East African Airways VC10.....the hard
way!
When
I was 12 I got a book called "Aircraft The Story of Powered Flight"
which had a drawing of an East African Airways VC10, from then on I wanted a
model of one because I thought it was so cool looking with the engines mounted
in pairs.
When Airfix rereleased their K2 Tanker kit I figured it would
be an easy conversion into the Airliner version. My build was a quick and dirty
version that I figured would take about 2 weeks. I ordered a set of decals from
Welsh Models and away I went..... I carved off and filled in the refueling position
on the bottom of the fuselage and got ready for paint. I was in a sense of denial
for the first little while thinking that the Airfix kit was the longer Super
VC10 and that it would work, after the decals arrived reality set in and I was
going to have to stretch the fuselage.
I
had always shortened kits and never stretched one so I had to think for a few
days on what would be the easiest way to solve the problem, I came up with the
idea of rolling up some small sheets of .020 sheet stryrene and sticking them
into the fuselage sections to lengthen it. It worked! A pound of filler later.....I
thought I was ready for paint again. At this point I realized that I had to
do something about the wing fences, they would have to be removed and new ones
made. After more pondering the solution was simple, I cut into the top of the
wing with a razor saw and inserted some strips of styrene which were then trimmed
to size.
|
|
of
filler later |
.....I
thought I |
was
ready for |
paint
again." |
The decals were quite nice, I was skeptical as the colours
didn't look that solid but they were great. Whenever you have large decals you
never quite know how they are going to fit around different parts of the fuselage
you only get one chance to put them on, to take away some of the guesswork I
make a photocopy of the sheet and cut out the decals so that you can see how
and where they are going to fit on the model. In the case of the VC10 I had
to know where the stripes were going to go around the engine mounts. The decals
worked out great. My two week quick build took about 5 months to complete. I
am very happy with the results, it may not be hysterically accurate but I find
that my favourite builds tend to be the ones that I have cut up and modified
or cobbled together out of spare parts.

Alex Bigey does a nice article on Building a VC10 Airliner in the Kit Builds
section that is worth checking out.
by
Ted Johnston
Member Comments :
comment by: PanAm64 posted on 07-15-2006, comment #2309
Nice job on the VC-10. I really like it.
comment by: alexbigey posted on 07-17-2006, comment #2315
That's a great build Ted!
comment by: Tu 154 guy posted on 07-17-2006, comment #2316
Great job, Ted
Info is very useful, I ve got the same problem with my VC-10 RAF tanker. Now I more or less can imagine what's to be done.
comment by: Ted Johnston posted on 07-20-2006, comment #2326
Thanks for the comments! I seem to enjoy chopping up kits and modifying them! One thing I left out was when I filled in the fuselage plugs I first cut some sheet styrene and scored it and cracked it to make it wrap around the fuselage so it wouldn't require as much filler.