fok00022.jpg

Then I did a very light post shading but in this case a pre-shading for the top of the fuselage which will be painted white. I masked the bottom of the fuselage and proceeded with the white.

fok00023.jpg fok00024.jpg

After removing the window lining mask the wings were attached making sure there wasn't any glue spillage. The de-icer boots were painted on the leading edges.

fok00025.jpg fok00026.jpg

Cheers,
Richard
 

rtfoe

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Thanks Joe...nice of you to comment.

Here are some shots of the cockpit masking off after the front black anti glaze panel was sprayed on. The fit of the canopy sides are not that good

fok00027.jpg fok00028.jpg

In later references I found the canopy frames were also painted in black and that might just hide the poor fit of the it.

fok00029.jpg

Cheers,
Richard
 

rtfoe

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Hi Steven...sorry for the late reply, thanks. Glad you like it so far.

Here are pics I took before decalling commenced.

405550.jpg 405551.jpg

For the panelling on the wing and tail surfaces I mixed a bit of black and silver to the gray mix and sprayed over some well placed masking strip. These were guess work as I didn't have any reference on the top of a F-27.

405552.jpg 405553.jpg

405554.jpg fok00030.jpg

Cheers,
Richard
 

rtfoe

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I drew up my artwork for the decals and positioned the markings as close as possible to save on decal sheet paper.

I then printed it using a color photostat machine on clear decal. This is only possible if the background you are going to place is already pre painted the color you want. For eg. the MSA lettering will be yellow when applied to the tail. All the other markings fall on a white background. The black door outlines will just simply be applied over the yellow stripping.

405555.jpg

Cheers,
Richard
 
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