[Soviet/Russian] Antonov An-14 -- Build Thread

[Awry_Chaos]

The model is entering it's final stages. It's looking real good!

Thank you @zathros ! Thank you for the kind words!

 

[Awry_Chaos]

Update time The one we've all been waiting for!

I managed to finish the main body of the aircraft, getting the tail section, the elevators and rudders attached to the fuselage.

While gluing this section I had a seam come apart so I had to fix that before actually attaching the tail section. Apparently I forgot how humid it is here in the Pacific Northwest which prevented my glue, a water-based adhesive, from drying as quickly as I needed it to. Granted, even though it gets humid here, it is no where near the humidity that the Southeast part of the country gets such as in Georgia where @micahrogers lives.

Being aware of the relative humidity is a good thing to keep in mind if your working with paper and card models, especially if you're using water-based glues.

Lessons learned, time to move on!

 

[Awry_Chaos]

Last night (or early this morning, your preference), I finished assembling the wing struts. These will go from the ''winglets'' you see and attach to the main wing of the aircraft. These struts would provide structural strength for the main wing of the aircraft in real life. Helps to relieve some of the stresses that the main spar experiences -- this arrangement is quite common with high-wing aircraft.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Wow! This plane looks awesome! I love the smooth curvature of the wings. It looks like it could really fly. When I clicked on the pictures to enlarge them I had the impression to look at widescreen movie stills. There is a certain dynamic to them that makes the model look larger than it is. Replace the background with some blue sky and it will look perfect. You should paint the petal seams at the nose though.

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You are doing a FANTASTIC JOB on this project!!!

 

[Awry_Chaos]

Wow! This plane looks awesome! I love the smooth curvature of the wings. It looks like it could really fly. When I clicked on the pictures to enlarge them I had the impression to look at widescreen movie stills. There is a certain dynamic to them that makes the model look larger than it is. Replace the background with some blue sky and it will look perfect. You should paint the petal seams at the nose though.

Thank you, Revell! Maybe someday I'll attempt to build a model that can actually fly. I don't know if this particular model would fly or not. It's not weighted in any way so it would probably be to light to fly. The airfoils might work if enough speed was given to the model. I may place it against some sort of background and paint it one day, but I'd need to work on my painting skills first and find the right paint. The wing presented an interesting challenge. I thought I was going to have to redo it but my wife convinced me I was on the right track with the first one I built. The secret here is patience and perseverance! And, of course, the Rhaven Blaack Method of Internal Tabbing. Brilliant technique with awesome results!

 

[Awry_Chaos]

You are doing a FANTASTIC JOB on this project!!!

Thank you, Rhaven! Your words are awesome in kind!

 

[mijob]

This plane is looking amazing.

 

[micahrogers]

A truly amazing (there is that echo again) build here, Great work, and a little edge clean up will bring it that last step.

 

[zathros]

You've built a plane that I've never seen built before. In our conversations, it seems that you and I both have that keen interest of these Soviet and even current Russian designed aircraft. Well done!!

 

[Awry_Chaos]

Ahhh... It has been awhile since my last update. Good news though: I'm almost done. Pretty much all the major stuff is complete, now I'm down to finishing the details such as the antenna on the back of the fuselage, the mirrors on the front nose of the fuselage, and fixing some seams. And the landing gear are pretty much complete -- they just need to be adjusted, fitted, and glued in place.

In these images I have the main wing struts glued into place. The main landing gear will be fitted and attached to the winglets, but more on that coming up soon

I'm at the point, where it is now mostly detailing (greebling) and putting the finishing touches on the model, minus a overall paint job [Another project for another time...]

 

[Awry_Chaos]

Here are the exhaust tubes (ports) for the engine cowlings. For these I printed the pattern out on regular paper (as the card stock I was using was too thick), carefully cut them out and used a toothpick to roll them into shape and then glued them. Before gluing them, I used a black fine line Sharpie to get rid of any white spots caused by said rolling.

There will be some seams that need to be fixed but I'm saving that towards the end.

 

[Awry_Chaos]

Now for the quagmire and conundrum of landing gear. At first I was going to go through the process of making wheeled type of landing gear for this model, but I decided to instead go with a ski-type of landing gear which some aircraft do have and use. Since this type of aircraft could be used in Arctic climates in Russia and Siberia it would make sense to have aircraft fitted out with ski-type of landing gear.

I went to my trusty Russian Aircraft site and found this picture of the An-14 with ski-type of landing gear:

Уголок неба - Большая авиационная энциклопедия

airwar.ru

But the question remained: How do I build ski-type landing gear?

 

[Awry_Chaos]

When I told @Rhaven Blaack about this idea he thought it was cool and a good way to go. So I got thinking about it, and kept thinking about it and a solution presented itself!

I would kit bash the parts I needed from another kit rather than scratch build the landing gear.

So, from which kit would I borrow the landing gear from?

I was thinking through my archive of models when an idea presented itself. Since Rhaven and I had been talking about a particular television show with a most impressive aircraft with ski-type landing gear I decided to adapt that landing gear to my purposes.

And thankfully, a kit of that most impressive aircraft had been released as a free model on this forum by a world-famous and renowned model designer from Germany! And the kit was in the same scale of 1:48 I am working in with this model!

So who is this world-famous and renowned model designer? And which kit do I refer?

 

[Awry_Chaos]

Here is the front landing gear assembled and waiting to be fitted and attached to the aircraft.

Have you guessed the designer yet?

Or the kit?

 

[Awry_Chaos]

Here are the (rear) landing gear being assembled and readied for attachment to the winglets. There are a couple areas that need to be painted in the landing gear but for the most part they are good to go. I might add a supporting strut on the main ones depending on the final clearances of the model (the rear landing gear have to fit within about a 1 cm or 10 mm height) so I'll have to do some test fitting before deciding on whether or not to add another supporting strut.

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

This looks like it will be a very interesting pair-up. I am curious to see how this landing gear will look on the plane.

 

[Awry_Chaos]

Ahhh, you want to know the name of the designer now? Whose genius helped me with my model? Oh, and of course, the name of the kit from which I borrowed these excellent parts!

The name of this designer...





Is...





The world famous and renowned....





Hailing from Germany....






The one and only....






Marcell von dem Berge!!!!





Also known as...




@Revell-Fan !!!!!





And the kit is:

https://www.zealot.com/resources/colonial-viper-mk-i-1-48-scale.2139/

His most impressive 1:48 scale model of the Colonial Viper from Battlestar Galactica!!!

 

[Awry_Chaos]

And of course I must thank @Rhaven Blaack for helping to plant the seed of this idea!

 

[micahrogers]

Looking great, love the wing braces.